09 January 2013

artifact1: Lana Del Rey

The first time I heard of Lana Del Rey was around June 2011 with her single debut "Video Games". Since then Lana's music and physical appearance has been captivating and interesting to the human eye. Through her single debut, Lana came out with a heart-breaking, morbid, wild yet carpe diem theme album called "Born To Die". Throughout her album Lana also talks about the ups and downs of love and the consequences that come along with it; like not being able to see her hubby on the 'other side'. She also sings about her love for living on the 'wild side' by expressing her love for drugs, vanity, and her version of the American Dream.

The stories that this album tells about human purpose, according to Lana Del Rey, is that life is a way to express one's love for another or something through action. In "Dark Paradise" Lana talks about her love for her lover in a morbid way, however throughout the lyrics Lana talks about her (human) purpose as non-existing anymore because her lover is gone. She therefore goes on to sing more about through her album hence the title of her first track on the album and the album itself.

Throughout Born To Die, Lana Del Rey reveals that life in the empire and/or Kingdom of God is dead. Even though Lana mentions God in a few of her songs, they are technically positive. In her song "Gods and Monsters", Lana goes on to say that her 'perfect heaven' is a heaven in where innocence is lost, wants to get f**ed hard, shooting up, basically doing whatever she pleases or as she sings "doing anything that I needed".

Do you consider Lana Del Rey's lyrics a form of art?

After reading this post, would you still consider listening to Lana Del Rey's music now having a somewhat understanding of what her lyrics are saying?

Assuming that everybody in class is a believer, could you think of anybody else that has similar lyrics and/or 'beliefs' similar to those of Lana Del Rey?









1 comment:

  1. Thanks for sharing about Lana Del Rey, Patsy. She seems like a complicated pop figure, who's attempting to comment on the pop music industry while being used by it. Reading through the lyrics for "Gods and Monsters" and watching the video, I wonder if there's a shift from beginning to end. In the beginning, she seems to mean what she's saying, but toward the end, it seems like she's shifted toward irony, questioning her lifestyle now that she's gotten what she wanted. I feel like I'd need to learn a lot more about her to truly understand what she's up to as an artist.

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