All Circuits Are Busy

Lana Del Rey featuring Miles Kane “Dealer”

The surprising thing about “Dealer” isn’t so much that it’s groovy bass and warm organ drones are a musical outlier in the context of Lana Del Rey’s new record Blue Bannisters or that guest vocalist Miles Kane takes up so much space in the song that it seems like she’s the featured singer on the track and not vice versa. The “wait, what?” moment comes when she sings the line “I can’t liiiiiiiiiiive” in a bold, unrestrained voice that’s far removed from the aloof chanteuse shtick she’s been working for over a decade. The line and its delivery is a homage to Harry Nilsson’s “Without You,” but it’s more of a referential gesture than a full interpolation – she inhabits that naked need for just a few seconds before shaking it off and getting back to chewing out a junkie boyfriend who’s wasted her affections and betrayed her one too many times. She reverts to coy form after this moment, but that little glimpse of a more full-voiced and emotive Del Rey changes how everything else lands, including Kane’s performance. Even with a touch of irony in that big emotional moment it establishes different stakes – anger often gets diffused in self-loathing in Del Rey’s music but here’s it’s very clearly directed outwards.

Buy it from Amazon.