Lana Del Rey is the most searched female in 2012 on Google with more than 722,000,000 searches as per coedmagazine.com. She has earned the title “Queen of the Internet.” Lana seems like a surprising choice until you remember, unlike the rest of the top-five, she only exploded in popularity this year, after her baffling SNL performance, so there were plenty of, “Who the hell is this Lana Del Rey person?” searches. Plus, she had a fling with Axl Rose, became a model, released two albums (one of which, Born to Die, 2.8 million copies).
Elizabeth Woolridge Grant was born on June 21st 1986, She is better known by her stage name Lana Del Rey, is an American singer-songwriter. Del Rey initially began performing in clubs in New York City at age 18 and signed her first recording contract when she was 20 years old with 5 Points Records, releasing her first digital album Lana Del Ray a.k.a.
Lizzy Grant in January 2010. Del Rey bought herself out of the contract with 5 Points Records in April 2010 and signed a joint contract with Interscope, Polydor, and Stranger Records in October 2011. Releasing her debut single “Video Games” in June 2011, a music video created by Del Rey for the song was posted on YouTube for it in August 2011.
After the song became a viral internet hit with over 20 million views, her second studio album, Born to Die, was released in January 2012. The album sold over 2.8 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling albums of 2012. Charting across Europe, the album spawned numerous top ten hits, including “Blue Jeans”, “National Anthem”, “Born to Die”, and “Summertime Sadness.” With the release of her third EP, Paradise, Del Rey spawned her third top ten album in the United States, debuting at number 10 on the Billboard 200 with 67,000 copies sold in its first week. To date, her discography includes two full-length studio albums, three EPs, seven singles, and eight music videos. She has won the Q Award for “Best New Thing”, a GQ Award for “Woman of the Year”, a BRIT Award for “International Breakthrough Act”, and an EMA for “Best Alternative Act”.
Del Rey’s music has been noted for its cinematic sound and its references to various aspects of pop culture, particularly that of the 1950s and ’60s Americana. The singer has described herself as a “self-styled gangsta Nancy Sinatra.” Before signing to a major record label, Del Rey provided sole production of her music videos. Musically, she draws influence from what she deems to be the masters of each genre, including Elvis, Janis Joplin, Eminem, and Britney Spears, as well as from poetry and film noir. Del Rey has endorsed clothing line H&M, serving as the model for their Fall and Winter 2012 collection. In 2012, Del Rey became the face of the Jaguar F-Type luxury automobile.
She is child of domain investor Rob Grant, and was raised in Lake Placid, New York. She is of Scottish descent. Aged fourteen, she was sent to Kent School, a boarding school in Connecticut, to deal with her alcohol dependence, before heading back to her hometown at the age of eighteen. Del Rey then attended Fordham University in New York City, studying a branch of philosophy known as metaphysics. She revealed, “that was when my musical experience began. I kind of found people for myself.”
After her uncle taught her how to play guitar, she “realized she could probably write a million songs with those six chords,” and began performing in clubs 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. When I got to New York City when I was eighteen, I started playing in clubs in Brooklyn悠 have good friends and devoted fans on the underground scene, but we were playing for each other at that point預nd that was it,” she revealed.
Between 2005 and 2006 the album Sirens was recorded under the name “May Jailer” and leaked in May 2012. On April 25, 2005, a seven track compact disc was registered under Elizabeth Woolridge Grant with the United States Copyright Office. The application title was “Rock Me Stable” with another title “Young Like Me” also listed. The track titles are currently unknown.
When she was twenty years old, Del Rey signed a record contract for $10,000 and moved into a trailer park outside of the city. Her album, however, was shelved, causing her to shift her focus. Instead, she began to work in community service. “Homeless outreach, drug and alcohol rehabilitation葉hat’s been my life for the past five years,” she told Vogue in 2012. Felicia Sullivan of The Huffington Post spoke with Del Rey after the release of Kill Kill about her life in the trailer park.
A few years later, Del Rey got signed to 5 Point Records, an independent label of producer David Kahne, with whom she released her first three-track EP titled Kill Kill in October 2008 and a full-length album in 2010, titled Lana Del Ray a.k.a. Lizzy Grant. She explained that “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.”
Del Rey later released her first full-length studio album titled Lana Del Ray A.K.A. Lizzy Grant in January 2010. It was the singer’s first professionally produced album, released under Lizzy Grant on an independent label with producer David Kahne. Her father, Robert Grant, helped with the marketing of the album, which was available for purchase on iTunes for a brief period before being withdrawn.
David Kahne, who produced Grant and previous label owner David Nichtern have both stated that Grant bought the rights back from her label, 5 Points, as she wanted it out of circulation to ” stifle future opportunities to distribute it—an echo of rumors that the action was part of a calculated strategy.” About choosing her stage name she has 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.”
On September 1, 2010, Del Rey was featured by Mando Diao in their MTV Unplugged concert at Union Film-Studios in Berlin. After uploading a few of her tracks to her YouTube channel, Del Rey was discovered and was signed by Stranger Records to release her debut single “Video Games.” She told The Observer, “I just put that song online a few months ago because it was my favourite. 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. The same month, she signed a joint deal with Interscope Records and Polydor to work on her second studio album Born to Die. Del Rey built anticipation to the album by doing a number of live appearances, such as promotional concerts at the Bowery Ballroom and at the Chateau Marmont, and with performances at television shows such as De Wereld Draait Door, and Later… with Jools Holland.
On January 4, 2012, it was reported she had signed a deal with NEXT Model Management agency. Del Rey also performed two songs from the album on Saturday Night Live on January 14, 2012 and received a negative response from critics and the general public. Del Rey’s performance was defended by the evening’s program guest host, actor Daniel Radcliffe, despite not having seen her performance. 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 Lorne Michaels knows that it’s not a fluke decision.” The following week on SNL, Kristen Wiig impersonated del Rey where she humorously defended herself during Weekend Update.
Born to Die was officially released on January 31, 2012 worldwide, and reached number one in eleven countries, though critical reaction was divided.The same week, Del Rey revealed that she 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. Since, Born to Die has sold nearly 2.8 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling albums of 2012. In the United States, Born to Die charted on the Billboard 200 album chart well into 2012, lingering at number 76, after 36 weeks on the chart.
British pop star Cheryl Cole confirmed in May 2012 that Del Rey would write for her new album A Million Lights. Cole described Del Rey as “super-talented”, and talked of how she came to the decision to approach Del Rey, saying: “I noticed Lana about a year ago. I was hearing these songs that were really fresh to my ear and amazing and I asked the guy who she was and he said, “Watch out for her, it’s a girl called Lana Del Rey.” On June 15, 2012, A Million Lights was released featuring the song “Ghetto Baby”, written by Del Rey In an interview with RTVE on June 15, 2012, Del Rey announced she has been working on a new album due in November, and that five tracks have already been written, two of them being “Will You Still Love Me When I’m No Longer Young and Beautiful” and “In the Land of Gods and Monsters” and the other track titled “I Sing the Body Electric,” which was performed and announced as one of her songs at the BBC Radio1’s Hackney Weekend. In an interview with Tim Blackwell for Nova FM in Melbourne, Australia, Del Rey added that her upcoming November release would not be a new album, but more like an EP, which she described as the Paradise Edition of Born to Die. Del Rey stated that the new release would have around seven new songs.
H&M confirmed that Del Rey would be modeling and recording a cover version of the popular 1950s prom anthem “Blue Velvet” for their 2012 Autumn Campaign. On August 22, 2012, executives announced that Del Rey would endorse their new Jaguar F-Type which was unveiled by Del Rey at the Paris Motor Show in September 2012. Adrian Hallmark, Jaguar’s global brand director, explained their choice, saying Del Rey had “a unique blend of authenticity and modernity.”
Del Rey told Vogue Australia that she is interested in working for the movie industry, stating “When I was starting, I had a vision of being a writer for film and that’s what I am doing now. I’m so happy. Hopefully I will branch into film work and stay there. That will be my happy place. I’d like to stay in one place for a long time.” She also told Vogue Australia that she suffers from stage fright when performing, saying “I love to take care of the songs – that’s my natural place – then, when I get on stage that’s not my element.
Sometimes I kneel down because I am trembling, or touch the audience because I don’t know what else to do. She also said that she will not be working on a further album, saying “I don’t think I’ll write another record. What would it say? Everything I wanted to say, I’ve said already.”
Mid-September saw the official announcement of Paradise’s lead single, “Ride.” A music video for the single had recently been shot in the Las Vegas metropolitan area. Two days later, the music video for “Blue Velvet” was released through H&M. Nearly a week after the video debuted, the promotional single was released to airplay and became available for purchase. “Ride” was released the proceeding week as the sixth single from her sophomoric album and the lead single from her third EP. Del Rey’s Paradise Edition of Born to Die was set to be released on November 12. The album became available to preorder, offering an immediate download of “Burning Desire”, in September 2012.The music video for “Ride” premiered at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica, California on October 10. “Ride”‘s video released online two days prior. Critics panned the video as pro-prostitution and antifeminist, the latter being a word attributed to Del Rey’s work since “Video Games.” H&M’s 2012 Winter campaign, featuring Lana Del Rey, was released on October 12. This is the second H&M campaign Lana Del Rey is featured in.
Sixteen bookings for her 2013 European tour were announced the day before Halloween. The countries included were Germany, England, Scotland, Ireland, Sweden, Denmark,
France, Netherlands, Belgium and Norway. The tickets for the Paris concert were sold out within 1 minute and 30 seconds which is why another date was added Five dates were
also added to the United Kingdom leg. Shortly after, three Italian and one Spanish date were added to the tour schedule. Del Rey will also be performing in Russia and the Ukraine.
A promotional video for the closing track, “Bel Air”, was released on 8 November 2012. The video featured outtakes from the “Summertime Sadness” music video. In the video,
Del Rey sings, “Roses, Bel Air, take me there/ I’ve been waiting to meet you/ Palm trees, in the light, I can see, late at night/ Darling I’m willing to greet you/ Come to me, baby.”
Rolling Stone praised the shift in persona Del Rey exhibited in the ballad’s video, noting a significant difference from her usual Americana lounge singer, First Lady Onassis-Kennedy,
and biker chick alter egos.
At the 2012 MTV Europe Music Awards, Del Rey received nominations in the categories Best Alternative, Best Push, and Best New Act. Winning Best Alternative, Del Rey presented
the award for Best Female to Taylor Swift. Following “Ride”, “Cola” was confirmed to be Paradise’s second single and the album’s seventh single With the release of her third EP,
Paradise, Del Rey spawned her third top ten album in the United States, debuting at number 10 on the Billboard 200 with 67,000 copies sold in its first week.
Del Rey stated that she has suffered from alcohol dependence. At the age of fourteen, she was sent to Kent School, a boarding school in Connecticut, to get sober. In September 2012, she told GQ Magazine:
I was a big drinker at the time. I would drink every day. I would drink alone. I thought the whole concept was so fucking cool. A great deal of what I wrote on Born To Die is about these wilderness years. When I write about the thing that I’ve lost I feel like I’m writing about alcohol because that was the first love of my life. My parents were worried, I was worried. I knew it was a problem when I liked it more than I liked doing anything else. I was like, ‘I’m fucked. I am totally fucked’. Like, at first it’s fine and you think you have a dark side – it’s exciting – and then you realise the dark side wins every time if you decide to indulge in it. It’s also a completely different way of living when you know that…a different species of person. It was the worst thing that ever happened to me.
Del Rey’s 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.” She also has the phrase “die young” tattooed on her right ring finger. On numerous occasions, Del Rey has been accused of having had rhinoplasty and lip augmentation, which she denies. She has been in a relationship with Kassidy frontman Barrie-James O’Neill since August 2011.
Awards
2011
- Q Awards Q’s Next Big Thing
- BRIT Awards International Breakthrough Act
- GQ Men of the Year Awards Woman of the Year
- IFPI Platinum Europe Awards Album Title Born to Die
- Ivor Novello Awards Best Contemporary Song
- MTV Europe Music Awards Best Alternative
2012
- UK Music Video Awards Best Pop Video – International “Born to Die”