Lana Del Rey: Born to Die

They say that no press is bad press and they say that sex sells. These old adages prove true when it comes to the most divisive pop artists of recent memory. Lana Del Rey has generated enormous controversy from the fact that she got a makeover after her first attempt at a music career as Lizzy Grant. It’s possible that she seems to have sold herself as this Barbie doll or Jessica Rabbit character (seriously, Google Image Jessica Rabbit then LDR…that shit cray) that exists only as a sex symbol and nothing more, and more so that this image is detrimental to women. Possibly as a result of all of this, her album Born to Die debuted at number 2 on the Billboard charts. How much more harmful is Lana Del Rey than Ke$ha? How much more authentic is she than Rick Ross who was a prison guard before he became one of the biggest rap stars on the planet? These debates are absolutely worth having but the most important question right now is how does the album stack up to all the hype?

The answer is that it stacks up all right. Born to Die is not quite as bad as some would have you believe, but it is by no means a good record. The album’s atmosphere, radiating mystery and distance, and beats are its biggest strengths. They transport the listener into a smokey bar in a black and white movie where a beautiful femme fatale slinks through the smoke and then approaches. However, our hero of this film, the listener, discovers that this vixen tries way to hard and is actually pretty damn boring. The voice that made “Video Games” exciting and unique stays static throughout the album and does not display much emotion. While this quality works for the record’s singles, it becomes a drag throughout the duration of the album. The lyrical content of Born to Die is very generic and often tries to hard to get the Pitchfork audience, like the “Pabst Blue Ribbon on ice” line in “This Is What Makes Us Girls.” In the end however, this album is little more than a very well produced pop record. Yet, Born to Die is not terrible; it is just not what most people were expecting when they first heard “Video Games” and all the potential it seemingly held.

- Jason Oscar, Wizzard Sleeve (Saturdays from 2-4pm @ WQHS.org)