“Amazing”: The collaborator Lana Del Rey most identified with
In many ways Lana Del Rey is the 21st century manifestation of old money glamour – a persona oozing with richness and charisma and the all-consuming power of an icon. She is truly the music industry’s answer to vintage Hollywood, combining the viral sonic rapture of today with the decadent luxury of yesteryear, and coming out on top as one of the reigning queens of alternative pop.
Someone else who has indulged in that style of glitz and grandeur is Stevie Nicks, Fleetwood Mac’s commandeering leader of the pack and monarch of women in music over the past half a century and beyond. She and Del Rey both know a thing or two about living a life in the pop canon fast lane, with just the same exact magical incandescence to spellbind their audience and leave them with a trail of stardust in their wake.
That was the precise ethereal spirit channelled into the pair’s collaborative effort in 2017, the song ‘Beautiful People Beautiful Problems’ from Del Rey’s album Lust for Life. But for all the customs of glamour that the pop queen duo are afforded, the track was a blazing rejection of the over-consumptive nature of the luxuries that a career in the spotlight has brought to their disposal.
Del Rey explained: “[The] song is special because it’s really a song about surrounding yourself with people who put their art and love first, who do it for the right reasons, not just for the money.” Then going on to uncover her process of creating it, she said: “I kind of thought I had finished the record a couple of times and one of those times I really felt like I wanted [another] woman on the record.”
That then goes to justify why Nicks, the undisputed rock and roll goddess, was the perfect fit for the finishing piece of the puzzle. “She was amazing. She’s just everything you hope she’s gonna be,” Del Rey enthused. “She’s so contemporary, and she knows all the new music that’s out weekly. She loved the track and she added so much to it.”
She continued: “[Nicks is] one of the few people I know that says the muse is the most important thing to her. More than anything else, her priority is just following the muse wherever it takes her, whether it’s a 60-date tour or new record or solo endeavour. So she’s inspirational like that.”
Adding her own perception of her relationship with Del Rey into the mix, Nicks simply stated: “We are witchy sisters, and that’s it,” speaking to the kindred souls that these supernatural spirits found in each other. Clearly not only was the experience of recording ‘Beautiful People Beautiful Problems’ a cathartic release for both Nicks and Del Rey, but it sent fans of the singers into a tailspin of magical sorceress wonders that could not be found in any other corner of the musical world. Clichéd, though it may seem for superstars to be singing about their beautiful problems, in this case, that beauty created a mastery to behold.
