Lana Del Rey

                                                     Born to Die 

                                                       6.8/10

Why do people (love to) hate Lana Del Rey? I’ll try not to get into her back story in this review too much because by now I’m sure all of you have read all there is to read about Del Rey over 1,000 times. But what is that driving force behind all the backlash in the last six months or so? Mainly (Phase 1) it’s because we all got duped — hard. When the big lipped princess popped out of the cracks in the infinite Internet with the glorious track “Video Games” we were all taken aback at the virtually unknown and mysterious vixen cooing about getting the shit kicked out of her over swelling vilolins. And that video to boot. Then that mysterious facade began to peel away like layers of a rotten onion. We started to learn more about this Del Rey character and the more we found out the higher we raised our eyebrows in disgust, shame and a little bit of self-hate. When we discovered that Del Rey was really Lizzy Grant and that she rebranded herself both physically and stylistically the Internet shit its boner. 

“How could that happen to me? I love(d) that song!” we all screamed. We felt like the entire school found out we were obsessed with Katy Perry’s “Firework” in a total unironic way. Then came the single “Born to Die” (Phase 2) which had that really nice video but despite our boiling hate for Del Rey the song was just pretty okay. Yeah I know she’s not who she really says and that thousands of dollars went into her and her image and all that jazz but there’s something still appealing to me I can let it slide. Oh cool she’ll be on Saturday Night Live, gotta check that out.

Why did i check that out? (Phase 3) What the hell was that? Wow I at least thought she could sing. I’ve been duped again! But I’ll have to check her album out…maybe…maybe it won’t suck. Or maybe it will be so bad I’ll get a kick out of it.

Well folks after all the ups and downs, the videos, the performances, the jokes, the memes, the leaked recordings, tumblr gifs and tweets the the debut album by Lana Del Rey is finally here and it’s neither fully amazing or fully sucky. It ends up being a mixed bag and finds itself living in Mediocre-ville.

The first four songs on the LP are things we’ve all heard before thanks to the self-titled EP that came out a few weeks before the album: the satisfying “Born to Die,” the first off-putting but then enjoyable “Off to the Races,” the catchy “Blue Jeans” and of course, the song that started it all, “Video Games.”  ”Diet Mountain Dew” has been floating around since “Video Games” but now that it’s in its final stage it sounds better than ever and is one of the stronger songs on the record. Then we come to the troublesome “National Anthem.” Although the lyrics are incredibly insipid and are on par with poetry you’d find in a junior high schooler’s diary (“Before we go out/ What’s your address?” He says to be cool but I don’t know how,” “I said ‘can we party later on’? He said yes.” Money is the reason we exist/ everybody knows it…kiss kiss”) but the melodies and hooks are blown out and awesome and the Del Rey camp would be wise to use it as their next single. “Summertime Sadness” is another great moment with Del Rey sounding sultry as ever as her vocals dance over thriving drums as she sings “Kiss me hard before you go/ Summertime sadness/ I just wanted you to know, baby you’re the best.”

But the rest of the record proves that Del Rey is just a one trick poney. When first listening to Born to Die I felt like I just heard the same song 15 times. Even the songs that I like blended into each other. Not only do they sonically sound similar but the themes that provide the structure to the tracks are pounded into you so hard. We get it Lizzy; you’re a bad girl who likes to drink, rebel, be sexy and fool around with guys that are scum bags but are probably fucking hot. Between “Dark Paradise” “Carmen” “Million Dollar Man” “This is What Makes Us Girls” and “Lolita” it’s all the same content with flashes of bright hooks and great vocal deliveries. 

Although the production is rich and you can tell there was a lot of cash money that went into this, it’s pretty spotty. I guess it’s all supposed to sound like a huge dramatic 1950s  classic movie. Almost every song features a triumphant string section. But instead of sounding like say, Sunset Boulevard or A Streetcar Named Desire (which she references in a track) things are flat and are not strong enough and it comes off sounding like W.E. But we can’t really blame Del Rey for this because I don’t think she had much input in the production aspect of her album.

Then there’s Lana Del Rey herself. She said in a MTV interview that her inspirations were Nirvana, Elvis, Bruce Springsteen — all the greats…from every genre. Ok. Well. Hm. I don’t really hear any of those before mentioned in any of the songs on the record, so that just drives my point even further: Del Rey is an empty shell being told what to like and what to sound like. She’s the equivalent of the Facebook interest list: “Music: ‘I like everything but country and rap.’” But she likes country and rap too, which is even worse. 

After the love affair and breakup we had with Del Rey and the momentous build up and anticipation to Born to Die the end result is a huge let down. I can’t say that this won’t grow on me and that I didn’t really enjoy it but the lack emotion from Del Re, the trying-too-hardness and the obvious calculated third-party thought that went into everything just waters down the album to something I can’t fully connect with. All I can do is take things for what they are: a few catchy songs that, despite all the bull shit that went into making them, are still great at the end of the day. And a lot of fluff, vapid, hollow tracks that don’t leap out at me but instead weakly pose as something they’re not — just like Del Rey herself. 

Listen to “National Anthem” below: