Lana Del Rey in her album “Ultraviolence” is a great example of expressing sadness. This album provides honest lyrics about the songs. My first impression of this album is that it is very inspiriting, peaceful, and dreamy music she makes.  

 The album “Ultraviolence” was released on June 13th, 2014, even though it was recorded in 2013-2014. This album was recorded in Nashville with the producer Dan Aurbach of The Black Keys. The album reveals sadness that Lana is trying to reveal in her songs. This album did not win any awards but is considered one of the best. It was the first number one Lana Del Rey album on the Billboard 200. It was not only number one in the United States, but was also a number one album in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. It was verified a gold album in Canada and the UK, and a platinum album in the US and UK. This album was the best selling on the market until October 27th, 2014, when Taylor Swift released “1989”. There were 1 million copies sold in the world in the first month after the album’s release. There were more than 41 million copies of the album sold in total. There is no exact number of downloads.  

 The overall themes of the album would be sadness, toxic relationships, heartbreaks, fame, separation, obsession, fantasy, religion, and American mythology. The feelings of this album would be darkness and conflict. The lyrics that develop the theme toxic relationship, and heart break would be “He hit me, and it felt like a kiss.” (Ultraviolence). For the themes of religion and American mythology, I choose the lyric “I’ve got your Bible and your gun” (Guns and roses).  

The best songs in my opinion would be “Ultraviolence”, “West Coast”, “Sad Girl”, “Brooklyn Baby”, “Pretty When You Cry”, “Cruel World”, and “The Other Woman”. The ones that are in my opinion are not as good would be “Shades of Cool”, “Old Money”. I would say that this album is the best one so far because it is a slow album with very emotional lyrics and a lot of different themes and meanings. So, I would say yes, this album is the best of the others in the genre.  

 My overall ranking of the album “Ultraviolence” would be a 10/10. It is my favorite because it has all different types of songs that all tell their own story and it is unique. The album was also one of the best ones in the year 2014.