Album review: Lana Del Rey, Born To Die

02 February 2012

by Nathan Jolly

So much has been written about Lana Del Rey over the past few months that it's hard to figure out where to begin. Even that line was possibly cribbed from the pages of Spin or Pitchfork by my sub-conscious. Reviewing this record is impossible to do without carrying along the whirlwind of controversy, myth-making, hype, derision and mere column inches that surround it. But divorcing Lana and her dubious back-story from a review of her debut album (of sorts) somewhat misses the point. Lana is already metaphorically living out the inebriated fall of Paz de la Huerta - the pap footage of which she used in her Video Games clip. Her debut album (of sorts) is currently under more scrutiny than any debut in living memory.

It wasn't always this way, of course. An oft-overlooked fact amidst the hype is how effectively Video Games worked as an isolated capsule. It seemed beamed in from '40s Hollywood (despite the very modern subject matter) – a Nancy Sinatra-esque torch song with Bacharach strings, sang by a fragile doe-eyed beauty. The inherent voyeurism in the clip led millions to believe they had stumbled across this perfect nugget, and to attempt to discover who this Del Rey girl was. The answers led these millions to feel duped, to angrily question her authenticity, to wait and watch her burn. She set herself up to be a fallen Hollywood star; a Marilyn Monroe, a Natalie Wood. It is written into the DNA of the Video Games clip, which seems more like an unsettling eulogy than an introduction to a new pop culture superstar. She named her major label debut Born To Die, a perfectly nihilistic and resigned title. Lana Del Rey was always destined to burn quickly then fade away. But has the legend burnt out long before the candle will?

Well, yes and no. The main issue is that the Video Games clip+song contains all one needs, and more importantly wants, to know about Del Rey. Any further information dilutes the image by either cheapening things (there are some goosebump-inducing lines on this record, and not the good goosebumps), shifting into another direction (the slight trip hop curveball of the title track) or, worst of all, through repetition. Born To Die, Blue Jeans and the aforementioned (by everyone, ever) Video Games have already make their way into public consciousness with varying, but still uniformly positive, results. The rest of the album, unfortunately, is devoid of anything substantial enough to reverse her plummeting fortunes. In short, there is nothing here to save Lana from the myth she has built.

A lot of the album repeats itself (National Anthem at track 5 is an empty re-run of the stunning Off To The Races) and most songs on Born to Die adopt the same tempo and maudlin string arrangement, which is akin to applying a heavy wash over the entire record. Dark Paradise is by far the most adventurous track by virtue of it being simply a good pop song. Lana set the bar too high for merely 'good pop', and as the album carries on with diminishing returns, there is the feeling that Lana made her full-length-album move too soon. Yes, a lot of the submissive, pouty, eyelid-batting subject matter will have many up in arms, and rightly so, but this is merely an affectation, a throw-back to “the good old days” when women flouted this coquettishness (while Marie Curie spun in her grave). Radio plays out wonderfully as a cautionary tale; despite the triumphant narrator, everything she sings rings out as an empty achievement. This is another overlooked asset of Del Rey’s; her sultry, sad vocals are able to inject even the most empty phrases with pathos. Final track This Is What Makes Us Girls is almost the second best track on the album, but unfortunately contains the most cringeworthy part of the entire album ("Pabst blue ribbon on ice" - you'll know the part when you hear it). It's still the closest Lana gets to a mission statement, however; it's overblown, over-simplistic, over-romanticised but so is Springsteen and so what? She sells it perfectly. Million Dollar Man, for example, has the same resigned beauty about it as Video Games, albeit to a lesser degree. Sadtime Sadness has the same resigned beauty about it as Video Games, albeit to a lesser degree. See what I mean about the repetitive nature of this album.

Born To Die is not an artistic masterstroke, but nor is it a crashing failure. It is very much a genre piece; like records from Julee Cruise, Mazzy Star and the oft-touted Nancy and Lee (which this album takes most of its cues from, mostly [and unfortunately] in its uneven sequencing, easy reliance on filler and cringewworthy pre-feminism notions), it is strangely comforting in its black and white notions of heartbreak, longing and love. Like the aforementioned records, Born To Die isn’t a flawless masterpiece, but it perfectly encapsulates a mood while hinting at a private universe which is tantalising and attractive, but ultimately just a fantasy.