Lana Del Rey launches Born To Die

Yes, they are. In case you're wondering. And, judging by the amount Google searches for "Lana Del Rey" and "lips", you may not be alone.

"They're real'', US insta-chanteuse Lana Del Rey says of her debate-starting lips.

"Do I get bored answering that question? Sometimes."

Del Rey does her interviews in on-guard mode these days. She's thoroughly charming, but it has been, as she notes, a bumpy ride of late.

Last May, Del Rey posted her self-made clip for single Video Games online. She fashioned the music video from old Hollywood footage mixed with new skate-park footage and her own pouting at the camera with those in-no-way-not-real lips.

Since then Video Games has had 24 million views on YouTube after going, as they say, viral. It has also launched her as one of the most-discussed, and most-scrutinised, artists in recent memory. You can't buy this kind of publicity. And you can't pay anyone to make it go away.

While the internet launched Del Rey, a legion of anonymous bloggers are now anxious to extinguish her career before her album, Born to Die, is even released. In 2012 nothing gets hipster online traffic than trying to de-buzz Lana Del Rey for daring to appeal to indie fans and hipsters.

"It feels like Lana Del Rey was sent down from the buzz heavens, God's way to save us from the well-documented buzz drought that has plagued us since early 2k10," an anti-Del Ray post on site Hipster Runoff stated.

Already her history has been raked over the name change from Elizabeth "Lizzie" Grant. The rich family bankrolling her. The musical direction switch. The hidden first album. This raking over has been done minus fact checking with Del Rey, who's happy to discuss her mysterious past from living in a trailer park to living in Hollywood.

Believe the rumours and she's a fraud who erased her history, had her first album deleted from iTunes and engineered an indie vibe whilst all the time being signed to major label Interscope.

Not for the first time, Del Rey politely starts some clarification.

"My publicists say that never in the history of their long careers have they ever seen an artist been so fictionalised," Del Rey says.

"I never had anything to hide. My father, he really wasn't a millionaire. I really did live in a trailer park. That's just the way my life turned. I never planned on even telling people about where I lived or what I did. But when the press started finding things out for themselves I had to comment on it."

There's the mythical first album; producer David Kahne who worked with her in 2008 says Del Rey "looks different" now but doesn't sound different from when they worked together.

"I think she wanted to be Lana Del Rey and didn't want to be Lizzy Grant," Kahne told Billboard.

"She wiped (out) this other person. I think she actually thinks that she's that other person, and she probably is. So that was the decision that she made, that she didn't want traces of that whole person around, as far as I can tell."

Del Rey laughs it off – saying it's impossible to wipe out and delete anything, music or photos, in the online era. She's even contemplating giving the album a full reissue.

"My first record was released under (the name) Lana Del Rey. It's not mysterious. It has millions of views all over YouTube. Type in any of the 13 tracks - there they are with 800,000 views on them. You can see the style's actually not that different.

"When I signed to my independent label in 2006 or something, I got $10,000, I moved into my own place and I started making a beautiful record. The only reason it got taken down (from iTunes) was because they didn’t have any money to fund it. There's nothing mysterious about. There's nothing mysterious about me. I've been completely open and truthful about everything."

She admits she chose the name Lana Del Rey because she wanted something that "sounded beautiful" and felt she was creating an art project. She coined the phrase "Gangsta Nancy Sinatra" for herself when she posted Video Games ("the next morning it was recycled all over the internet - I was just kidding"). She says every song from her album Born to Die, except Radio, was written before she signed with Interscope in September; their only input has been marketing and finance.

"Talk to any of the producers I've worked with in the last 18 months. You can talk to Rick Nowels, Justin Parker, Emile Haynie, they worked with me because they loved me.

"The only reason Interscope and Polydor signed me was because I already generated interest. What people don't realise is that record labels don't have money to sign you anymore if you're a new artist, unless you're really young and they can help you mould your career.

"When you're a more seasoned musician you can't pay a record label to sign you. It's unheard of. Just like you can't buy a PR team. They're professionals, they really won't have it. They are either you with you because you already have interest being generated, or because you're 14."

Image: Lana Del Rey came under fire when she appeared on Saturday Night Live without an album available. Picture: AFP Source: AFP.

The Del Rey crucifixion hit a peak after her performance on Saturday Night Live in January.

She was the first musical guest to have no album available in over a decade. Blogs were poised to condemn her. They got their wish.

In truth, their ammunition was nothing compared to Meat Loaf's AFL Grand Final debacle.

Del Rey, still only 25, looked nervous and had a few pitch issues. Perez Hilton said she had “zero stage presence'' even though Video Games doesn't require acrobatics, vocal or physical.

US TV host Brian Williams called it "one of the worst outings in SNL history".

Host that night, actor Daniel Radcliffe, defended Del Rey saying "people are making it about things other than the performance ... If you read what people are saying about her online, it's all about her past and her family and stuff that's nobody else's business. I don't think (the performance) warranted anywhere near that reaction".

Actor/musician Juliette Lewis tweeted: "watching this ‘singer' on SNL is like watching a 12-year-old in their bedroom when they're pretending to sing and perform #signofourtimes."

The only person who hasn’t given their opinion on SNLgate is Del Rey herself. Until now.

"I actually thought it was alright," Del Rey says. "When we were in the studio, everyone really seemed to like it. The cast was happy I was there. (SNL Producer) Lorne (Michaels) was happy I was there. I was clean and sober during my performances. I did it the way I wanted to do it. If other people didn't like it, well, I don't know. It is big television in America, but I do television all over the world. I just got back from Beijing singing for Dior. If they didn't think that show was good there, there's a lot of other shows to watch."

Clean and sober?

"I used to drink a long time ago, but I don't anymore. Sometimes when you do difficult things you think it'd be easier if you were drinking. Regardless of what people say of the performance I did it my way, with my team, I did it healthily.''

As for the backlash?

"It's funny. People really write whatever they want. If they don't like you … well, they're just going to make their opinion heard. Other people may echo that because it's easy to do that. I say this and I mean it, for me it's been such a long life. What really matters at the end of the day is that my family are happy and I'm happy. I work a lot, I love singing, I love my fans. If people didn't think was good, it's still alright."

Del Rey tries to clear up the Lewis mystery, but only makes things more odd.

"Juliette and I are actually friends. She didn't know it was me, because I was dressed up. She'd never seen me like that. She emailed me and said that she was sorry for any sorrow it caused. I love Juliette. It's totally fine. It really is fine."

Lewis later tweeted that Del Rey had "such great haunting melodies" and "regardless of my own taste live she's a fresh and yummy songwriter, period" something most of the media neglected to cover.

“People don’t like good news," Del Rey says. "People like bad news. People like tragic circumstances. The important thing is that Juliette and I are actually friends. Brian Williams and I actually get along. All the stuff they pick up on they don't really know the backstories. Brian Williams slated me as the best artist to come out in 2012 on New Year's Eve. When he wrote that letter to Gawker he just meant they should be covering it because it got such a strong reaction. He actually likes the music and listens to it."

Image: Lana Del Rey performs on French TV to launch Born To Die. Picture: AFP Source: AFP.

While on one hand she's aware of how many hits her videos have had on YouTube, and who's saying what about her, Del Rey says she's backed away from online commentary.

"If you see how many tweets I've made since 2009 it's only 400. I never really planned on conveying my personality through social media."

However she uses Twitter to converse directly with the true believers – she'd told London fans waiting outside a gig that while she couldn't meet them after a show she'd visit them at their workplaces the next day.

"I do know where they work," she insists. "I don't do that with everyone. But with the handful of 50 or 100 people I talk to on a weekly basis it's helpful for me to do that. I means something to me and it means something to them.

"In the beginning, when I realised people weren’t going to say good things (online) I went ‘OK, no point in reading them'. I was curious at first. Regardless of what people say about me online I'm interested in how the internet can bring us together."

The only time Del Rey fires up in the interview is when talking about journalists who've contacted her family as part of a quest to uncover apparent deep dark secrets from her past.

"I did write a note on my personal Facebook asking people to please keep my private life f---ing private," she says.

"Not because I have something to hide, it's because I'm not the only one in my family, I have my sister and brother to think of. This is a shared life. I told people not to say anything. I found out one journalist reached out to 32 people from my home town and I got really upset. She called my grandparents and my uncles...ugh..."

While she may have lost the family name in her professional life, Del Rey says family still come first, no matter what Born to Die does or doesn't do.

"I consider being able to sing and tour and make videos a luxury. It really wasn't the epicentre of my life for a long time. The fact we're even talking about me right now, that isn't the way my life used to be. I wasn't the focus of my life, I have a sister, a brother, a mum and a dad. A big family at home.

"Usually our focus is on the family, the other work I do. I love music, I know what people are saying about me, but it's really not my main focus. Music is a gift for me. It's not my priority. It's something really nice that worked out for me so far."

Born to Die (Universal) out tomorrow

By Cameron Adams News Limited

Creative car crash, or creative genius? What do you think of Lana Del Ray's rise to fame and the new album?

Comment

Was this helpful?
No Very

Name (optional)

Website (optional)

Email Address (optional)

Please fill in the text in the image in the box below

Comment (optional)