Late summer in 2010 and a video drops on YouTube with cut-and-paste clips of movie sequences, paparazzi shots and fuzzy home videos. A young girl with model good looks sings in a husky yet delicate voice, cooing a dreamy story about her video gaming bad boy lover. “I heard that you like the bad girls honey, is that true?” The whispering melody and Del Rey’s good looks attracted millions of views.
It became the talk of the town. The town being the internet and it’s people being swarms of bloggers.
A record deal and another single release later, ‘Born To Die’ and we have an album in our hands. A girl from New York’s dreams have become reality. But has Del Rey struck a backlash already?
Critics scoffed up her awkward performance on one of America’s most watched TV shows, ‘Saturday Night Live’. As a shy girl swirled and hunched in an odd way across the screen with slightly plumper lips. “They’re fake”, people shouted. Haters pursued to hate, Hipsters tore apart her lyrics and over analysed every word she’d ever whispered into a recording device.
But what’s at the foundation of all this drama? What’s the album like?
Well, actually, much the same as the first three songs we’ve already heard. Described by her management – much to Del Rey’s dislike – as a gangster Nancy Sinatra, though it seems the most fitting way of describing her sound. Her songs are melodically and thematically romantic. Tinkering between the happy side of bliss and painfully, discomforting heart-ache. The sound of Philadelphia’s Orchestra against hip-hop beats are a smart match, adding more so to that ‘vintage’ sound that has become her niche.
Del Rey’s inspirations are listed as Elvis, Kurt Cobain, Frank Sinatra, Bob Dylan and Eminem. All the greats in their own field of genre.
The best thing I have to say about Lana Del Rey is not the admiration I have for her while she stands elegantly facing toward an online bullying campaign against her. It’s not the way she accidentally swears live on air in the middle of interviews (she’s no robot pop princess). It’s not ‘how she made it’. It’s her lyrics. She can write. I mean really write! She has the ability that so few can do without an army of poets.
Enchanting, eloquent, charming, romantic and honest.
So is Lana the indie version of Rebecca Black or is she yet another manufactured mannequin record-exec bosses invented on Adele’s winter hiatus? Does it matter?! There are always going to be the self proclaimed ‘cool kids’ who want to dislike the material and say they were there at the beginning. It comes with the territory. Something Del Rey is having to learn fast.
Personally, I’m going to take a tip from Lana and put on my rose shaped glasses and press replay.
“He got a soul as sweet as blood red jam / and he knows me, he shows me, every inch of my tar black soul” – Off To The Races
By Lloydi
