I have a hard time understanding the obsessions with being lovesick. There are few nonsexual instances in which pain can produce pleasure. I can understand the pleasures of a hangover, for example, the excuse to sleep in late, to wear a ratty sweater and soak up brunch at the local greasy spoon, and to attain that bizarre lucidity that comes with utter dehydration. But heartbreak?
Del Rey is the living incantation of a Tumblr blog, like a giant sigh disseminated with nostalgic revelry, a waxen model with a blank thought bubble, vim without vigor. She bills herself as the “gangster Nancy Sinatra,” but that seems a little redundant. Frank Sinatra’s daughter was predestined to be tough, and her breakout hit “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’” was empowering and buoyant, compared to the tedium of “Born to Die.” Again, Del Rey wants to evoke the symbolism of her heroines, but will she be inclined to look further?
Admittedly, I was inclined to do one thing—dislike her from the jump. Otherwise reasonable voices, most of them gainfully employed journalists, set out to smash her mythology to bits. Has a takedown of such epic proportions ever been undertaken before? Or are these sorts of witch hunts relegated to musicians of the female persuasion?
If you strip away the cinematic production and Del Rey’s brooding contralto, this is the frontier of lounge pop. At its best, trip hop. There’s nothing wrong with that. It helps to explain why the singer who failed, commercially speaking, as Lizzy Grant, reinvented herself. Reincarnation is a second act, but it doesn’t promise to be a good one if the entire play is awry.
And the danger is that this is how Del Rey will be immortalized, if she’s not careful, as an “act,” onstage and off. As Jon Caramanica of the New York Times says, she’s an island. A talented one with striking looks, but also a little damaged. Very much like the discarded Las Vegas showgirl she seems to be channeling, her brand of sexy carries serious baggage.
Her nubile sexuality is charming for now, but one gets the distinct impression that she’ll be marked by a lifelong dissatisfaction that’ll turn her from seductress to shrew.
