Earlier this year, NYU offered a course solely for learning about Taylor Swift, who later received an honorary doctorate from the prestigious school. Now, they’re offering a similar class, this time focused on Lana Del Rey.
The two-credit course taught by journalist and author Kathy Iandoli is called “Topics in Recorded Music: Lana Del Rey” and will run from October 20 to December 8. Read the course description below.
“Over the course of eight critically-acclaimed albums, the six-time Grammy nominated artist has introduced a sad core, melancholic, and baroque version of dream pop that in turn helped shift and reinvent the sound (and mood) of mainstream music beyond the 2010s. Through her arresting visuals and her thematic attention to mental health and tales of toxic, damaged love, Del Rey provided a new platform for artists of all genders to create ‘anti-pop’ works of substance that could live in a mainstream once categorized as bubblegum.”
Iandoli told Variety, “In so many ways, I feel like Lana Del Rey is both a blueprint and a cautionary tale, a complicated pop star who resonates so much with her fans, not because of how she makes them feel about her, but rather how she makes them feel about themselves. She has changed the parameters of baroque pop and now more specifically “sad girl pop” through her music, by expanding the subject matter which at times is controversial and challenging. There are so many pieces in this mosaic that we have now come to know as Lana Del Rey, and this course examines every dimension of it.”