![lana del rey born to die song rating lana del rey born to die song rating](https://cps-static.rovicorp.com/3/JPG_500/MI0003/308/MI0003308345.jpg)
The best thing to do is ignore the lyrics easy enough given how magnificently most of the melodies have been constructed. After the umpteenth song in which she either puts her red dress on or takes her red dress off, informs you of her imminent death and kisses her partner hard while telling him she'll love him 'til the end of time, you start longing for a song in which Del Rey settles down with Keith from HR, moves to Great Yarmouth and takes advantage of the DFS half-price winter sale. The problem is that Del Rey doesn't have the lyrical equipment to develop a persona throughout the album. The reckless criminality of their lifestyle is expressed via hip-hop slang – "yo", "imma ride or die", and, a little Ali Gishly, "booyah" – and the depth of their love through romance-novel cliches ("you are my one true love"). It's the lyrics, which in contrast to Video Games's beguiling description of a mundane love affair, are incredibly heavy-handed in their attempts to convince you that Lana Del Rey is the doomed but devoted partner of a kind of Athena poster bad boy, all white vest, cheekbones and dangling ciggie. Nor is it her voice, which is fine: a bit reedy on the high notes, but nothing to get you reaching for the earplugs.
![lana del rey born to die song rating lana del rey born to die song rating](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/37/b1/c6/37b1c69dad3c19b89998176b9f041e0c.jpg)
The one truly disappointing thing about Born to Die isn't the sound, which understandably sticks fast to the appealing blueprint from Video Games and Blue Jeans: sumptuous orchestration, twangs of Twin Peaks-theme guitar and bum-bum-TISH drums. There's always the chance that she's playing a character, although that seems doubtful, because when Lana Del Rey is in character, she really lets you know about it. "No one even knows how hard life was," she sings, "no one even knows what life was like," which does rather invite the response: indeed not, but given that your father was not only extremely wealthy but so supportive that he took to the pages of the Adirondack Daily Enterprise to promote your debut album I'll hazard a guess at (a) probably not that hard and (b) basically quite nice. There's something impressive about her desire to brazen it out, but you do wonder at the wisdom of including Radio, one of those how-do-you-like-me-now? songs in which the singer revisits their terrible struggle to achieve fame.
![lana del rey born to die song rating lana del rey born to die song rating](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/s7aAjX80KOk/maxresdefault.jpg)
![lana del rey born to die song rating lana del rey born to die song rating](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/5c/f5/38/5cf5385b14af5e46847264a3e06392b4.jpg)
Perhaps the arrival of Born to Die will silence the controversy and shift attention to the songs.
Lana del rey born to die song rating tv#
But one off-key TV spot is surely not a career-ending disaster. You can barely hear the music over the carping, which appears to be getting louder as her debut album approaches: a cynic might say that's just as well, given the recent Saturday Night Live appearance in which she demonstrated her uncanny mastery of the vocal style deployed by Ian Brown during the Stone Roses' later years – she honked like the foghorn on Portland Bill lighthouse. She's hardly the first pop star in history to indulge in a spot of pragmatic reinvention that muddies her comfortable background, but you'd certainly think she was. I t's hard not to feel a twinge of sympathy for Lana Del Rey.