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Sirens is an unreleased album by American singer-songwriter Lana Del Rey, written and recorded in 2005 & 2006, under the pseudonym May Jailer. The album is considered juvenilia, due to the age at which Lana recorded it. The album leaked in May 2012, after much speculation to its contents by fans months before. The album received positive reviews from music critics, but received polarized reviews from many fans. The track names are assumed or fanmade, and only Junky Pride and A Star For Nick have ever been officially confirmed.
Composition
After learning only four chords on acoustic guitar, Lana took up a challenge of writing as many songs within those chords as possible. This album was the result of her experimentation. Almost all of the songs on the album fall into the same range, and many are in the same key. Every track is solely composed of only Lana's vocals and acoustic guitar, and often focus on arpeggiated melodies. The producer of the album remains unknown.
Critical Reception
"The songs on Sirens find Lana Del Rey singing tremulously over acoustic guitars, showing plenty of the languid mystique that would later come to define her but also displaying a different sort of fragile Lee Hazlewood narco-haze vibe."
Many music journalists compared the album to Pieces Of You by Jewel, due to its acoustic guitar fingerpicks and feathery vocals. It is also commonly compared to Lady Gaga's unreleased EP, Red & Blue, due to the lack of studio production and pre-fame release status. Critical reviews of the album after its leak were highly positive, praising Lana's innocent vocals and the simplistic overtones. Becky Bain of Idolator commented that "though her vocals are often weak and shaky, her tone sounds delicate and sweet on all these simple tracks", and furthered comments on her tone by saying "it’s also refreshing to hear Lana/Lizzy/May perform songs written in her range, so she doesn’t have to sing (and sing-talk) in her head voice and resort to that cutesy, flirty baby coo so prominent throughout Born To Die". Many critics compared the album to something they would hear in a small-town coffee shop, and praised it for its acoustic vibe.
Cross-references
Many of the themes on the album, including love lost, loss of purity, and coming-of-age were included in Lana's later work, especially Born to Die. The album does however lack the highly concentrated Americana references often included in her later recordings.
The album was primarily written about K, both directly and indirectly. It includes the story of K's death in Sirens and talks about him further in songs such as For K and My Momma. The track Next to Me was written about Bill, and was presumably the first song Lana wrote about him.
Track listing
Sirens originally surfaced when a blogger, who had ordered the original CD online in 2006, mentioned owning a "record by Ms. Grant that you will never hear". However there was no metadata being on the CD and the tracks were labled simply as "Track 1", "Track 2" etc. So far no titles can be confirmed except "Junky Pride", "A Star For Nick", "Out With A Bang", "Bad Disease" and "River Road" as they were streamed on various other platforms online under these titles, the rest are simply assumed by fans.
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Sirens" | Elizabeth Grant | 2:51 | |
| 2. | "Next to Me" | Grant | 2:41 | |
| 3. | "A Star For Nick" | Grant | 2:43 | |
| 4. | "My Momma" | Grant | 3:25 | |
| 5. | "Bad Disease" | Grant | 3:42 | |
| 6. | "Out With A Bang" | Grant | 3:19 | |
| 7. | "Westbound" | Grant | 4:33 | |
| 8. | "Try Tonight" | Grant | 3:35 | |
| 9. | "All You Need" | Grant | 5:48 | |
| 10. | "I'm Indebted to You" | Grant | 3:59 | |
| 11. | "For K" | Grant | 3:39 | |
| 12. | "Aviation" | Grant | 3:11 | |
| 13. | "Find My Own Way" | Grant | 4:13 | |
| 14. | "Junky Pride" | Grant | 2:52 | |
| 15. | "Birds Of A Feather" | Grant | 2:46 | |
Total length: |
53:17 | |||