Melissa Kacar

"Give peace a chance, let the fear you have fall away" "Say Yes To Heaven" by Lana Del Rey was originally written in the 2013 recording sessions for her second album, Ultraviolence . It didn't end up making the final cut for the album, as the record ended up going in a different sonic direction, but a few different versions of the track ended up leaking through the years, starting as early as 2016. Ten years after it was first recorded, the song finally got an official release in early 2023 following the leaked demo going viral on TikTok. The song has had a cult following for many years, so it was surprising that it was actually officially released. There are many other demos and unreleased songs that have leaked online over the past decade, which have also garnered unexpected virality in the years that followed, but this is a rare instance of her officially putting out a song in its original form.  It is such a wistfully romantic song, one that reminds me a lo...

Tough" // Lana Del Rey & Quavo Lana Del Rey and Quavo teamed up for "Tough", a dreamy Americana summer anthem released right before the Fourth of July. It reminds me of something that could have been included on one of my all-time favorite albums by Lana,  Lust For Life , which is a sound I love to hear her channeling again. I also love the resilient message of the lyrics and the varied influences they draw from in this song. Their voices unexpectedly blend so well together and they truly make a great pair on this song. It's one of my favorite songs of the entire year so far, I love it so much and hope that we get more new music from Lana soon! "Juna" // Clairo I absolutely love every single song on Clairo 's latest release,  Charm , it flows together so beautifully into such a calming and transcending listening experience. "Juna" is definitely a highlight for me, it is such a sweet and simple jazzy song that feels like it could have been...

Happy August! salt air & the rust on your door is the ideal beach playlist for me. The title and theme is of course inspired by the opening lines of one of my favorite songs ever, "august" by Taylor Swift .  Folklore is such an inspiring work of art and will always be an essential summer album for me, one that I have written about  many times . I was also inspired by so many of my favorite artists with this summer playlist. For me, these all capture the feeling of summer in different coastal settings all over the world, some places I have been to and others I have not. From the West Coast, that serves as the biggest presence in all of Lana Del Rey 's writing and always takes me back to my greatest memories visiting California a few summers ago. From the East Coast, specifically New Jersey and the beaches I grew up going to, represented in Bleachers ' Take The Sadness Out Of Saturday Night . To the beautiful New Zealand beaches that inspired Lorde 's Solar P...

Lana Del Rey's ninth album, Did You Know That There's A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd , is an intimate, diaristic portrait of her life and journey so far. In many ways, it is her most personal release yet, as if she is writing these songs for nobody but herself and her own healing. When talking about the process of writing the album in 2022, she told W Magazine, "I’ve been practicing meditative automatic singing, where I don’t filter anything. I’ll just sing whatever comes to mind into my Voice Notes app. It’s not perfect, obviously," she said. "For this new music ... It’s more just like: I’m angry. The songs are very conversational ... It’s a very wordy album. ... It’s almost like I’m typing in my mind." That method is present throughout the entire album, many of the songs are long and often with heavy subject matter at hand, in which she doesn't hold back at all. There is a lot of symbolism and depth in every single track. While all of her albums have been ...

For the second time in 2021,  Lana Del Rey released yet another incredible album! Blue Banisters is a stunning collection of fifteen songs that are stories of family, friendship, love, loss and new beginnings. "I'm writing my own story. And no one can tell it but me," Lana said on Twitter alongside the album announcement. Her eighth album was announced just a day after Chemtrails Over The Country Club was released in April 2021. Originally set to be released in the summer and titled Rock Candy Sweet , Lana promised she "wanted revenge" with her next album against the media for the negative press she was receiving at the time, which was overshadowing her music. During the lead-up to the supposed release date in June, she announced a completely different album that was going to also be released in July - neither of those came to be and instead Blue Banisters was officially announced with a release in mid-October.  I say this with almost all of her albums, but ...