Lana Del Rey: She’d Be Sad, if She Cared (Which She Doesn’t)

Lana Del Rey looks out into the world and all she sees are stares. Cold faces, eyes hard with judgment. And lights, too — sharp beams that poke like needles and cut like lasers. For years, she has been scrutinized as intently as she’s been listened to. You would not blame her even a bit for wilting.

Instead, she has hardened, ossified into a thing of refined cool. The more famous Ms. Del Rey has grown, the more obscure she’s become. What was once something of an elaborate performance has become merely a simple mode of being.

Now, she meets the glares and the harsh lights with … nothing. Total blankness. The way that celebrities stand still on the red carpet and fix their eyes on some far-off point while a violent scrum of photographers fire flash bombs and shout their names, resulting in picture after picture of sturdy serenity, that’s Ms. Del Rey’s everyday. There’s no moment she’s not above the fray.

Because of this, “Honeymoon” (Interscope), her third major-label album, achieves a sublimity missing from her first two. She’s been angry, and then bored of being angry, but now she’s just bored, and her boredom is entrancing.

There’s that taffy voice, resignedly oozing all over the place — rarely does Ms. Del Rey check in at something more intense than a yawn. She’s not an ornate singer, but she achieves a great deal with only the many shades of exhaustion.