Ever since she emerged as America’s dark sweetheart over a decade ago, Lana Del Rey has been dogged by accusations that she’s a phoney. Obsessives – and she has always attracted obsessives – speculated on the possible contrivance of that smokey Twin Peaks vampishness, as though we should want our pop stars to arrive on stage straight off the school bus with no thought whatsoever given to image. Her real name isn’t even Lana Del Rey – lock her up!
Well, while she may look in photographs like the last 70 years never happened, since Chemtrails Over the Country Club which featured 10 of her real friends on the cover, on record Del Rey’s life is increasingly an open book. This far into her career there’s no sense that she’s looking for hit singles. She doesn’t sit neatly next to others on Spotify playlists. We must enter her world – she doesn’t care what our world might expect of her – and there’s plenty to see.
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