Elizabeth Woolridge Grant , known professionally as Lana Del Rey, is an American singer, songwriter, record producer and model. Her music is noted for its cinematic quality and exploration of tragic romance, glamour, and melancholia, containing references to contemporary pop culture and 1950s–1960s Americana. She is the recipient of various accolades, including two Brit Awards, two MTV Europe Music Awards, and a Satellite Award, in addition to nominations for six Grammy Awards and a Golden Globe Award. Variety honored her at their Hitmakers Awards for being “one of the most influential singer-songwriters of the 21st century.”
Nick Name: Lizzy, Lana Rey Del Mar, Lizzy Grant, May Jailer, Sparkle Jump Rope Queen
Years active: 2005–present
Age: June 21, 1985, 39 years old and 5 months, Manhattan, New York City, NY, U.S.
Sun Sign: Gemini
Hair Color: Blonde. Sshe likes to dye them to darker shades.
Eye Color: Hazel
Height: 5 ft 6½ in – 1.69 m
Measurements: 34-26-34 in – 86-66-86 cm
Bra size: 34A US – 75A EU
Genre: Hip-hop, alternative rock, Baroque pop, dream pop, indie pop, rock, trip hop
Instruments: Vocals, guitar, keyboards
Lana Del Rey - American
LANA DEL REY FILMING MUSIC VIDEO FOR TROPICO IN LA
LANA DEL REY IN BIKINI ON VACATION IN ITALY
LANA DEL REY NUDE HIGH RESOLUTION PHOTOS FROM BRITISH GQ THIS IS AWESOME GK
Lana Del Rey covered nude GQ uk magazine october
Lana Del Rey vogue uk
Taylor Swift Discusses New Song With Lana Del Rey.
Lana Del Rey BORN TO DIE (2011)
Family
Father – Rob Grant (Grey Group copywriter turned entrepreneur)
Mother – Pat Grant (Former Grey account executive)
Siblings – Charlie Grant (Younger Brother), Caroline “Chuck” Grant (Younger Sister) (Lana Del Reyo photographer)
Others – Madeleine (Grandmother)
Ethnicity
Lana is of Scottish descent with Lanarkshire roots.
Education
Del Rey had studied in Connecticut in Kent School, which is a boarding school for three years. Later, she attended Fordham University in the Bronx to study philosophy related subject known as metaphysics.
Raised in upstate New York, Del Rey moved to New York City in 2005 to pursue a music career. After numerous projects, including her self-titled debut studio album, Del Rey’s breakthrough came in 2011 with the viral success of her single “Video Games“; she subsequently signed a recording contract with Polydor and Interscope. She achieved critical and commercial success with her second album, Born to Die (2012), which contained the sleeper hit “Summertime Sadness“. Del Rey’s third album, Ultraviolence (2014), featured greater use of guitar-driven instrumentation and debuted atop the U.S. Billboard 200. Her fourth and fifth albums, Honeymoon (2015) and Lust for Life (2017), saw a return to the stylistic traditions of her earlier releases, while her critically acclaimed sixth album, Norman Fucking Rockwell! (2019), explored soft rock. Del Rey followed this with the albums Chemtrails over the Country Club and Blue Banisters, both in 2021.
Del Rey has collaborated on soundtracks for visual media; in 2013, she wrote and starred in the critically acclaimed musical short Tropico, and performed “Young and Beautiful” for the romantic drama The Great Gatsby. In 2014, she recorded “Once Upon a Dream” for the dark fantasy adventure film Maleficent and the self-titled theme song for the biopic Big Eyes. Del Rey collaborated with Ariana Grande and Miley Cyrus on “Don’t Call Me Angel” for the action comedy Charlie’s Angels (2019), which peaked at number 13 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. Outside of music, Del Rey published the poetry and photography collection Violet Bent Backwards over the Grass (2020).
Life and career
1985–2004: Early life
Elizabeth Woolridge Grant was born to Robert England Grant Jr., a Grey Group copywriter, and Patricia Ann “Pat” (née Hill), an account executive at Grey Group. She has a younger sister, Caroline, and a younger brother, Charlie. She was raised Roman Catholic and is of Scottish descent. Her ancestors were from Lanarkshire. When she was one year old, the family moved to Lake Placid, New York. In Lake Placid, her father worked for a furniture company before becoming an entrepreneurial domain investor; her mother worked as a schoolteacher. There, she attended St. Agnes School in her elementary years and began singing in her church choir, where she was the cantor.
She attended the high school where her mother taught for one year, but when she was 15 her parents sent her to Kent School to resolve a budding drinking problem. Her uncle, an admissions officer at the school, secured her financial aid to attend. According to Grant, she had trouble making friends during much of her teenage and early adult years. She has said she was preoccupied with death from a young age, and its role in her feelings of anxiety and alienation:
When I was very young I was sort of floored by the fact that my mother and my father and everyone I knew was going to die one day, and myself too. I had a sort of a philosophical crisis. I couldn’t believe that we were mortal. For some reason that knowledge sort of overshadowed my experience. I was unhappy for some time. I got into a lot of trouble. I used to drink a lot. That was a hard time in my life.
After graduating from the Kent School, she spent a year living on Long Island with her aunt and uncle and working as a waitress. During this time, Grant’s uncle taught her to play guitar, and she “realized [that she] could probably write a million songs with those six chords.” Shortly after, she began writing songs and performing in nightclubs around the city under various names such as “Sparkle Jump Rope Queen” and “Lizzy Grant and the Phenomena”. “I was always singing, but didn’t plan on pursuing it seriously”, she said. “When I got to New York City when I was eighteen, I started playing in clubs in Brooklyn—I have good friends and devoted fans on the underground scene, but we were playing for each other at that point—and that was it.”
2005–2010: Career beginnings and early recordings
In fall 2004, at age 19, Grant enrolled at Fordham University in The Bronx where she majored in philosophy, with an emphasis on metaphysics. She has said she chose to study the subject because it “bridged the gap between God and science… I was interested in God and how technology could bring us closer to finding out where we came from and why.” In spring 2005, while still in college, Del Rey registered a seven-track extended play with the United States Copyright Office; the application title was Rock Me Stable with another title, Young Like Me, also listed. A second extended play, From the End, was also recorded under Del Rey’s stage name at the time, May Jailer. Between 2005 and 2006, she recorded an acoustic album, Sirens, under the May Jailer project, which leaked on the internet in mid-2012.
At her first public performance in 2006, for the Williamsburg Live Songwriting Competition, Del Rey met Van Wilson, an A&R representative for 5 Points Records, an independent label owned by David Nichtern. In 2007, while a senior at Fordham, she submitted a demo tape of acoustic tracks, No Kung Fu, to 5 Points, which offered her a recording contract for $10,000. She used the money to relocate to Manhattan Mobile Home Park, a trailer park in North Bergen, New Jersey, and began working with producer David Kahne. Nichtern recalled: “Our plan was to get it all organized and have a record to go and she’d be touring right after she graduated from college. Like a lot of artists, she morphed. When she first came to us, she was playing plunky little acoustic guitar, [had] sort of straight blonde hair, very cute young woman. A little bit dark, but very intelligent. We heard that. But she very quickly kept evolving.”
Del Rey graduated from Fordham with a Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy in 2008, after which she released a three-track EP, Kill Kill, as Lizzy Grant, featuring production by Kahne. She explained: “David asked to work with me only a day after he got my demo. He is known as a producer with a lot of integrity and who had an interest in making music that wasn’t just pop.” Meanwhile, Del Rey was working doing community outreach work for the homeless and drug addicts; she had become interested in community service work in college, when she had helped paint homes on an Indian reservation in Utah.
Of choosing a stage name for her feature debut album, she said: “I wanted a name I could shape the music towards. I was going to Miami quite a lot at the time, speaking a lot of Spanish with my friends from Cuba—Lana Del Rey reminded us of the glamour of the seaside. It sounded gorgeous coming off the tip of the tongue.” The name was also inspired by actress Lana Turner and the Ford Del Rey sedan, produced and sold in Brazil in the 1980s. Initially she used the alternate spelling Lana Del Ray, the name under which her self-titled debut album was released in January 2010. Her father helped with the marketing of the album, which was available for purchase on iTunes for a brief period before being withdrawn in April 2010. Kahne and Nichtern both said that Del Rey bought the rights back from 5 Points, as she wanted it out of circulation to “stifle future opportunities to distribute it—an echo of rumors the action was part of a calculated strategy.”
Del Rey met her managers, Ben Mawson and Ed Millett, three months after Lana Del Ray was released, and they helped her get out of her contract with 5 Points Records, where, in her opinion, “nothing was happening.” Shortly after, she moved to London, and moved in with Mawson “for a few years”. On September 1, 2010, Del Rey was featured by Mando Diao in its MTV Unplugged concert at Union Film-Studios in Berlin. The same year, she acted in a short film, Poolside, which she made with several friends.
2011–2013: Breakthrough with Born to Die and Paradise
In 2011, Del Rey uploaded self-made music videos for her songs “Video Games” and “Blue Jeans” to YouTube, featuring vintage footage interspersed with shots of her singing on her webcam. The “Video Games” music video became a viral internet sensation, which led to Del Rey being signed by Stranger Records to release the song as her debut single. She told The Observer: “I just put that song online a few months ago because it was my favorite. To be honest, it wasn’t going to be the single but people have really responded to it.” The song earned her a Q award for “Next Big Thing” in October 2011 and an Ivor Novello for “Best Contemporary Song” in 2012. In the same month, she signed a joint deal with Interscope Records and Polydor to release her second studio album Born to Die. She started dating Scottish singer Barrie-James O’Neill in the same year. The couple split in 2014 after three years together. Del Rey performed two songs from the album on Saturday Night Live on January 14, 2012, and received a negative response from various critics and the general public, who deemed the performance uneven and vocally shaky. She had earlier defended her spot on the program, saying: “I’m a good musician … I have been singing for a long time, and I think that [SNL creator] Lorne Michaels knows that … it’s not a fluke decision.”
Born to Die was released worldwide on January 31, 2012, to commercial success, charting at number one in 11 countries and debuting at number two on the US Billboard 200 album chart, although critics at the time were divided. The same week, she announced she had bought back the rights to her 2010 debut album and had plans to re-release it in the summer of 2012 under Interscope Records and Polydor. Contrary to Del Rey’s press statement, her previous record label and producer David Kahne have both stated that she bought the rights to the album when she and the label parted company, due to the offer of a new deal, in April 2010. Born to Die sold 3.4 million copies in 2012, making it the fifth-best-selling album of 2012. In the United States, Born to Die charted on the Billboard 200 well into 2012, lingering at number 76, after 36 weeks on the chart.
In September 2012, Del Rey unveiled the Jaguar F-Type at the Paris Motor Show. Adrian Hallmark, Jaguar’s global brand director, explained their choice, saying Del Rey had “a unique blend of authenticity and modernity”. She also recorded the song “Burning Desire”, which appeared in a promotional short film for the vehicle. In late September 2012, a music video for Del Rey’s cover version of “Blue Velvet” was released as a promotional single for the H&M 2012 autumn campaign, which Del Rey also modeled for in print advertising. On September 25, Del Rey released the single “Ride” in promotion of her upcoming EP, Paradise. She subsequently premiered the music video for “Ride” at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica, California on October 10, 2012. Some critics panned the video for being allegedly pro-prostitution and antifeminist, due to Del Rey’s portrayal of a prostitute in a biker gang.
Paradise was released on November 12, 2012, as a standalone release, as well as Born to Die: The Paradise Edition, which combined Del Rey’s previous album with the additional eight tracks on Paradise. Paradise marked Del Rey’s second top 10 album in the United States, debuting at number 10 on the Billboard 200 with 67,000 copies sold in its first week. It was also later nominated for Best Pop Vocal Album at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards. Del Rey received several nominations at the 2012 MTV Europe Music Awards in November and won the award for Best Alternative performer. At the Brit Awards in February 2013, she won the award for International Female Solo Artist, followed by two Echo Award wins, in the categories of Best International Newcomer and Best International Pop/Rock Artist.
Over the next several months, she released videos of two cover songs: one of Leonard Cohen‘s “Chelsea Hotel#2“, followed by a duet with her then-boyfriend, Barrie-James O’Neill, of Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra‘s “Summer Wine“. In May 2013, Del Rey released an original song, “Young and Beautiful” for the soundtrack of the 2013 film adaptation of The Great Gatsby. Following the song’s release, it peaked at 22 on the Billboard Hot 100. However, shortly after its release to contemporary hit radio, the label prematurely pulled it and decided to send a different song to that format; on July 2, 2013, a Cedric Gervais remix of Del Rey’s “Summertime Sadness” was sent there; a sleeper hit, the song proved to be a success, surpassing “Young and Beautiful”, reaching number 6 and becoming her first American top ten hit. The remix won the Grammy Award for Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical in 2013, while “Young and Beautiful” was nominated for Best Song Written for Visual Media.
In June 2013, Del Rey filmed Tropico, a musical short film paired to tracks from Paradise, directed by Anthony Mandler. Del Rey screened the film on December 4, 2013, at the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood. On December 6, the soundtrack was released on digital outlets.
2014–2016: Ultraviolence, Honeymoon, and film work
On January 26, 2014, Del Rey released a cover of “Once Upon a Dream” for the 2014 dark fantasy film Maleficent. Following the completion of Paradise, Del Rey began writing and recording her follow-up album, Ultraviolence, featuring production by Dan Auerbach. Ultraviolence was released on June 13, 2014, and debuted at number one in 12 countries, including the United States and United Kingdom. The album, which sold 880,000 copies worldwide in its first week, was preceded by the singles “West Coast“, “Shades of Cool“, “Ultraviolence“, and “Brooklyn Baby“. She began dating photographer Francesco Carrozzini after he directed Del Rey’s music video for “Ultraviolence”; the two broke up in November 2015 after more than a year. Del Rey described the album as being “more stripped down but still cinematic and dark”, while some critics characterized the record as psychedelic and desert rock-influenced, more prominently featuring guitar instrumentation than her previous releases. Later that year, Del Rey contributed the songs “Big Eyes” and “I Can Fly” to Tim Burton‘s 2014 biographical film Big Eyes.
Honeymoon, Del Rey’s fourth studio album, was released on September 18, 2015 to acclaim from music critics. Prior to the release of the album, Del Rey previewed the track “Honeymoon“, the single “High by the Beach“, and the promotional single “Terrence Loves You“. Prior to the release of Honeymoon, Del Rey embarked on The Endless Summer Tour in May 2015, which featured Courtney Love and Grimes as opening acts. Additionally, Del Rey co-wrote and provided vocals on the track “Prisoner” from the Weeknd‘s Beauty Behind the Madness, released on August 28, 2015.
In November 2015, Del Rey executive produced a short film Hi, How Are You Daniel Johnston, documenting the life of singer-songwriter Daniel Johnston. For the film, she covered Johnston’s song “Some Things Last a Long Time”. In November 2015, Del Rey received the Trailblazer Award at the Billboard Women in Music ceremony and won the MTV Europe Music Award for Best Alternative.
On February 9, 2016, Del Rey premiered a music video for the song “Freak” from Honeymoon at the Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles. Later that year, Del Rey collaborated with the Weeknd for his album Starboy (2016), providing backing vocals on “Party Monster” and lead vocals on “Stargirl Interlude”. “Party Monster”, which Del Rey also co-wrote, was released as a single and subsequently reached the Top 20 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was certified double-platinum in the US.
2017–2019: Lust for Life and Norman Fucking Rockwell!
Del Rey’s fifth studio album, Lust for Life, was released on July 21, 2017. The album was preceded by the singles “Love“, “Lust for Life” with the Weeknd, “Summer Bummer” with A$AP Rocky and Playboi Carti, and “Groupie Love“, also with Rocky. Prior to its release, Del Rey commented: “I made my first 4 albums for me, but this one is for my fans and about where I hope we are all headed.” The record further featured collaborations with Stevie Nicks and Sean Ono Lennon, marking the first time she has featured other artists on her own release. The album received generally favorable reviews and became Del Rey’s third number-one album in the United Kingdom, and second number-one album in the United States. On September 27, 2017, Del Rey announced the LA to the Moon Tour, an official concert tour with Jhené Aiko and Kali Uchis to further promote the album. The tour began in North America during January 2018 and concluded in August. Lust for Life was nominated for Best Pop Vocal Album for the 60th Grammy Awards, marking Del Rey’s second nomination in the category.
In January 2018, Del Rey announced that she was in a lawsuit with British rock band Radiohead over alleged similarities between their song “Creep” and her song “Get Free“. Following her announcement, legal representatives from their label Warner/Chappell denied the lawsuit, as well as Del Rey’s claims of the band asking for “100% of the song’s royalties”. Del Rey announced that summer while performing at Lollapalooza in Brazil the lawsuit was “over”.
Throughout 2018, Del Rey appeared as a guest vocalist on several tracks by other musicians, including “Living with Myself” by Jonathan Wilson for Rare Birds (2018), “God Save Our Young Blood” and “Blue Madonna” by Børns for Blue Madonna (2018), and “Woman” by Cat Power for Wanderer (2018). In November, Del Rey was announced as the face of Gucci‘s Guilty Fragrances and subsequently appeared in print and television advertisements with Jared Leto and Courtney Love.
On August 6, 2019, Del Rey presented filmmaker Guillermo del Toro with his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and subsequently released a cover of “Season of the Witch” for his film, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. On the same day, Del Rey released the non-album single “Looking for America” which she spontaneously wrote and recorded earlier that week in response to the back-to-back mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio.
Her sixth studio album, Norman Fucking Rockwell!, was released on August 30, 2019. Having announced the album in September 2018, the album was preceded by the singles “Mariners Apartment Complex“, “Venice Bitch“, “Hope Is a Dangerous Thing for a Woman like Me to Have – but I Have It“, and “Doin’ Time“, as well as the joint-single “Fuck It, I Love You“/ “The Greatest“. The album received widespread critical acclaim, and, according to review aggregator website Metacritic, is the best-reviewed album of Del Rey’s career to date. NME awarded the album five out of five stars. In his review for Rolling Stone, Rob Sheffield wrote that “the long-awaited Norman Fucking Rockwell is even more massive and majestic than everyone hoped it would be. Lana turns her fifth and finest album into a tour of sordid American dreams, going deep cover in all our nation’s most twisted fantasies of glamour and danger,” and ultimately deemed the album a “pop classic”. The album was nominated for two Grammy Awards, Album of the Year and Song of the Year for its title track.
In September, Del Rey was also featured on a collaboration with Ariana Grande and Miley Cyrus, titled “Don’t Call Me Angel“, the lead single of the soundtrack for the 2019 film Charlie’s Angels. The song was moderately successful internationally and later certified Gold in several countries. In November, Del Rey appeared in the Amazon Prime Special The Kacey Musgraves Christmas Show alongside special guests such as Camila Cabello, James Corden, and Troye Sivan.
2020–present: Chemtrails over the Country Club, Blue Banisters and poetry collections
In an interview for L’Officiel‘s first American edition in early 2018, when asked about her interest in making a film, Del Rey responded that she had been approached to write a Broadway musical and had recently begun work on it. When asked how long it would be until completion of the work, she replied, “I may finish in two or three years.” She also announced that she would be contributing to the soundtrack of a new adaptation of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
After announcing a spoken word album in 2019, Del Rey released Violet Bent Backwards over the Grass and a corresponding spoken word album in 2020. The physical book was released on September 29 and the Jack Antonoff-produced audiobook on July 28. The spoken word poem “LA Who Am I to Love You” was released as the lead single the day before the album’s release. On May 22, 2020, Del Rey announced that a second book, Behind the Iron Gates – Insights from the Institution, would be released in March 2021, but this did not happen.
In September 2020, Del Rey was featured on a remix of Matt Maeson‘s 2019 song “Hallucinogenics“. The duo had previously performed the song together live in 2019. In November 2020, Del Rey announced that she would release a digital record composed of “American standards and classics” on Christmas Day, though it has yet to be released. The record features several songs recorded with Nikki Lane. The same month, she contributed to a documentary about Liverpool F.C., The End of the Storm, where she performed the club’s anthem, “You’ll Never Walk Alone“. Del Rey also released the cover as a limited-edition single, with all profits going to the LFC foundation. Del Rey is known to be a fan of the club, and has attended matches at Anfield. In December 2020, it was reported that she was engaged to musician Clayton Johnson.
On March 19, 2021, Del Rey released her seventh studio album, Chemtrails over the Country Club, to critical acclaim. Announced in 2019, the album was originally slated for release in 2020 under the title White Hot Forever, but was postponed in November 2020 due to a delay in vinyl manufacturing. Like Norman Fucking Rockwell!, Chemtrails over the Country Club was mostly produced by Del Rey alongside Jack Antonoff. It was preceded by the singles “Let Me Love You like a Woman” on October 16, 2020, and the title track on January 11, 2021. Videos for both songs as well as “White Dress” were also released.
Her eighth studio album, Blue Banisters, was released on October 22, 2021. It was preceded by the simultaneous release of three singles on May 20, 2021: the title track, “Text Book”, and “Wildflower Wildfire”, as well as the release of the single “Arcadia” on September 8, 2021.
On January 21, 2022, Del Rey premiered a song titled “Watercolor Eyes” on an episode of Euphoria. On October 7, 2022, Taylor Swift revealed the fourth track of her upcoming tenth album, “Snow On The Beach”, featuring Del Rey.
Artistry
Musical style
Upon her debut release, Del Rey’s music was described as “Hollywood sadcore” by some music critics. It has been repeatedly noted for its cinematic sound and its references to various aspects of pop culture; both critics and Del Rey herself have noted a persistent theme of 1950s and 1960s Americana. The strong elements of American nostalgia brought Idolator to classify her firmly as alternative pop. Del Rey elaborated on her connection to the past in an interview with Artistdirect, saying “I wasn’t even born in the ’50s but I feel like I was there.”
Del Rey is generally regarded as an alternative pop singer. Her works have been categorized as pop, rock, dream pop, baroque pop, indie pop, psychedelic rock, while incorporating trip hop, hip hop, lo-fi, and trap elements. Of Born to Die, indie music journal Drowned in Sound wrote, “She likes that whole hip hop thing though, has this whole swagger thing going that not many girls like her got”, adding that it sounded like a poppier Bond soundtrack.
Del Rey’s subsequent releases would introduce variant styles, particularly Ultraviolence, which employed a guitar-based sound akin to psychedelic and desert rock. Kenneth Partridge of Billboard noted this shift in style, writing: “She sings about drugs, cars, money, and the bad boys she’s always falling for, and while there remains a sepia-toned mid-century flavor to many of these songs, [Del Rey] is no longer fronting like a thugged-out Bette Davis.” Upon the release of Honeymoon, one reviewer characterized Del Rey’s body of work as being “about music as a time warp, with her languorous croons over molasses-like arrangements meant to make clock hands seem to move so slowly that it feels possible, at times, they might go backwards.”
Prior to coming to prominence under the stage name Lana Del Rey, she performed under the names Lizzy Grant, Lana Rey Del Mar, Sparkle Jump Rope Queen, and May Jailer. Under the stage name Lizzy Grant, she referred to her music as “Hawaiian glam metal”, while the work of her May Jailer project was acoustic.
Influences
Del Rey cites a wide array of musical artists as influences, including numerous pop, jazz, and blues performers from the mid-twentieth century, such as Andrew Lloyd Webber, Frank Sinatra, Nina Simone, Billie Holiday, Bobby Vinton, The Crystals, and Miles Davis. Torch singers Julie London and Julee Cruise have also served as influences. “[I really] just like the masters of every genre”, she told BBC radio presenter Jo Whiley in 2012, specifically naming Nirvana, Bob Dylan, Frank Sinatra, and Elvis Presley.
Several rock and pop musicians and groups from the late-twentieth century have also inspired Del Rey, such as Bruce Springsteen, Britney Spears, singer-songwriter Lou Reed, and rock band the Eagles, as well as folk musicians such as Leonard Cohen and Joan Baez. Del Rey has also cited contemporary artists such as singer-songwriter Cat Power, Hole frontwoman Courtney Love, rapper Eminem, and singer Amy Winehouse, as artists she looked up to.
Del Rey cited the soundtrack to the film American Beauty as a partial inspiration for Born to Die. She has also stated that actress Lauren Bacall is someone she admires. Inspired by poetry, Del Rey cites Walt Whitman and Allen Ginsberg as instrumental to her songwriting. Del Rey has also cited film directors David Lynch and Federico Fellini, and the painters Mark Ryden and Pablo Picasso as influences.
Voice and timbre
Del Rey possesses an expansive contralto vocal range, which spans three-plus octaves and has been described as captivating and highly emotive, ranging from high notes in a girlish timbre to jazzy ornaments in her lower gesture with great ease. Following the release of Ultraviolence, which was recorded live in single takes and lacking Pro Tools vocal editing, critics fell into favor with Del Rey’s vocal ability, praising her large range, increased vocal confidence, and uniquely emotive delivery. When recording in the studio Del Rey is known for vocal multi-layering, which, as it has been noted, is difficult for her to replicate within a live setting, especially with the lack of backing singers to fill out the original vocal style. Stage fright has also been noted as a major contribution to Del Rey’s struggles with live performances. However, journalists noted in 2014 that her live performances had increased in confidence. Billboard deemed the Coachella debut of “West Coast” to be a “star-making performance” and lauded the singer’s vocal abilities. Contemporary music critics have called her voice “smoky”, “gravelly”, and reminiscent of Marilyn Monroe. Upon the 2015 release of Honeymoon, her voice was compared by Los Angeles Times critic Mikael Wood to those of Julee Cruise and Eartha Kitt.
Del Rey started the use of her lower vocals on the tracks from Born to Die, claiming that “people weren’t taking me very seriously, so I lowered my voice, believing that it would help me stand out. Now I sing quite low… well, for a female anyway”. “I sing low now, but my voice used to be a lot higher. Because of the way I look, I needed something to ground the entire project. Otherwise I think people would assume I was some airhead singer. Well, I don’t think… I know. I’ve sung one way, and sung another, and I’ve seen what people are drawn to”, she said on the topic.
Videos and stage
Del Rey’s videos are also often characterized for their cinematic quality with a retro flair. In her early career, Del Rey recorded clips of herself singing along to her songs on a webcam and juxtaposed them alongside vintage home videos and films to serve as “homemade music videos”, a style which helped gain her early recognition. After the success of these homemade videos, Del Rey had a series of high-budget music videos, including “Born to Die” and “National Anthem” (both 2012) and “Young and Beautiful” (2013). Her early videos featured her “bad girl”, “gangster Nancy Sinatra” persona.
Her following videos for tracks such as “Summer Wine”, “Carmen”, and “Summertime Sadness” were all produced off of significantly lower budgets and retained more elements of Del Rey’s earlier style. The Ultraviolence era incorporated an admixture of high budget videos and self-made ones, while the Honeymoon era was almost strictly film noir-influenced professionally-shot visuals. Both eras saw some of Del Rey’s homemade videos for tracks such as “Pretty When You Cry” and “Honeymoon” go unreleased due to Del Rey’s opinions they were “too boring”. The Lust for Life era was widely characterized for its futuristic flare in its mildly filtered vintage-inspired look. For Norman Fucking Rockwell, Del Rey’s sister, Chuck Grant, directed three of the videos in Del Rey’s “homemade video” format, while Rich Lee directed the two follow-ups in a similar vintage but futuristic style, as he had the videos on Lust for Life.
Critics have noted Del Rey for her typically simple but authentic live performances. A September 2017 concert review published in The New York Times noted: “For more than an hour, Ms. Del Rey was eerily casual, singing and smiling with the ease of someone performing at singer-songwriter night at the local coffee shop.” Another review by Roy Train published in The Hollywood Reporter in 2014 noted “a distance in her bonhomie, obvious even from my perch at the opposite end of the stage high above the fray, the chill still palpable.”[
Public image
Early reception
Prior to the release of her debut major label album Born to Die in 2012, Del Rey was the subject of several articles discussing her image and career trajectory.[261][262][263] One article by Paul Harris published by The Guardian a week before the album’s release noted the differences between Del Rey’s perceived persona in 2008, when she performed as Lizzy Grant, and in the present, as Lana Del Rey. Harris wrote:
The internet has allowed figures like [Del Rey] to come rapidly to the fore of the cultural landscape, whether or not their emergence is planned by a record executive or happens spontaneously from someone’s bedroom. It has speeded up the fame cycle. It is worth noting that the huge backlash to Del Rey is happening before her first album has even been released. This reveals a cultural obsession with the “authenticity” that fans, artists and corporations all prize above all else.
Tony Simon, a producer who had worked with Del Rey in 2009, defended her against the public claims of inauthenticity and allegations that she was a product of her record label: “To be clear, all the detractors saying she’s some made-up-by-the-machine pop star are full of shit. While it’s impossible to keep the businesses’ hands out the pop when creating a pop star, the roots of where this all comes from are firmly inside of Lizzy Grant.” In Del Rey’s own words, she “[n]ever had a persona. Never needed one. Never will.”
In a 2017 interview, Del Rey stated, “I didn’t edit myself [on Born to Die] when I could have, because a lot of it’s just the way it was. I mean, because I’ve changed a lot and a lot of those songs, it’s not that I don’t relate but… A lot of it too is I was just kinda nervous. I came off sort of nervously, and there was just a lot of dualities, a lot of juxtapositions going on that maybe just felt like something was a little off. Maybe the thing that was off was that I needed a little more time or something, and also my path was just so windy just to get to having a first record. I feel like I had to figure it out all by myself. Every move was just guesswork.”
Social views
Having been labeled as antifeminist by multiple sources, Del Rey stated: “For me, the issue of feminism is just not an interesting concept. I’m more interested in … SpaceX and Tesla, what’s going to happen with our intergalactic possibilities. Whenever people bring up feminism … I’m just not really that interested.” She also said:
For me, a true feminist is someone who is a woman who does exactly what she wants. If my choice is to, I don’t know, be with a lot of men, or if I enjoy a really physical relationship, I don’t think that’s necessarily being anti-feminist. For me the argument of feminism never really should have come into the picture. Because I don’t know too much about the history of feminism, and so I’m not really a relevant person to bring into the conversation. Everything I was writing was so autobiographical, it could really only be a personal analysis.[267]
In 2017, Del Rey further clarified her updated view on feminism in an interview with Pitchfork:
Because things have shifted culturally. It’s more appropriate now than under the Obama administration, where at least everyone I knew felt safe. It was a good time. We were on the up-and-up… Women started to feel less safe under [the Trump] administration instantly. What if they take away Planned Parenthood? What if we can’t get birth control? Now, when people ask me those questions, I feel a little differently…
https://youtu.be/5F4pzd7Ttc0
Following the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases, she voiced her support for the Me Too movement, and identified herself as a feminist. In 2020, she voiced her support for a third wave of feminism.
In May of that year, she attracted criticism for an Instagram post defending herself against accusations of glamorizing abuse in part by pointing out an array of other female artists and their successes with works about “imperfect sexual relationships”. Del Rey responded to the criticism that race was the theme of her post by saying that she mentioned the singers she did because she “[loves] these singers and [knows] them.” She also clarified that she was referencing those “who don’t look strong or necessarily smart, or like they’re in control etc.,” when she mentioned people “who look like [her].” Del Rey attracted further criticism for briefly posting a video of looters during the George Floyd protests in May 2020.
Del Rey has frequently been critical of former U.S. President Donald Trump. She has described him as being a narcissist and a product of a culture of sociopathy, stating that his mental state makes him devoid of any understanding of what his words and actions can lead to. In January 2021, Del Rey incited commentary for stating that Trump “[didn’t] know that he’s inciting a riot” as a result of his “delusions of grandeur.” She was critical of Kanye West in 2018 for his support of former President Trump. During the first year of Trump’s presidency, Del Rey alleged that she attempted to use witchcraft against Trump. In November 2020, Del Rey honored Joe Biden‘s election as President of the United States by covering “On Eagles’ Wings“.
During the release of the artwork for Chemtrails Over the Country Club on Instagram, Del Rey gained widespread press coverage for suggesting that her friends, featured on the cover, were “a beautiful mix of everything”, saying that she had always been “inclusive without even trying to” throughout her career. Del Rey elaborated saying that her close friends and boyfriends had been “rappers” and addressed her critics, saying that before commenters turned it into a “WOC/POC issue”, she “wasn’t the one storming the capital” and was “changing the world by putting my life and thoughts and love out there”. She subsequently deleted the comments. Following criticism from media outlets, Del Rey tweeted “A woman still can’t get mad right? Even when a mob mentality tries to *incite*.”
Philanthropy
Over the years, Del Rey has supported multiple causes and made several recordings available as offerings to help support causes she believes in. Her 2019 charity single “Looking for America” was released amidst the back-to-back mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton. In October 2020, she donated $350,000 from her book Violet Bent Backwards over the Grass to the Dig Deep Water project to provide clean water for some of the most vulnerable communities of Navajo Nation. Later in December, Del Rey released a cover of “You’ll Never Walk Alone” to benefit charities supported by the Liverpool F.C. Foundation.
In the early 2000s, Del Rey worked at a homeless shelter and participated in humanitarian work, including building houses at Navajo Nation.
Impact
Del Rey has been mentioned as an influence by a number of artists including Billie Eilish, Lauren Jauregui, Kevin Abstract, Maggie Lindemann, and XXXTentacion. Billboard credited Born to Die for being one of the main catalysts for pop’s mid-2010s shift from brash EDM to a moodier, hip-hop-inflected palette. The magazine opined that Del Rey is indispensable to the 2010s popular music, and has influenced both her peers and the next generation of alternative-leaning pop artists such as Halsey, Banks, Sky Ferreira, Father John Misty, Sia, Selena Gomez and Taylor Swift. Similarly, Vice suggests that “it’s hard to imagine an Eilish, a Lorde, or a Halsey” without Del Rey. In 2019, Billboard included Del Rey’s song “Born to Die” as one of the 100 songs that defined the 2010s, adding that it influenced “a sonic shift that completely changed the pop landscape”. The Washington Post listed Del Rey as the only musician on their “Decade of Influence” list. Pitchfork named her the next best American songwriter. The Guardian declared Del Rey’s own “pure female haze” a “hallmark of the defiant female pop stars to come”.[300] Her YouTube and Vevo pages have combined views of over four billion. In fall of 2022, New York University’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music launched the course “Topics in Recorded Music: Lana Del Rey” centered around the singer-songwriter.
Accolades
Del Rey has received many awards, including 2 Brit Awards, 2 MTV Europe Music Awards, a Satellite Award and 9 GAFFA Awards. Alongside those accolades, she has also been nominated for 6 Grammy Awards[2] and a Golden Globe Award.
Del Rey left hand is tattooed with the letter M, referencing her grandmother, Madeleine, and the word paradise. Her right hand is tattooed with the phrase trust no one.
First Album
Lana released her debut album Lana Del Ray A.K.A. Lizzy Grant on January 4, 2010 under 5 Points Records. It was only available in the form of digital download. It did not chart at any of the major music charts in any of the countries.
First TV Show
In 2010, she wrote as well as performed in the TV series 90210 in just 1 episode titled “I See London, I See France”.
Lana Del Rey Favorite Things
Artists – Bob Dylan, Frank Sinatra, Jeff Buckley and Leonard Cohen
Song – Summertime (By Janis Joplin), Time of the Season (By The Zombies), Hotel California (By The Eagles)
Movies – The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, American Beauty
Lana Del Rey Facts
She signed her first recording contract in 2007 (when she was 22) with 5 Points Records.
Lana started writing songs at the age of 18.
As a teenager, she had suffered from alcohol dependence. As a result, she was sent to a boarding school, Kent School.
Lana aka Lizzy is an avid fan of English Premier League team Liverpool and Scottish Premier League side Celtic.
She describes herself as a writer first and a singer second.
Her stage name “Lana Del Rey” comes from American actress Lana Turner and a car Ford Del Rey. The name was thought by her managers.
She credits many singers and performers as her music influences like Antony and the Johnsons, Britney Spears, Eminem, Elvis Presley, Kurt Cobain, and Thomas Newman.
She has a tattoo on her left hand as “M”.
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