I remember the first time I heard Lana Del Ray’s voice, I was surfing the web and had the HypeMachine playing in the background and her voice was so beautiful it stopped me dead in my tracks, even though I don’t even normally like music like hers. I just stopped working and was like, who the hell is this?

I did a little more investigating, and as if I wasn’t already in love with her just from hearing her voice, the moment I saw her in her in the music video for Video Games (below), I was done for. And when I found out that she made the video herself, I was even more blown away. Right now she is not that “big” but I know that she is going to be the next big thing and so I will update this page to follow her progress.

In the old days, people used to cut articles out of newspapers and magazine and put them in books of clippings, this my internet version of that:

 

From Wikipedia:

 

[quote]

Elizabeth Grant (born June 21, 1986) better known by her stage name Lana Del Rey is an American singer-songwriter. Her stage name is a combination of the late old Hollywood actressLana Turner and the Ford Del Rey.[2][3][4][5] She calls herself the “gangsta Nancy Sinatra“.[6]

 

[/quote]

 

From a Pitch Fork Interview:

[quote]

Pitchfork: You’ve said that managers and lawyers helped you come up with the name Lana Del Rey, which suggests that you and your music may be crafted by others. Obviously, this isn’t new– you could argue that Elvis was molded by his producers and managers– but how important is it for you to be taken seriously as an artist as opposed to a music-industry creation? Do you think those two things are even in opposition, necessarily?

LDR: I write my songs and I make my videos. Elvis had good management and that’s why he looks well-crafted but actually– other than his custom-made jump suits– he was always a gentleman, always a star, had a face like a god, and a voice like a dark angel. So he wasn’t really contrived– he was just dead cool. That’s why his legacy lives on, because he was actually perfect.

Pitchfork: Your dad is a successful domain investor, but I read that you were living in a trailer park a few years ago. Do you fetishize that trailer park lifestyle?

LDR: My dad is an entrepreneur and an innovator. Being an entrepreneur doesn’t make you a rich tycoon and being an innovator doesn’t mean that you’re successful. It just means that you’re interesting. No one cares that I lived in a park– Dad loves trailers and is getting one in the Everglades. My first record label gave me a small check and I moved into a park near Manhattan. It’s not something I cared to even share but people keep asking me about it. My songs are cinematic so they seem to reference a glamorous era or fetishize certain lifestyles, but that’s not my aim. I’m not trying to create an image or a persona. I’m just singing because that’s what I know how to do.

[/quote]From Just Jared
[quote]On her songwriting:

“My writing process…it’s been the same for a very long time. I never feel rushed. I never feel pressure. I really have a strong idea about what I like to hear and myself write and sing. A deadline never compromises things for me. If I didn’t have the right material, I would never release it.”

On her sound and visual references:

“I keep it really clear. I talk a lot about Thomas Newman’s score for American Beauty. That was a soundtrack I really was inspired by. Giorgio Mirto, I talk about the orchestral work he’s done. Think Thomas Newman score for American Beauty meets early Bruce Springsteen ’sex Americana.’ And put them together, but place it in Miami and have me singing it. That’s what I tell them.”

[/quote]

 

 

The song that got me:

Live On French TV:

Update:

I ended up meeting her after her show at the Bowery Ballroom in December. Since it was her first show back in the US since she had started getting notoriety, there was a little after party at the ball room and she stayed for a while. There was a scout from Saturday Night Life on the balcony, and people from her new Record Label (Interscope). There was also the rest of her friends and family. She was really nice, and I hung out with her in a small group of 4 people. I have never been so quiet in my life. She is the first girl I’ve ever been around that I didn’t know what to say. I was just trying to make sure she remembered me. I think she will.