Lana Del Rey “Born To Die”
Can we now officially reach the point where the backlash to the backlash of Lana Del Rey becomes a new thing the Internet distracts itself with? With some distance now to the initial release of the NYC-born singer-songwriter’s still-great “Video Games” and the subsequent (and somewhat sexist) comment board debates surrounding her as an artist, can it now be recognized that all this talk of indie “authenticity”, self-created/ record label-manufactured personas, and the realness-or-not of Rey’s lips is just plain silly?
The way this girl has been obsessed over among folks, one would think no artist has ever come around with some sort of artifice to their deal or went through an name/ image/ sound reboot when they grew bored (or had less success) with a previous persona (because everyone, even regular non-singing folk, stay the same always and forever, right?). Add to the fact that, in the States at least, Lana is nowhere close to being a mainstream figure yet (she’s had nothing land on the Billboard Hot 100; she wasn’t nominated for a slew of Grammy’s; Hell, unless you live on the World Wide Web, you probably don’t even know who she is) and the whole firestorm surrounding her registers as being even more inane.
Ahh…the ways of the Internet folk.
But let’s focus back on the music, shall we?. In the lead-up to the release of LP Born To Die, Lana Del Rey has dropped a new “official audio” video for the title track, another lethargic number built on mysterious noir-pop textures in which she zombie-walks through the streets at night, longing for someone to help bring some sort of worthwhile spark to the black hole void that is her life (“I feel so alone on a friday night/ Can you make it feel like home, if I tell you you’re mine?”).
While it’s not as instantly striking as previous singles “Games” and “Blue Jeans”, “Born To Die” is effective in further establishing Lana’s still-enticing template of sultry, old Hollywood-inspired (indie-ish) singer-songwriter pop, an agreeable album cut perfectly suited to sustain the crying-in-wine-glass aesthetic she seems to love (again, right now, and not necessarily forever) amid stronger exercises of the form hopefully found elsewhere on the full length.
Single drops January 23rd with the album scheduled for release January 30th in the UK, and January 31st State-side.
“Born To Die”:
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BONUS: Lana Del Rey “Blue Jeans (Count Ninjula Remix)” (DL):
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