The title harkens back to Notorious B.I.G. “Quite accidentally, I might add,” she demurred, when asked.
A beautiful young woman with a transcendent talent, a distinct look, and a stage name—one that seemed hotwired to the finely tuned smoke and mirrors of arcane pop theatricality—Lana (née Lizzie Grant) inevitably caused online contention. She was subject to the slings and arrows of outrageous Web-speak. Again, the dolorous texture of rumour around her seemed to have informed a new serenity in the singer. Hey, we all have a past. I suggested that the Oscar Wilde quote “the only thing better than being talked about is not being talked about,” might be playing into her hands. “Oh no, honey,” she rebuked gently, “I have had an entire life of not being talked about. That’s fine.” She seemed to mean it, too.
“You talk about all these things that have happened to me in this short space of time, but the one thing that has really changed is that I now have an audience. I turn up in Glasgow or Manchester or Amsterdam and there are good people waving at me from the crowd. That’s amazing. There are people outside the venue at sound check that want to chat and take a photo.” She has found peace in this response. “Someone showed me their ticket stub and asked me to sign it. You know how much it costs to come and see a show?” She paused. “These people really wanted to see me.” She sounded quietly flabbergasted.
“I’m not competing with those girls,” she said of her MTV-flooding generational contemporaries. “I’m not competing with anybody.”
Prior to meeting her, Lana’s management had sent me a link to some twenty-odd songs she had in a locked file, accessible only by password on the Internet. It has since been deleted. I liked the way she sounded bred on witty hip-hop rhyme schemes and subjected them to the confines of classic songwriting, like Carly Simon incubated in the early ’80s Bronx. I loved her simultaneous reading of high and low culture. When we had said farewell at that bus stop in London, she told me she was flying to L.A. in two days to meet a heavyweight hip-hop producer that wanted to work with her.
“I decided not to,” she said in Cologne. “I’ve kept it family. The beats are being looked after by my beat man. The arrangements are being done by my string man.” There will be no industry grooming for the current and future pop star Lana del Rey. Mostly, she came to the conclusion of this at the record’s playback. You really want to know why Lana del Rey suddenly found Zen?
“I made a really good record. That’s my defense,” she said. That is all. Paul Flynn
Born to Die is available in January from Interscope
Fashion editor Jay Massacret
Makeup Pamela Cochrane using Chanel (OBrepresents)
Hair Anna Cofone using Shu Uemura Art of Hair (Emma Davies)
Manicure Mike Pockock using Nail Rock (Streeters)
Digital capture Edouard Malfettes (Digit Art, Paris)
Photo assistants Antoni Ciufo and Antoine Breant
Stylist assistants Olivia Kozlowski, Mara Palena, Vera Calcagno, Maria Sbiti
Colorist Marc Ramos Makeup assistant Katie Nixon
Retouching Imagin’ Location Spring Studios, London
Creative consultant Johnny Blue Eyes (OBrepresents)
Special thanks Andy Silva, Kimberley Brown (Purple PR),
Town Hall Hotel and Apartments
