- Purchase a product from the Music Store sold by Amazon.co.uk and receive £1 to use on any music download in our MP3 Store. Here's how (terms and conditions apply)
Amazon.co.uk allows you to pay for your items in your local currency. Restrictions apply. Learn More. |
Special Offers and Product Promotions
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
Listen to Samples and Buy MP3s
Songs from this album are available to purchase as MP3s. Click on "Buy MP3" or
view the MP3 Album.
|
Product Description
Review
If you want an explanation for the unlikely rise of Lana Del Rey, it isn’t that hard to find. Ignore accusations of cynical marketing and inauthenticity, or speculation about surgery and Daddy’s money – that’s not important. And don’t get distracted by the YouTube statistics or the online hyperbole, this isn’t about new media. It’s about something older and more mysterious than that; the extraordinary, resilient power of the pop song. For all of her trashy Americana and startling beauty, if Del Rey hadn’t arrived last summer with a song as luminously beautiful as Video Games, none of this would be happening.
So the only truly important question about Born to Die is whether there’s more where that came from. Cynics look away: the answer is an emphatic yes. Nothing else quite matches Video Games’ eerie perfection of form and melody – after all, 99% of singers go an entire career without finding one song that good – but several run it perilously close, while revealing there’s more to her than the love-stunned torch singer of Video Games.
What makes Born to Die so richly fascinating – and what marks Del Rey out from the standard issue "I’m hot, you’re hot" pop starlet – is her preoccupation with Hollywood archetypes of American femininity, and her ability to shape-shift between them. So, on the stately, bloodstained title-track, Del Rey plays femme fatale, deliciously stoned and doomed, with an imperious vocal to match. On the addictive, sugar-rushing Off to the Races she’s trailer trash living the high life, her vocal veering deftly between husky cynicism and hiccupping glee; while on the tender This Is What Makes Us Girls she’s the poor little rich girl looking melancholically back on youthful hedonism.
It all reaches its apotheosis on National Anthem where Del Rey, dissatisfied with merely being an all-American girl, becomes America itself, offering up deadpan slogans like "money is the reason we exist" before demanding utter patriotic devotion on the swaggering chorus. If that sounds knowing that’s because it is, not to mention intelligent, ambitious, and more interesting than anything Adele is likely to write even by the time her inevitable 72 collection hits the shelves of the future. It’s also brilliantly realised, thanks to Del Rey’s extraordinary delivery, her ability to slip from deep-toned haughtiness to breathless ecstasy to velvety vamping – often in the same gorgeous melody.
Born to Die isn’t perfect: it slumps slightly towards the end, and the glossy trip-hop production grows wearying on lesser gothic melodramas like Dark Paradise. But it’s the most distinctive and assured debut since Glasvegas’ eponymous disc in 2008, and makes you desperate to see where she goes from here. Del Rey’s defenders can take a break: Born to Die does their job better than they could hope to.
--Lana Del Rey
Find more music at the BBC This link will take you off Amazon in a new window
CD Description
Debut album from 'Video Games' singer Lana Del Rey.
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
120 of 127 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The most exciting new artist for some time,
By
This review is from: Born To Die (Deluxe Digipack) (Audio CD)
Firstly, I want to address the inadequate online loudmouths who seem determined to drive this young woman to a breakdown with the amount of bile they've been spewing in recent months: I don't care about the hype surrounding Lana Del Rey, it doesn't interest me. I don't care that she's changed her name (hardly a new phenomenon in the entertainment industry) or how wealthy her father is. I don't care that she's a nervous live performer - it's hardly surprising given the barrage of attacks she has already faced. Oh, and I certainly don't care whether or not her lips are enhanced by collagen. It's somewhat disturbing that only female singers ever face this kind of harsh scrutiny, but otherwise it's irrelevant.All that matters to me is the music - and the music is sublime. A big part of the appeal is that incredible, shiver-inducing voice; one moment it's a world-weary drawl encompassing all the despair of broken dreams and unfulfilled hopes... the next it's girly and playful with an uncomfortable undercurrent of knowing sexuality (hence the 'Lolita' comparisons). It's perfectly matched by the 'Lynchian' quality of the music, a combination of dreamy, seductive Hollywood strings and grimy trailer-park beats. It's Nancy Sinatra lost in the world of Twin Peaks. Bizarrely a few critics have suggested a certain misogyny is present in her lyrics; they seem determined to remain oblivious to the persona Del Rey clearly adopts in virtually all the songs here - a (sadly not uncommon) teenage girl lacking in self-worth, dreaming only of wealth and celebrity and so desperate to find and hold a man that she willingly accepts indifference or even outright cruelty, telling herself she's in love. It's precisely this which makes songs like Video Games so heartbreakingly tragic. Del Rey is merely portraying (based on personal experience, apparently) the misogyny so many young women still fall victim to, partly because they aren't strong or confident enough to demand the better life they deserve. To sum up: if you liked the singles Video Games and Born To Die, there's plenty more of the same here. The only real problem Lana Del Rey faces is, how do you follow an album as accomplished as this? I for one can't wait to see what she does next.
28 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant discovery!,
By
This review is from: Born To Die (Deluxe Digipack) (Audio CD)
This is an amazing album. 48 hours ago I had never heard of Lana Del Rey...But when I saw the magnificient cover of "Born to die", I had to give it a try.I was hoping against hope that she wasn't gonna be another Katy Perry or Lady Gaga, and she's not! Definitly darker, deeper, Lana Del Rey leans more towards artists such as Kate Bush, Tori Amos or the under-rated Maria McKee (later period) with a hint of Amy Winehouse. A brilliant touch of modernity in the arrangements without ever falling into the cheap "dance" or "r'n'b" format, but rather staying in some sort of ambient style. Overall, the album is very slow and dark (americana comes to mind), the stings arrangements are superb, it is a very atmospheric album, and Lana Del Rey displays a large range in her vocals, from deep "murder ballad"-like singing to bimbo-like whisperings (although not too much thank you!). Only four stars though, because some songs feel more like fillers than anything else and repeat the same scenario. This is an artist I didn't expect at all, and I'm quite pleased to have heard and bought this cd!
130 of 146 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The most exciting new artist of the moment,
By
This review is from: Born to Die (Audio CD)
Firstly, I want to address the inadequate online loudmouths who seem determined to drive this young woman to a breakdown with the amount of bile they've been spewing in recent months: I don't care about the hype surrounding Lana Del Rey, it doesn't interest me. I don't care that she's changed her name (hardly a new phenomenon in the entertainment industry) or how wealthy her father is. I don't care that she's a nervous live performer - it's hardly surprising given the barrage of attacks she has already faced. Oh, and I certainly don't care whether or not her lips are enhanced by collagen. It's somewhat disturbing that only female singers ever face this kind of harsh scrutiny, but otherwise it's irrelevant.All that matters to me is the music - and the music is sublime. A big part of the appeal is that incredible, shiver-inducing voice; one moment it's a world-weary drawl encompassing all the despair of small town broken dreams and unfulfilled hopes... the next it's girly and playful with an uncomfortable undercurrent of knowing sexuality (hence the 'Lolita' comparisons). It's perfectly matched by the 'Lynchian' quality of the music, a combination of dreamy, seductive Hollywood strings and grimy trailer-park beats - glamourous and tawdry all at once. It's Nancy Sinatra lost in the world of Twin Peaks. Bizarrely a few critics have suggested a certain misogyny is present in her lyrics; they seem determined to remain oblivious to the persona Del Rey clearly adopts in virtually all the songs here - a (sadly not uncommon) teenage girl lacking in self-worth, dreaming only of wealth and celebrity and so desperate to find and hold a man that she willingly accepts indifference or even outright cruelty, telling herself she's in love. It's precisely this which makes songs like Video Games so heartbreakingly tragic. Del Rey is merely portraying (based on personal experience, apparently) the misogyny so many young women still fall victim to, partly because they aren't strong or confident enough to demand the better life they deserve. To sum up: if you liked the singles Video Games and Born To Die, there's plenty more of the same here. The only real problem Lana Del Rey faces is, how do you follow an album as accomplished as this? I for one can't wait to see what she does next.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews |
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
