I will try to be kind to Lana Del Rey. I really will. I'm in one of my "generous of spirit" zones; my soccer team won over the weekend, the Sabres are off, it's a winter wonderland out there in Buffalo and I have contented joy in my heart. It's kind of weird actually. So, from that happy space I will endeavor to not bag on Lana Del Rey too badly even though she kind of deserves it. Why? Because even though it's frankly become a little too fashionable to let her have it, she is most definitely fiction, no question.
I'm also loathe to bag on Lana Del Rey because it's in many respects exactly what she wants, because I strongly suspect that the debate over her realness is a calculated ploy. I distinctly remember the first time I beheld her. I was watching a dvr'd "120 Minutes" with my finger on the fast forward button (I check out a song and fast forward if I don't like it) and well, there was no way I was watching "Videogames" on fast forward. Naturally, I was spellbound by the perfection of the whole thing: her French film goddess looks and presentation, the impeccably tasteful video, the song itself... it all fit together perfectly. A little too perfectly. Because then I went to YouTube to watch more Lana Del Rey, including "Videogames" again, a video that I learned was directed by Del Rey herself, and my spider sense went crazy:
When I watched it on MTV, I didn't know exactly when the video that preceded it ended and when Del Rey's assembled footage video began, so I didn't notice that her video begins with what looks like a clip from a Gorillaz video... the ultimate manufactured music act. How droll. And then I read about the raging debate about whether she was a record industry creation, and how she was a one Lizzy Grant before transforming (or she was transformed) into "Lana Del Rey," singer songwriter and music video director. Indeed, the whole thing was ludicrously suspicious. But then I started to think that maybe that clue came with too big a wink from the artist. Maybe she was playing a game with the blogosphere and the indie music fans who turned "Videogames" into an Internet sensation. Or perhaps her record company was just stirring the pot and generating buzz. I even pondered the notion that Lana Del Rey's "realness" was inconsequential other than as a philosophical concept separate from art and commerce. It was starting to get a little Hitchcockian and high minded until it was announced that her first North American tv appearance was going to be on Saturday Night Live and then I knew there were shenanigans going on.
Damn it I wanted Lana Del Rey to be real; I'm not sexist (I don't think), and I didn't want to be sexist and convey the notion that female artists can't present themselves fully formed as artists as if out of nowhere. Also, it would've been great if she was real. But SNL for her first tv appearance? With no album in stores? Come on now. How could the record industry's hand not be at work? In any case, all Lana Del Rey had to do was nail it and she'd be on her way. But she didn't. Sure her performance of "Videogames" was serviceable and not objectionable, but that's Lana's song, the tune that put her and that YouTube video on the map. It was her tuneless and strained performance of "Blue Jeans" that made her fodder for a mighty Internet backlash. I didn't know who I felt bad for more: her for being caught up in a machine that presented her as a fully formed artist and put her on SNL before her she was actually fully formed, or myself because she was woeful, so woeful that even NBC's Brian Williams felt compelled to comment.
That said, for some reason I'm still intrigued by Lana Del Rey's debut album Born To Die out this week. While by no means will I be running out to buy it (that money will be saved for the new of Montreal album out next week), I am still fascinated by this fabricated ingenue and her increasingly tangled yet compelling narrative- for now. Indeed, maybe she was born to die metaphorically ... for a struggling record industry and it's numerous sins. In many ways, I'm also still dying to find out if I'm right about her. This inquiring mind still wants to know.
Damn. Apparently Lana Del Rey gets what she wants, whether I like it or not.
Damn. Apparently Lana Del Rey gets what she wants, whether I like it or not.
attention record labels: the blogosphere does not like hot people.