Ok, we have to admit. There’s a certain something we find appealing about Lana Del Rey. Maybe it’s her hair, maybe it’s her voice, or maybe it’s those ‘natural’ lips.
Regardless, we’re more than aware that a lot of you detest her. Maybe you don’t like her hair, or her voice, or maybe those ‘natural’ lips.
Or maybe, like a number of music blogs who were found with egg on their face earlier this year, you just don’t like that you were made to believe she was some kind of indie DIY princess risen up to slay the evil sirens of the pop music realm.
But isn’t she? Ok, so she’s been signed to Interscope since pretty much the beginning, and a footballer wrote the melody for her biggest hits, and those lips? Well.
But that does that mean she doesn’t deserve any credit?
After all, Interscope hated her breakthrough hit ‘Video Games’. So much they wanted to can it according to the man who wrote the melody. But Del Rey was convinced the song was a hit and released the track on Youtube without permission alongside a DIY music video.
‘Video Games’ quickly went viral, thrusting the 25-year-old singer into the international spotlight and catching her handlers off guard.
What happened next was nothing short of a train wreck, including her infamous performance on Saturday Night Live.
Her label quickly rushed out the song the song they had originally intended to lead with, Born To Die, alongside a flashy and expensive looking music video directed by Yoann Lemoine.
And thus the media’s bubble of willfull ignorance surrounding the star was burst.
Still, her label pressed on, producing another flashy music video with Yoann Lemoine for Del Rey’s other fan favourite, ‘Blue Jeans’.
But the track failed to enjoy the same kind of chart success as the first two singles, adding to the already general unease surrounding Del Rey following the huge media bashing she’d received.
So it’s back to basics. Del Rey has just released a brand new music video for her latest single ‘Carmen’ and it’s a return to the DIY music videos of the past with Del Rey back in the directors chair.
But is it too late to put the genie back into the bottle?
We now know she isn’t exactly the DIY artist we were led to believe. We also know she has vast amounts of money behind her. And we know that she isn’t exactly the greatest performer live.
You can fool us once, and it’s still up in the air how much of her story was actually fed to us and how much of the folklore her team failed to correct.
But the illusion of DIY is well and truly gone now, and this new music video will do her no favours in fighting accusations of being less than upfront about what is truly going on behind the scenes.
Which is a shame. Because we like gangsta-Nancy Sinatra, even if she isn’t 100% authentic.
