A Track-by-Track Ranking and Review of ‘Norman Fucking Rockwell!’

Five months later, we’re still bitter about Lana del Rey’s universally-acclaimed album losing out to Billie Eilish in this year’s Grammys. But we’re doing the impossible and ranking all the tracks in Norman Fucking Rockwell, her best work yet. This alternative pop album released in 2019 has become an instant classic, especially in this post-modern apocalypse we are currently living in. NFR is written and produced by Jack Antonoff and Lana del Rey herself.

If you’re a first-time listener, I recommend listening to this album from start to finish to experience this masterpiece in the way it was intended to be. Tracklist order matters, people!

Also, out of respect for the modern female alternative icon, we are also following the weird capitalizations she used in naming the album tracks.

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14. Bartender

In this song, Lana details her love affair with a… bartender? The lyrics are definitely all over the place, which does not help the repetitive production. I still stand by my initial thought that NFR could have been a no-skip album if it weren’t for this track. It doesn’t help that it follows “The greatest”, which is one of the best songs in the album. You either love or hate the chorus, where Lana gets into the ASMR trend by repeating “bar-t-t-tender”. While I personally like it, the lyric is just a cute little somethin’ somethin’, but doesn’t improve the song that much.

Imagine my disappointment when she announced that “Bartender” was going to be part of the triple music video she had released at the start of the year, which you can watch below. But to give credit where it is due, I thought the fun, fiery ACAB visuals really added to the song. The “Bartender” segment is definitely the strongest out of the three.

13. Doin’ Time

To be honest, I enjoyed listening to this Sublime cover when it first came out. Well, every song that appears from here on and out is a bop, but it just so happens that I have to rank all of them from best to worst.

“Doin’ Time” was released as a 2019 summer track, being one of Lana’s more popular singles. It has enjoyed moderate mainstream success and was even given sufficient budget for a music video. And you know it had some budget because it wasn’t shot on an iPhone. The only reason this song is so low is because I’ve played it so much before the album came out that I eventually became tired of it. Plus, with it being a cover, I didn’t feel it was as personal as the other tracks. Fun, light, and tropical is how I’d describe this.

12. Love song

Following the happier tunes in the album, “Love song” mellows it down with a romantic and shockingly optimistic serenade. This is a strong candidate for your Songs to Walk Down the Aisle To playlist: a simple piano ballad that describes what it feels like to be thankful for someone you are truly in love with. If your only exposure to Lana was her early work, you never would have guessed she had the capability to bust out something like this.

This song follows “Fuck it I love you” and “Doin’ Time” in the album, so this song closes out a trilogy of songs where happiness reigns supreme. It also marks the beginning of sappier instrumentals. And for those reasons, “Love song” screams transitional track to me. While it is definitely not a filler track, it does not feel like an important track which is why I’m placing this at a lower rank than the other ones.

11. Norman fucking Rockwell

Serving as the opener of the album, I thought this titular track did its job in setting the tone of the album from a musical standpoint. When you first listen to this, you get the idea that the rest of the album is going to be more laid-back than Lana’s previous works.

This song has a lot of killer lyrics that I’m always waiting for a moment to whip out. “God damn, manchild, you fucked me so good that I almost said I love you” and “you’re fun and you’re wild, but you don’t know the half of the shit that you put me through” are literally the first two lines of the song. Talk about hooking your audience in! Aside from how quotable the lyrics are, Lana’s singing ability is showcased in this simple track.

10. California

As a Lana fan, the most interesting thing about “California” is the subject of the song, who may or may not be her ex-boyfriend Barrie. Serving as an ode to her past relationship and her love for the state, you can’t help but feel nostalgic when you listen to this song. Lana’s ability to paint a picture of a setting, and a relationship, is clearly highlighted here.

This is ranked tenth simply because I don’t find myself listening to this song a lot. But when it does come on though, I don’t really want to skip it either.

9. Fuck it I love you

The colorful and ahrt visuals that were on display in the double music video made this track so much better. As the music video exemplified, this fast-paced funky track is something you’d want to play surfing on the beach. The lyrics are sad with a sense of delusion coming from one’s desire to be happy. There’s not much to say about this, except that it’s a mid-tier, “good enough to bop to” song.

8. hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have – but i have it

Well that’s one long-ass title… but it grabs your attention, doesn’t it? Even with all the anti-feminist accusations Lana has received as of late, this track is a good indication that her heart is in the right place. This is Lana in her most poetic state. The production is at its most basic in this one, drawing us into her angelic voice and into a sense of intimacy. It adds emphasis to how important this song is in Lana’s discography, who is now able to speak to us about her experience as a woman. The fact that the words she had written for this song is front-and-center makes it extra special.

While I appreciate this song for what it is, I have never really found a perfect time to listen to this. I acknowledge that it may have to do with the fact that I’m not a woman myself, but it’s more because I liken this song to a spoken word poem of sorts. While I enjoy it, I wouldn’t want to listen to it all the time.

7. Mariners Apartment Complex

This torch song was the first track to be released in the messy rollout of NFR, dating back more than a year before the actual album dropped. I think “Mariners Apartment Complex” is one of the songs you’d have to suggest to someone who wants to know what Lana currently sounds like. The maturity in the lyrics shows how much she has grown as a person in the past years. It’s also worth acknowledging how she is finally the less passive one in her relationship, as she sings, “You’re lost at sea, then I’ll command your boat to me, and / Don’t look too far, right where you are, that’s where I am / I’m your man“.

Alright, we see you Miss Lana. And speaking of which, she addresses her critics in the second verse which I found cathartic! It’s also worth noting that the acoustic guitar and drums here are more prominent than in most of Lana’s work, making this a standout track in her entire discography.

6. How to disappear

In the Lana del Rey fandom, this track is not a favorite from NFR. And that’s primarily because before the album was released, she had sung it live in an iTunes event with just a piano accompanying her. The album version changes up the instruments significantly, the most prominent one being the addition of what sounds like bell jingles. As a result, the song sounds like something out of a Twin Peaks Christmas special. Can you already imagine Lana standing onstage in front of red curtains, singing this song?

Lyrically, Lana does it again by serving us a colorful narrative of events. As an aside, I personally love the change in instrumentals; going back to a piano version would make it a pretty basic track. With that said, I think that this song would have been received more warmly if the live version didn’t precede it. And I love me some Twin Peaks!

5. Happiness is a butterfly

I have to confess, I hated this song for the first few months NFR was out. It was only after the triple music video had dropped that I came around to loving it. I couldn’t help but cringe whenever I heard the lyrics “happiness is a butterfly“, but now, I don’t really mind it because the song features my favorite lyric from this album: “If he’s a serial killer, then what’s the worst that can happen to a girl who’s already hurt?”. There’s also an addictive talk-singing part that I just have to follow along to whenever I play it on speaker.

This one isn’t flashy, but it’s definitely a grower. If you’re having trouble getting into the song, then maybe the visuals will help you out with this one. I mean, how adorable is Lana with a butterfly on her nose?

4. The Next Best American Record

You don’t have to do anything, I can already hear you saying I’m tasteless. A lot of people think this is one of the weaker tracks in the album, but I find it the most underrated one out of all. I’m putting it at fifth because I’m a whore for lyrics. And for this song, the words give me a sense of nostalgic excitement and joy that makes me feel like I’m young and in love. It depicts what an ideal relationship looks like in my head (“We were so obsessed with writing the next best American record / that we gave all we had ’til the time we got to bed ’cause we knew we could“) which is basically a relationship of two ambitious people pushing each other to be their greatest selves.

Fun fact: this was supposed to be released back in 2017 for her album, Lust for Life. They had even shot a music video for it! However, because the track had leaked, they used the footage for another song, “White Mustang”, instead.

3. Cinnamon Girl

Production-wise, this is where NFR is hit its peak. I remember during release day, “Cinnamon Girl” was the track that everyone was raving about, and for good reason! The piano accompaniment and electronic sound fuse together in such a beautiful way that supports the emotionally-loaded lyrics pretty well. “Cinnamon Girl” climaxes with an instrumental break that showcases Jack Antonoff’s work at full display. Overall, this is a technical masterpiece.

Here, Lana del Rey is at her most Lana del Rey, channeling what is left of her inner sadgirl to talk about her reluctant desire to be with somebody knowing there’s a chance that she could get hurt. Because if her early work is anything to go by, this girl has not had it easy.

This is Lana in her most romantically fragile state… so Tumblr aesthetic people will enjoy this! But a word of caution: bring out that roll of tissue paper when you listen to this.

2. The greatest

This song is about nothing, and about everything at the same time. The lyrics speak of longingness and the desire to go back to simpler times. Out of all the tracks in the album that have a nostalgic theme, this one definitely hits the hardest. And again, the music video helped drive the point home to listeners. More than that, there’s something about the simplicity of the lyrics and Lana’s delivery that makes it a lot more poignant. This is her swan song.

When I say that NFR is an album to listen to during the apocalypse, it’s because of songs like this that take a more defeatist approach to the crap the world is going through. Almost a year since its release, “The greatest” is still relevant — and maybe even more so now that we’re in quarantine, while everything else is happening outside our homes. “Oh, the live stream’s almost on.“

1. Venice Bitch

Whenever I recommend this song to non-Lana fans and tell them it’s over nine minutes long, they look at me like I’m crazy. But this track is just that damn good. And you know why I think this is Lana del Rey’s best song ever? Because it’s just so timeless. This was one of the earliest tracks released for the album, and almost two years in, I am still not sick of it. Lyrically, “Venice Bitch” is a lovely voyage to that corner in Lana’s mind that houses hopeless romanticism intertwined with the American dream.

Musically, it’s a psychedelic pop song which shows Lana’s versatility as an artist. Despite it being uncharted waters for her, she nails it out of the park! In the middle of the song is a long guitar break, but it does not exhaust the listener, and more than that, adds depth to the theme and mood of the song.

Overall, this is a bop of a song that goes with every mood you’re in. Rain or shine, this is a song that you could sing to, drive to, cry to, smile to, escape to, relax to… again, “Venice Bitch” is freaking timeless.

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The Verdict

Even if we weren’t able to talk about the album as a whole, trust me when I say that Norman Fucking Rockwell is one of the best pop albums of the 2010’s. Maybe one of the best albums this decade, period. All ears will definitely be on Lana as she prepares to release her next album, Chemtrails Over the Country Club. In the meantime, let’s relive my personal AOTY 2019 pick, NFR in all its glory: