Lana del Rey and Quavo have released their long-awaited collaboration, under the name ‘Tough’. We offer you a pro and con opinion, as well as the chance to vote in our poll.
«Just when you were expecting her most country version, the presentation of her new album in that style, ‘Lasso’, Lana del Rey announces a collaboration with Quavo. It seemed like an approximation of her more trap sound, of her collaborations with A$AP Rocky or Playboi Carti. And it is only partly so, because the grace of ‘Tough’ is that it has such a load of country imagery in its lyrics, in its sound and in its video… that it could even be the first single from ‘Lasso’! And who would have guessed that the first single from the album would have Quavo’s signature?
After ‘Cowboy Carter’, what Lana del Rey is going to tell us about country music was not what we expected. In ‘Tough’ a guitar sounds, we are told about how “tough” our grandparents were when it came to drinking, about leather boots and also about guns. Both pretend to make out, Lana is the one who plays an instrument and gets on her knees indiscriminately, Quavo – like in Eurovision – is simply there. The fun is seeing how they play with the imagery in common between both styles. Sebas E. Alonso.
«Good news for those who think Lana del Rey has been in a rut since ‘Chemtrails Over The Country Club’, and who were hoping for, if not a return to ‘Born to Die’, then a more uptempo sound: ‘Tough’ is that. And in a way it works, Lana and Quavo play well together, and the bridge is a hit, but the rest is pretty… generic. It’s certainly nothing we haven’t seen before from Lana, and it feels more like his song than hers. In fact, Quavo appears first in both the video and the credits, so perhaps this is not a preview of Lana’s new album, but a joint curiosity, or even his.
Aside from the questionable nature of Lana choosing to collaborate with someone who has never apologized for his homophobic statements, the track isn’t particularly good; ‘Groupie Love’ itself was a far superior approach (I’d say even ‘Summer Bummer’). I don’t think Lana is stagnant at all, and in fact I consider the recent ‘Did You Know…’ to be her highest post-‘Norman Fucking Rockwell’ peak, but I can understand those who need something different from her. The thing is: maybe the desire for Lana to do something more uptempo is blinding us to the quality of ‘Tough’? Paul N. Bacon.
Charging …