A sexy femme fatale/bad girl character called Lana Del Rey has got the entire world flummoxed. Are her kissable lips real? Is she really a bad girl? Or is she trying to disguise her posh background? A singer hasn’t come under this much scrutiny since a weird bloke called David Bowie claimed that he was the human manifestation of an alien called Ziggy Stardust and started wearing frocks.
Anyway, you will be relieved to hear that Del Rey – aka Elizabeth Grant – looks good in frocks and her debut thankfully survives the poisoned chalice that has become known nowadays as ‘hype’.
Born To Die is a good mix of Sixties-tinged balladry, natty orchestral flourishes, and nifty electronic beats that brings us slap bang into the 21st century. The sound is massive and her haunting vocals (switching from from deep to breathless) also sound utterly fantastic, so we shall give her the benefit of the doubt and put that embarrassingly dodgy performance on Saturday Night Live down to nerves.
Unfortunately Video Games is the best thing here though. But that song was probably the best song released in 2012, so cut her a bit of slack, as poor Liz would have had to play an absolute blinder to top that! But the album does have some other fantastic tunes such as Off to the Races, which is a great pop song that sounds like Lady Gaga might have a serious rival during 2012. Del Rey almost turns into a modern Kate Bush on the excellent Blue Jeans, while the title track Born To Die is not quite as instant as the aformentioned tracks but is a real grower…. And really does grow into an epic tune!
Overall, the first half of the album would make many of you crown this album as ‘Album of the Year 2012′. However, the latter tracks on the album risk being deemed more ‘filler’ than ‘killer’ with the larger-than-life production also getting a tad irritating – but there is more than enough here to make this a highly recommended debut.
Words by Andy Parker
I Ike the whole of it, there isn’t a song that should not be on there, it takes you on a journey and her narratives are interesting.