Grab the hotsauce from your nightstand and pour it down your throat, because Lana Del Rey has a banging new 10 minute music video / tour-de-farce. Hipster lore and teenage phantasm reach critical mass on Lana Del Rey’s “Freak,” off her 2015 release, Honeymoon.
Sarcasm aside, the video features the misanthropic matrimony between two of music’s most aloof artists - Lana Del Rey and Father John Misty. A video sure to be misinterpreted by throngs of YouTube-ing teenyboppers, “Freak,” offers a glimpse into the pseudo-story of a cult chieftain (Lana Del Rey) and her ardent disciple (Josh Tillman AKA Father John Misty ) as they blur the lines between liturgy and carnal desire.
An unwarranted combination, the pairing represents a potentially troublesome career choice for the Father, whose career prior to his “star” turn in “Freak” was predicated mostly on skewering the life of the pseudo-ultra-apathy of “indie” pop queens such as Del Rey. Its perplexing as to why Misty would agree to involve himself in something that seems so ludicrously serious – not in the sense of importance, but rather self-perception – though, perhaps the ambiguity of Misty’s tenure throughout the video is his ultimate act of satire.
There are scenes of sacramental exchanges of acid tabs, a presumably unholy red concoction, and sultry corporeal cavorting, as doyen and disciple traipse through a hallucinatory spectacle that is Topanga, California. Supposedly inspired by Tillman’s past experience with acid (purportedly, at a Taylor Swift concert in Australia), the music video portion ends with Tillman and Del Rey dancing in thick smoke, holding hands and walking into the void.
Following the music video portion, the remaining 5-ish minutes are filled with the aforementioned harem of women swimming in a pool while “Clair de Lune” plays, eventually joined by Del Rey and Misty. Is there a more divine purpose to the video? Who knows? Is wild speculation and purveying ones own inaccurate notions abound likely? Yes. Either way, the video is a spectacle in and of itself, much to its own bemusement, and 10-minute time allotment. Here's hoping Father John Misty has reached peak prankster and not descended to half-assing apathist like his newfound contemporary.