The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic by Jessica Hopper Read Free Book Online Page A

impossible.”
    Shortly before the full-length was to be released, Nichtern says Del Rey decided she was unhappy and wanted to add tracks amongst other changes. “It became difficult to go forward,” he explains. Del Rey decided to shelve the record, and 5 Points obliged, striking a deal for her to buy back her masters. Nichtern is adamant that the deal’s dissolution was all aboveboard and there were never any hard feelings. “She is a great artist,” he says, “a real artist. I have always thought so and still do.”
    “It was very unusual,” says Interscope’s Executive VP of A&R Larry Jackson of his first serious meeting with Lana Del Rey. “We sat for an hour and talked, without her playing any of her music. Just conversation, honing in on the philosophy of what she was doing, what she saw for herself. It was a totally unorthodox meeting, and I thought, ‘I’ve got to do this.’” When asked if anyone else was involved, if there is someone orchestrating Lana from behind the curtain, Jackson is emphatic. “The only Svengali in this thing is Lana.”
    “I’ve never understood this controversy about whether she is real or fake,” says rapper/producer Princess Superstar. “All artists have a persona.” A year prior to the Interscope deal, the two women spent a few months honing Del Rey’s songs, with the rapper serving as mentor. “She’s not put together by some company. These are her songs, her melodies, her singing—she’s always had this ‘60s aesthetic. Look at Katy Perry and Beyoncé, and you see that they have a team.”
    Interscope don Jimmy Iovine gave Jackson his blessing to sign Del Rey on the basis of seeing an unfinished version of “Video Games” on YouTube. Del Rey signed a worldwide, joint deal with Interscope and Polydor in March 2011, making her, officially, a major-label recording artist a full six months before anyone was pondering whether the former choirgirl was a plasticine creation.
    II. The Look: Baddest of the Good Girls
    A pretty singer with a cool voice is one thing, but Lana Del Rey fascinates because of the tension in her persona. She’s the good girl who wants it all—the boy, his heart, and nothing short of pop stardom, even if that ambition ends up making you look pretty ugly. In short, Lana Del Rey is Amy Winehouse with the safety on. While Winehouse was unrepentantly bad, Del Rey plays it differently—she’s a bad girl who knows better, the bad girl being held back within the good girl. Her ballads are about self-control (or sometimes lack of it) and being hopelessly dedicated to bird-dogging dudes (“You’re no good for me / But, baby, I want you” goes Del Rey’s “Diet Mountain Dew”). The Lana of “Blue Jeans” and “Video Games” is charmed by the darkness, thrilled by the prospect of losing herself in this bad boy, finding form in his needs. The Lana of these songs is alive in that vicarious freedom—evidence that there’s still some teenage-crazy, ride-or-die bitch lingering around her Chantilly edges. “I’ve had to pray a lot because I’ve been in trouble a lot,” she told GQ last year.
    “I remember that she had really specific feelings about what she wanted to portray about girls,” recalls Kahne. “We were talking about Marilyn and Natalie Wood, these iconic actresses of the ‘50s, and she said, ‘They were good girls.’ She liked that image.”
    “In her, I do see the struggle between the good girl and the bad girl,” says Larry Jackson. That duality was part of what made him want to sign her. After a dinner meeting in Los Angeles last spring, he saw her kick a cab that cut her off as she was walking away. “She cursed out the cab. I saw her do it, but she didn’t see me. She epitomizes the loose-cannon star.”
    In a YouTube video from 2008, back when she was still firmly in Lizzy Grant mode, Del Rey gives a writer from Index magazine a tour of her New Jersey trailer park. Gracious and proud, she smiles easily. It’s a