Lana Del Rey to re-release first album in order to extend sick sadomasochistic game with music critics
Lana Del Rey's Born To Die finally arrives in stores tomorrow, though the reviews are already coming in and—to the surprise of no one—they're not very good. (Though "it's the album equivalent of a faked orgasm" could be construed as a compliment among fake orgasm enthusiasts.) If we were feeling thinkpiece-y, we would suggest that the off-putting emotional co-dependency at the heart of the LDR persona has been weirdly played-out vis a vis her relationship with the media, which has relished hating her with a forceful compulsion that's far greater than her artistic merits or commercial prospects would normally warrant. (Born To Die selling 20,000 copies in its first week seems like a stretch.) Del Rey sings about trying in vain to impress uncaring boyfriends in her songs, but it's her relationship with music critics that has taken a turn toward the sadomasochistic in reality.
Where does Del Rey go from here? It seems like her best bet is appearing on other people's songs for a while in order to to establish some goodwill. (Pairing up with The Weeknd would be a match made in blog heaven, and it actually makes a lot of sense thematically, since they're essentially two halves of the same romantically fucked-up whole.) But Del Rey for now seems content to move backward, recently suggesting that she's interested in re-releasing her 2010 debut, Lizzy Grant aka Lana Del Rey, "maybe in late summer."
Like so much about Del Rey, conspiracy theories abound about Lizzy Grant, including the assertion that it was pulled after a few months and buried from public view. But a simple YouTube search easily unearths these so-called "lost" tracks, which are less mannered and more contemporary in a singer-songwriter vein than Born To Die. Feel free to check out the songs, though if you're looking for a much better record about overcoming the poisonous entanglements of bad romantic relationships, we think your time would be better spent here. [via Vulture]