The Lana Del Rey Problem

Okay, this is happening and I'm going to have to deal with it.

Have we all watched Lana Del Rey (the only thing keeping me from putting her name in quotation marks is a rather stern admonition from Theodor Adorno to not use 'nem shits ironically) flame out on Saturday Night Live yet?  Okay, I'll wait here for those of you from the remedial class to catch up.  With us now?  Okay, down the rabbit hole (Christ, am I out of wine already?  This is going to get rough.) we go.

Layer:  The performer on Saturday Night Live is attempting to embody a James Ellroy slash (intended) David Lynch Old Hollywood tragic starlet persona.  She is failing.  Her voice, meant to be a Billy Holliday-style sultry croon, is all over the goddamn place.  She sounds more like Joanna Newsom than anyone genre-appropriate, which means she's hitting every note BUT the right one.  Her body language is awkward and muted.  Her role demands bold, confident motions that convey their semiotic meaning with a direct, sensual strength that simultaneously evokes a submissive vulnerability and a predatory, sexual strength.  Instead, she moves like she's been drugged.

Layer:  Lana Del Rey was born Elizabeth Grant.  Her father is the kind of millionaire where I don't really understand what he does.  She claims to have been performing in Brooklyn since she was 17, to little or no acclaim.  Her father hired a management team for her.  These are the people who rechristened her, fusing Hollywood legend Lana Turner with the midsize 80's sedan the Ford Del Rey (I admit to not understanding this part AT ALL).  T-shirts and jeans were replaced with satin evening gowns, lips were inflated, and Lana's vocal register shifted from a mezzo-soprano to a smokey contralto.

Layer:  Official internet canon allows two pre-Lana recordings by Lizzy Grant.  They are the Kill Kill EP and the Lana Del Rey A.K.A. Lizzy Grant full-length.  This album may also be called Nevada.  Or Nevada  may be a totally different album of earlier songs that sound a lot like Cat Power.  Except for the disco songs... which sound like they belong on an entirely different album.  Which may or may not exist.  Get me?


Layer: The song at the top of the page is a fucking KILLER.  This is where the country-indie-pop of her early work meets the club-crushing production of the new album and the doomed glamour of the new persona and the submissive sexuality and nihilistic desperation that have been through-lines of her entire career and...

Layer:  In the lyric "Open up a beer/and you say get over here/and play your video game", who exactly is playing the game?  Is it the male subject of the song, or the narrator (Lana)?  Is the video game literal, in which case these lyrics are TERRIBLE, or is the game a metaphor, in which case these lyrics are probably FILTHY?


Layer: Why is the performer in the "Born to Die" video so much more convincing than the live performer on SNL?  Is it perhaps because the mise en scene of the video demands a perpetually blank expression?  Despite its provocative imagery, this video dosen't really demand a wide emotional range of its star.  Also, the shot where the tattooed Vincent Gallo Clone sleeps with his hand around Lana's throat is pretty fucked up.


Analysis:  Is there perhaps something disturbing about a young woman (or, worse, her management team) erasing any trace of her early work?  What if her father pays for her reinvention as a fallen-angel-virgin-harlot-superstar?  What if she seems to suffer from severe stage fright?  Are lyrics like "Let me put on a show for you, Daddy" part of the Hollywood Babylon image, or are they indicative of something deeper, darker?  And is it disingenuous for the daughter of a millionaire to constantly use imagery of trailer parks, dive bars, and the American South?

Fucking probably.  Also, the stage fright thing means she's DESPERATELY unprepared for the amount of attention she's about to receive.  If Lana/her management/her father/the world want a tragic second act for the drama they've worked so hard to manufacture, they could at least have a little patience.  Amy Winehouse's corpse is, after all, still warm.