Born to cry: Lana Del Rey’s debut album swings between brooding lyrics, upbeat melodies
Now that the new year is in full swing, many will look for the next big thing in music: something fresh and different. Audiences will get just that in Lana Del Rey. Her sound — which mixes pop, rock, hip-hop and even grunge — is like no other. And her second studio album, ‘Born to Die,‘ will definitely introduce listeners to something new.
The New York native is the self-proclaimed ‘gangster Nancy Sinatra’ and embodies the persona of a bad girl from her emotional lyrics to her ghetto-fabulous nails. Her songs about being a man’s ‘ride or die’ and proclamation that ‘money is the anthem’ explain it all. But unlike Sinatra, Del Rey offers a vocal range that spans from a sweet and subtle whisper to a low and burlesque kind of moan. She crosses her dark lyrics with beautiful melodies so that the album actually leaves a weird feeling of happy sadness.
Del Rey has a tendency to sing a couple of octaves below the norm and then shoot up to a high, sweet sound a couple of bars later. In the album’s title track, ‘Born to Die,’ Del Rey cracks out a couple of strange melodies and performs them with a subtle whiney sound. For such a beautiful girl, it’s rather strange she doesn’t try harder to sing prettily. In ‘Video Games,’ she sounds a bit like she’s in a drunken daze. Though she counterbalances this with more pure sounding tunes like ‘Radio’ and ‘This is What Makes Us Girls,’ her low and husky sound will definitely be what she’s known for.
Her dark lyrics also make the album stand out. The album is called ‘Born to Die,’ after all. Throughout it, she touches on themes of death, love, loss and overall sadness. Mixed with her moaning voice, it gets a bit depressing. But in many of the songs, she juxtaposes the sad lyrics with an up-tempo beat. In ‘Dark Paradise,’ she sings, ‘I wish I was dead’ in the sweetest voice before the danceable chorus comes in. Then in ‘Summertime Sadness,’ not a happy title to begin with, the chorus is so catchy that listeners may forget that they’re listening to ‘I’ve got the summertime, summertime sadness.’
The day Del Rey puts out a full rap album will be a sad day for music. However, the songs that play on her hip-hop influences are the most interesting. In songs like ‘Off to the Races,’ her infamous moan actually works in the beginning verses to boost her gangster appeal. Her pop inspired interpretation of rapping somehow fits with the hip-hop beat. In songs like this and ‘National Anthem,’ in which she glorifies money like a true G, she shows lots of versatility.
Thus far, Del Rey has been the talk of the town for her unconventional sound — and more notably, her awkward and tone-deaf Saturday Night Live performance. No one can dispute that her music is something different. The album’s beautiful yet somber lyrics, complex melodies and combination of genres produce a rather innovative mix.
Published on February 6, 2012 at 12:00 pm
Contact Ibet: ieinyang@syr.edu
