Lana Del Rey A.K.A. Lizzy Grant, introduced in her first Thread ～Born To Die～

[relmy]

The album has really grown on me, at first I thought it was a bit bland, but it's really really good.

I think my favourites are National Anthem and This Is What Makes Us Girls. I love Summertime Sadness, Radio, Off to the Races and Lucky Ones. At first I LOVED Diet Mountain Dew and Dark Paradise, but I've gone off them a bit. I don't like Carmen, Million Dollar Man and the other 2 bonus tracks much either. Not a huge fan of Blue Jeans either, but it's well positioned on the album, so it works.

Video Games is still flawless, it's so magical, it works well on the album but sounds so different too. I really love the colours in Off to the Races too, it creates such a powerful visual image.

I love this album because it tells stories. ♥

[Kanzaki]

^
I agree on the bland part, because the beauty of most of the songs are just so subtle. It's very unlike that usual, popsensation feeling of being WOW-ed; they are songs that you can put on, have a cup of tea and just sit and think "This is nice." At first I only listened to VG and BTD, but I like all of the songs on the album and listen to it from start to finish now. This album is so atmospheric and lovely.

[AyuBlackwind]

It's one of the darkest albums I've heard. I like it and don't like it at the same time. I hope that she obtains more vocal range as her career progresses.

Although, like Taylor Swift, she's not so good at singing live.

The songs are really catchy.

Some of the songs have some pretty incredible lyrics.

I'm in a love hate relationship with it, but I'm liking it more and more.

[Kanzaki]

Translation of an interview with Lizzie Grant, in the swedish edition of the music magazine GAFFA. Just thought it might be interesting, I enjoyed reading it

"I wanted a name that was just as beautiful as the music."

Since last year, when she set the internet aflame, Lana Del Rey has become one of the most controversial personalities in the music industry. Currently she's out with an album, filled with bittersweet pop-music. Yet how does it feel, to be both celebrated and scolded?

In May 2011, an unsigned Lana Del Rey uploaded a homemade video to youtube- the song was the seemingly simple Video Games. She sung with a gingerly stubborn voice, about a single second of despair, but with hope of idyllic love, to a sorrowful melody. The song was paired with old Hollywood clips and pictures Lana in front of a blinding sun. It is a video with a peculiar, out-of-this-world energy, that is enhanced by the lack of beats and a low-key balance between a stylish build-up and underrated feelings. At the end of the year the video had been viewed 20 million times, the song became a hit through British indie 'Stranger Records' and Lana Del Rey signed a major deal with Universal. She popped up on a number of magazine covers, was no. 1 on the list of predicted 'next big things', she was the most talked about artist of 2011 and, due to her marginal expression, was compared to 'A gangster Nancy Sinatra'.

But a lot of the things that was said about her, were far from nice. She was accused of being fake, a product created in a dark, back room as part of a sinister popconspiracy; a fabricated, spoiled and ridiculously rich "artist", filled with botox, that could, in turn, be sold to a gullible world as an "Indie pin-up". Critics doubted her authenticity, in the shape of many, bitter questions.
"It's a little bit funny," says Del Rey, without a smile.
"I don't have a gimmick and I'm really not doing anything special. I'm not even wearing quirky outfits. For several years, I've tried presenting my music to record companies, but they all thought it was creepy. They thought the images, put together with the music, were strange and almost on the verge of psychotic. Then one day, it was just as if people had decided it wasn't so strange after all. It was actually perfect. That it could be called 'pop' was an epiphany to me. You know what did it? I was played on the radio."

Behind an indifferent display, Del Rey switches subtly between denial and worrisome vulnerability. These are also elements to be heard in her music. What takes you aback is that beneath the stylishly composed images she's presented to the world, her vulnerability is close to the surface. Because it turns out, there is nothing ironic or conceptual behind Lana Del Rey.
"I am one hundred percent real." She assures.

It was just a life.

February 1st was the release date of the album Born to Die, an album which established her as not only a big star, but also as a real talent. It is a lyrical and emotional collection, of beautifully composed songs that are unforgettable, about all things good, about misdirected love, drunken teenage days, existential crises, memories, loss and revenge. The album is full of nonchalantly performed, smart lyrics, composed with dreamlike landscapes, lush melodies and trip-hop beats.
"I think it's beautiful, absolutely wonderful. The album is me, in the shape of songs. If it sounds as if it all naturally fits together, it's simply because it does. Nothing has been altered, no compromises, the songs are like the person that I am. For better and worse, it is a person in the shape of songs and videos."

Lana Del Rey was born Elizabeth Grant. She was born 25 years ago and grew up in the small town Lake Placid, in the outskirts of the state of New York. Her father is a real estate investor and her mother an accountant. Even though they were securely placed within the middle class, she points that despite the rumors, they are not millionaires.
"It was never about money. It was just a life."
In spite of the comfortable outlook, it seems as if Del Rey's emotional life was anything but calm.
"When I was very young, a paralysing realization came upon me. My mother, my father and everyone that I knew would one day all die. Even myself. I was caught in an existential crisis and I couldn't comprehend that we were all mortals. For some reason, this fact overshadowed the experience of anything I was doing. There was a period of time in my life, when I drank a lot, was unhappy and got caught up in a lot of trouble. It was a very difficult time.

Metaphysics and guitar.

She references being drunk as a teenager often, saying she has not touched a drop of alcohol for eight years straight. When asked about the severity of her problems regarding the matter then, she simply answers-
"It was so bad, it had to stop."
When she was 15 years old, she was sent to a boarding school in Connecticut, an incident she mentions on the last track of her album, This Is What Makes Us Girls. Here she sings about her and 'her girls'; "A freshman generation of degenerate beauty queens" and about when she stood on the station platform, waving goodbye to her friends as tears were running down her face, "Cos I I know, I'm never coming back". When she was 18, she moved to New York where she studied metaphysics and learned to play the guitar.
"I've always been writing. It is the only thing I've ever been good at doing. It isn't hard, unlike mathematics. I'm not bad at that, like I am at everything else. But it doesn't have to turn into music. I enjoy singing and I enjoy editing and making movies. So I've done all that, but my only ambition was really to become a fantastic writer."

Lana Del Rey's themes are about life and especially about a relationship which ended badly, something that characterizes songs, such as Off to the races, ("I'm your little harlot, starlet, Queen of Coney Island."), Blue Jeans, ("You fit me better than my favourite sweater") and National Anthem, ("We're on a quick, sick rampage / wining and dining, drinking and driving / On our drugs and our love and our dreams and our rage / Blurring the lines between real and fake").
"It's not my fault that love went wrong. I met a person I was supposed to share my life with. We lived together, but he ended up in trouble and had to leave. There are many pages to my life and it doesn't seem like it all quite fits together. It's been an odd trip."
During her years in New York, she had many odd jobs, helped drug-abusers and performed during "open mic nigts", and she became Lana Del Rey. Contrary to what rumours make it out to be, it was not a marketing strategy that was underlying, but the result of a process of finding herself.
"It's not like I'm caught between multiple personalities. There's no difference, not at all. I wanted a name that was just as beautiful as the music. Just like the reason why I use old, Hollywood snippets, it is because I am fond of the colours and the structure of them. Not because I want to throw around old, American messages or reference to past greatnesses. I don't feel as if I have to slip into another world, or into another character because I've lived in the same world or been the same person long enough. I'm content. Ask anybody."

That, I'll never admit.

It turns colder in the room during the interview, as the New York-chill presses on.
"I know what people think about me," she says as she pulls her jacket over her shoulders.
"I just don't get it, what's the angle? I'm a smart person, still I'm thinking, why that?"
What the gossipers and the internet trolls fails to realize, is the effects all of this has had on the main character. Lana Del Rey has made an album that deserves to be heard. But she says that she doesn't want to tour, doesn't want to leave New York and that she prefers everything to happen on a small scale.
"All I wanted to do, was to create something beautiful, and I feel like I have succeeded."
Critics put a question behind her authenticity, yet Lana Del Rey appears every way to be as human as every other person. Is she, in any way, scared of what she's started?
"Do you think that I am? She asks, with an almost trembling voice.
"Well, you may be right. But that, I'll never admit."

Source.

[relmy]

I love her interviews, she just so all over the place lol I swear, every one I read she says something different. And Lana, stop pretending daddy's not rich, nobody actually thinks it's cool to be poor. Well, they do, but you're too mainstream for them now. Wait. Isn't that the whole problem? She wasn't mainstream, but she was, and everyone got annoyed?

I don't know if she's generally just confused, or doing it all on purpose. Is it a bit of both? A confused girl just saying whatever the hell she wants?

Either way, I like this persona she's created. I stand by it all being a creation, and I don't really care if it was her or her label that invented "Lana Del Rey", because she's great. It almost fits her music too perfectly. I don't need pop culture to be about down to earth, honesty or genuine feelings. Lana Del Rey delivers all the created worlds, stories and ideas that I need right now. There is a touch of genuine in Lana Del Rey's music though... almost if this is an escape from her mundane, rich girl life.

I'm intrigued to see where she goes next, if there ever will be a next for her.

[SURREAL__RAINBOW]

Gorgeous, as always.

[George]

Originally Posted by relmy

Isn't that the whole problem? She wasn't mainstream, but she was, and everyone got annoyed?

If I remember correctly. She and her team made it appear that she was indie, when she really wasn't. Lol

Carmen is one of the dullest song in the album. Though she looks gorgeous on the video.

[relmy]

^ she is just a trolling Queen. I think I'm a bit in love with her.

I didn't like Carmen at first, but it grew on me, far from my favourite on the album though. Video is a bit meh, I don't like these montage video things she makes. I didn't like the Blue Jeans video either though, I'm just picky lol

[koumori]

Carmen is one of my favourite songs from the album, so it's nice it has a video.

To the discussion with her image/personality, I think it's good that she's so weirdly mysterious. It's all fake, or not, I don't mind. Celebrities are way too open with who they really are these days, Lana creates an image to suit her music. It's like stepping into another world. So I really don't mind what's truth or not.

[Maemi]

I must say I really really love Blue Jeans PV It looks classy xD

[SURREAL__RAINBOW]

Classy *****, I love this song Beautiful MV.

[Mirrorcle Monster]

****ing epic

[relmy]

Love it, epic MV for my favourite Lana song ♥

She looks stunning.

[KremlinChaos]

Amazing video! The intro and outro are flawless.

[ストロボ・EdGE]

I bought the album a few week ago. Love it! I was only disappointed that there was a total of two photographs in the booklet including the cover.

[Maemi]

Her PVs are always interesting

But what about Summertime Sadness PV???

[ストロボ・EdGE]

^Is there already one?

BTW Kremlinchaos- where is your set from?

--

In regards to whether she's "indie" or not... It's as simple as who her record label is. That's all independent music comes down to. Popular perception has morphed it into some supposed elusive quality depending on your cred.

[Maemi]

The music video for "Summertime Sadness" was filmed in April and May 2012. It was directed by Kyle Newman and Spencer Susser.

But where it is???

[KremlinChaos]

Originally Posted by ストロボ・EdGE

^Is there already one?

BTW Kremlinchaos- where is your set from?

--

In regards to whether she's "indie" or not... It's as simple as who her record label is. That's all independent music comes down to. Popular perception has morphed it into some supposed elusive quality depending on your cred.

Sorry for replying so late! It's from the LoveCat shoot: http://lanadelreyfan.com/gallery/thu....php?album=215

[relmy]

Wasn't Summertime Sadness filmed before National Anthem?

Maybe we'll get it end of July or August? Or maybe even early Autumn? I thought she'd get it out in time for summer, but maybe not.

Who knows, it's one of my favourites though, so I hope we do get the MV.