Lana Del Rey's "Born To Die"

 

                What’s up guys! Welcome to the fabulous month of May and I gotta tell you all something. I… stopped listening to rap music. Not forever, but I definitely started listening to other genres a lot more. This is weird because I’ve always loved hip hop and rap, but recently I haven’t listened to anything exciting. After the Young Thug album, I came to the realization that not only is rap the new pop of our age, but now what’s happening is that there isn’t any new music that’s made me want to listen to more. It’s always the same three things: women, drugs, and money. And while I do love the occasional hype song that flexes on others, I feel like we’re losing out on creativity and the potential that music has these days. The new BROCKHAMPTON album was a great example of what I’m looking for because it was a concept album revolving around the harsh times that COVID brought upon us. But I feel like the state of rap is going to be static until there’s something that forces more creativity.

                With that being said, I decided to move on to other artists. The Strokes is an one of the new artists that I’ve been listening to more of, and god damn are they a great band. After listening to their newest album, The New Abnormal, I decided to dedicate an artist spotlight on this new sound. Another artist that I recently found was Lana Del Rey. I’ll be honest, this week was tough on me and a lot of people around me. I had friends that lost their dear pets and some who lost family members. I also had a bad experience this week where I felt like I lost a part of my self-image. One day, I just woke up and was surrounded by these random insecurities and memories that made me not want to be myself. It was hard to get out of that mindset, and in that time of pain I found the album, “Born To Die”.

The key to getting out of a negative mindset in my experience has been finding something or someone that makes you think of life through another perspective. In this case, listening to Lana Del Ray helped me a lot as I saw in this album a woman who chooses to dance with her insecurities rather than be scared of them. She wears her heart on her sleeve as she talks about her bad decisions and how sometimes life is going to want to crush you over them. The first song, ‘Born To Die’ is a great example as she starts her debut project with the idea that if to love is to life, then loving the wrong person means that you’re just ‘born to die’ (idea was taken from Genius page). The song ‘Blue Jeans’ furthers this as she communicates her feelings of being abandoned by a lover she idolized. Even when the lyrics convey a sad moment and her reactions to being alone, she still seems to keep her head up through her voice. This battle for love is something that will be well known after listening to this album through other great songs like ‘Video Games’, ‘National Anthem’, ‘Million Dollar Man’, and ‘Summertime Sadness’. Through her melodic songs of heartbreak and disappointment do we get a picture of a flawed yet proud Lana. She knows she messed up at times, and it cost her both people and good times, yet she’s not afraid to show it. Her flaws are her, and by showing this to us as listeners, she shows that that it’s ok to be human. The soothing vocals in this project were almost like therapy for me because it gave me a lot of strength.

I didn’t expect to find this project, or even listen to this album, but somehow it fell into my lap and I’m grateful to fate for letting this happen. I’m a huge fan of this project, and I’m not sure if I want to do an artist spotlight on her yet but we’ll see. I highly recommend this if you’re also feeling down or unsure of yourself, especially during these tough times. It’s during these moments in life do you really see the beauty in what can help you get back up. Thanks for reading!

**ALL OF THE MUSIC MENTIONED IN THIS REVIEW DOES NOT BELONG TO ME AND ARE OWNED BY THEIR ARTISTS AND MUSIC LABELS RESPECTIVELY**

 

Favorite Songs:  Born To Die, Blue Jeans, Diet Mountain Dew, Radio, Carmen, Summertime Sadness, This Is What Makes Us Girls, Lolita, Lucky Ones