Two Thursdays ago it seemed like the only thing the music-critic blogosphere wanted to talk about was Lana Del Rey. That was partly because Del Rey had played an exclusive “secret show” the night before at the Glasslands in Brooklyn. It also probably had a lot to do with the fact that, as my friend Maura Johnston at the Village Voice pointed out, it was a rainy day in New York, and the weather was “keeping everyone cooped up and unable to go out to lunch.”
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Of course, Del Rey also makes music, and opinions about its merit (or lack thereof) have fueled the arguments about her image. Since the spring she’s been uploading her own music videos to YouTube. Her songs explicitly nod to the sound of 60s girl groups and Chris Isaak’s studied revivalist rockabilly, and they make somewhat less explicit references—mostly in the lyrics, but also in the subtle hip-hop feel of some of the beats—to a couple decades’ worth of gangsta rap. (In her PR she describes herself as a “gangsta Nancy Sinatra.”) The videos use found footage to draw a line connecting 1930s Hollywood glamor, the bohemian hedonism of the 1960s, and today’s hip-hop heads and skate punks.
Much of the talk about Del Rey, though, continues to be about her appearance—and about the fact that her persona is almost entirely invented. Del Rey’s real name is Lizzy Grant. Now 24, she spent several years pursuing a musical career (in 2009 she released a three-song EP as Lizzy Grant) before reinventing herself as Lana Del Rey. She recorded an entire album in 2010 with Depeche Mode producer David Kahne, which she’s since removed from the iTunes Store. Caustic indie commentary site Hipster Runoff has published photos of a pre-transformation Grant “canoodling with industry insiders” at what looks like a Miley Cyrus meet-and-greet. More damningly, at least in the minds of some observers, in the older photos her lips are noticeably less plump—it’s hard not to conclude that she’s had collagen injections in the meantime.
It’s not crazy to imagine that a wannabe pop star would be able to craft an identity and a sound almost entirely out of what the counterculture’s most cutting-edge bohemians think is cool. Nor is it crazy to imagine that some of those tastemakers would be part of her audience if she did. It’s happened before. Nancy Sinatra did a pretty good job of it.
