Why lana del rey

Doin' Time Chemtrails Over The Country Club Ride Mariners Apartment Complex National Anthem Venice Bitch Video Games Artist Playlists See All. Lana Del Rey Essentials Blurring fantasy and reality with a 21st-century dreamer. Lana Del Rey: Influences A post-modern pop star who loves to play with association.

Sometimes the conversation about Del Rey has overshadowed her actual output. Rarely has an aesthetic been so fully formed on a first single — or rather a first music video , edited by Del Rey and posted to YouTube: five minutes of grainy Super 8 Americana with cheesecake shots of the artist lip-syncing into her webcam.

Her mid-century femininity hit a nerve. That hair! Those lips! The lips, too, were suspect. Critics noted this but remained unconvinced. If the first stage of the Lana-versation was marked by a lack of actual content, her disastrous January performance on Saturday Night Live changed all that.

With the benefit of hindsight, she was an inexperienced live performer shrinking from a too-bright spotlight, but few at the time were in the mood to make excuses for her. Enough viewers complained that SNL had to do a follow-up sketch begging the haters to chill. If Del Rey was really so bad for women, why were so many of them buying her record?

Del Rey released a follow-up EP at the end of , another one a year later, then the album Ultraviolence six months after that. Think Lana Del Rey celebrates traditional gender relations?

Del Rey knows how oblivious or even offensive that will come off to many listeners. But she also knows that some will relate. Skip to content Site Navigation The Atlantic. Popular Latest. The Atlantic Crossword. It's this kind of dynamic which has disrupted Del Rey's latest album release. Chemtrails is another critical as well as commercial hit, but its rollout got off to a bumpy start when Del Rey shared its cover art on Instagram in January.

Soon afterwards, she seemed to be needled by comments insinuating that its black-and-white photo of 11 women gathered around a table lacked diversity. In a comment she later deleted, but only after it was widely reported on , Del Rey wrote that the cover photo shows her and her [10] "best friends". She added: "Yes there are people of colour on this records picture sic and that's all I'll say about that but thank you.

Respect it. It's easy to see why this criticism of her album cover touched a nerve. Seven months earlier, in May , Del Rey was accused of racial insensitivity after she complained in an Instagram post that she has been portrayed as less feminist than many of her contemporaries. They also accused her of overlooking the way black women in the public eye have for decades been hyper-sexualised. On this occasion, Del Rey also responded with an Instagram comment , insisting she had simply cited her "favourite" artists and saying it was "sad" to make it an issue involving women of colour.

In both instances, it could be argued that Del Rey simply used social media to state her case quickly and efficiently. But equally, when we factor in her enigmatic image, it's hard not to regard her somewhat hot-headed responses as diminishing the illusion of detachment she has built up. Still, she also acknowledges that because accusations of racism are so serious and "potentially career-damaging", Del Rey "might have felt like she had to address them".

However, Daly says it's difficult to apply the same rationale to Del Rey's decision to speak out "just as strongly" when NPR music critic Ann Powers wrote about her "persona" in a generally favourable review — something Del Rey firmly denied she has.

Del Rey isn't the only contemporary pop enigma to lose her cool recently. Like Del Rey, Sia has built a certain distance into her public image: since , when she sealed her mainstream breakthrough with the US number one album Forms of Fear, she has generally hidden her face behind an oversized wig that has become a clever visual trademark.

By making herself immediately identifiable yet invisible at the same time, she seemed like one of music's smoothest operators. However, she became rather more visible last year — and not in a good way — when she responded to critical comments about Music, her first effort as a film director. When the trailer premiered in November, the film's depiction of an autistic character played by non-autistic actress Maddie Ziegler was heavily criticised.

FURY," she tweeted after engaging in a fiery back-and-forth with actors and activists who were distressed by the trailer. When an overwhelmingly negative response to the film swelled again on its release in February, Sia backtracked by apologising to the autistic community and admitting she had "listened to the wrong people" during production.