I was in fourth grade the first time I heard one of Lana Del Rey’s songs. I was sitting on the stairs leading into my kitchen when Apple Music recommended me “This Is What Makes Us Girls,” the final song on Del Rey’s debut album Born to Die. I listened to this track through my earbuds as I waited for my dad to finish making me breakfast. I remember being struck by the album cover for Born to Die–I was in awe of Del Rey’s perfect hair and makeup, and was scandalized by the fact that you could see her red bra through her white, see-through shirt. Most of all, I loved that she was looking right into the camera. I felt like she was looking right at me, as her songs expressed feelings I didn’t yet have the words to explain. I was just beginning to understand what it meant to grow up as a girl, and that there was a name for the melancholy feeling I could not shake. I held Del Rey’s music close to my chest; I knew that I was too young to be listening to her sing in her sultry voice about love and drugs and insanity. I understood this even more acutely when I learned what her song “Lolita” was about. I remember reading the Wikipedia page on Vladimir Nabokov’s 1955 novel Lolita and feeling ashamed. This wasn’t something I was supposed to know about, and I didn’t understand why Del Rey would write a song about such an upsetting text.
Since the beginning of her career, Del Rey’s fans have primarily been young women, albeit I was younger than most when I started listening to her music. It’s now been a decade since my introduction to Del Rey, and my love for her has waxed and waned over the years. I’ve watched her go through various controversies via social media, be nominated for (and lose) numerous Grammys, and reinvent herself as an artist. People online are rarely neutral about Del Rey–they either love her or hate her, and the pendulum has swung continuously in both directions over the course of her career. Del Rey’s early albums were steeped in Americana imagery; the American flag featured prominently in the promotional images for her debut album.
Born to Die and was part of her tour visuals for years. Del Rey was always accused of romanticizing the American dream and the American past, but her use of American iconography went much deeper than aesthetics. She situates many of her songs in the past, not to capitalize on nostalgia, but because she is a postmodern writer. She has situated herself within the canon of artists she references, joining the likes of Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan. In a very postmodern fashion, Del Rey has carefully crafted an ever-shifting artistic persona throughout the course of her career. She started her career as a Lolita figure and is now, somehow, a woman from the American South. However, her artistry has largely been taken at face value throughout the course of her career. It’s easier for critics and audiences to write her off as a problematic woman who sings about being sad, so her continual use of cultural signifiers has rarely been given proper intellectual analysis.
I have always known that Del Rey is a complicated and controversial artist, and I was hesitant at times to confront those complexities, as I didn’t want to permanently tarnish my view of Del Rey.
