Welcome back to a new appointment with Musical Disclosure: the next articles are dedicated to one of the most representative singer-songwriters of the new millennium, the quintessential diva of contemporary pop, Lana Del Rey. 

 

Elizabeth Grant, known professionally as Lana Del Rey, was born in 1985 in Manhattan, New York. At the age of one, the Grant family moved to the village of Lake Placid, where young Elizabeth attended elementary school and began singing in the local church choir. The future pop star's unhappy adolescence was marked by alcohol and drug dependency, which prompted her family to send her first to a boarding school in Connecticut and then to a rehabilitation centre. This period of alienation led the young woman to develop a strong fear of death, which would later be reflected in her first successful album "Born to Die". In 2003, the singer finally managed to free herself from addiction and decided to move to Long Island to live with her aunt and uncle, where she worked as a waitress and learned to play the guitar. The ambition of a career in music was still distant, but Elizabeth had already begun writing songs and singing in various venues under different pseudonyms.

In 2008, after meeting David Nichtern of the independent label 5 Points Records and producer Kahne, she released her first EP, "Kill Kill", still published as Lizzie Grant. Her actual debut album, "Lana Del Ray", would be released two years later, in 2010. Her stage name, chosen for its glamorous sound capable of transporting the singer to the sea of Miami and the Cuban friends she frequented during those years, was selected in homage to actress Lana Turner from the '40s-'50s and the Ford Del Rey, a saloon car produced in Brazil in the '80s. Three months after the release of her first album, Lana Del Rey, in conflict with 5 Points Records due to the lack of motivation shown during the production phases, met new managers who helped her terminate her contract with the label. The artist moved to London and in 2011 uploaded two self-produced videos for the songs "Video Games" and "Blue Jeans" to YouTube, with vintage-flavoured footage that immediately attracted strong media attention. In particular, "Video Games" gained viral exposure, allowing the singer to sign a contract with Stranger Records: it was the beginning of the "Born To Die" era, published in January 2012. The album opens with the title track, a gothic ballad on the themes of sex and drugs, characterised by a trip-hop beat and James Bond-style strings. This is followed by "Off to The Races", a dark soul-hip-hop track in which Lana's voice sometimes takes on a spoken, almost rapped form, which we also find in "Diet Mountain Dew" and "National Anthem". The cinematic sound of the first singles returns in "Dark Paradise" and "Carmen", the latter focused on the probably autobiographical figure of a seventeen-year-old affected by addictions. Lana herself has stated that the album's content draws extensively from her experiences with alcohol during her years spent in New York, a city to which she seems to address in the lyrics of "Born to Die" as if it were a loved one. The same applies to alcohol, which Lana has ironically defined as "the first love of my life".

Upon its release, "Born to Die" topped the charts in 11 countries and reached number two on the US Billboard 200. In 2012, it became the fifth best-selling album worldwide, but critics remained divided: some praised the pop star's distinctive sound, while others highlighted its repetitiveness and melodramatic tendency.

 

Today we suggest listening to "Video Games", the first great success of an original and controversial pop star who, even in her lifetime, has managed to achieve the status of a cult artist in contemporary music.