Review

Lana del Rey

Video Games/Blue Jeans

Stranger Records • 2011

So what else is there to write about Lana Del Rey? Even before it’ll all begin with the release of her debut album in February, investigative internet-fiends have already dug deeply into the past of the pretty lady and even the ZEIT-magazine decided to quickly put her onto the hotpick-list for the established academic-hipster. Well. It all seems to prove one point: those who try to pull of the grand-dame-image while being a Botox-lipped Lolita, who musically scuttle back and forth between Tom Waits and Cat Power by starting a proper sad-core-feast to finally – and beyond ignorance – cut together a video of snippets from film-noir images, Tumblr-Stills and photo-booth-pics seem to have got it all right. Now, the first double-single, Video Games/ Blue Jeans has been released. As a blogbuster, these songs have already been known since the beginning of the year, but they’ve not lost any of their brilliance, their sublimity and fascination. Lana Del Rey’s voice and lungs have been tarred by countless self-rolled cigarettes and, through the sweetness of sticky bubblegum, her tracks achieve the required amount of kitsch. And when Ms. Rey so wonderfully innocently pouts at you through her teared up »smokey eyes«, it almost doesn’t matter that she pulled a complete Katy-Perry-Rip-Off as Lizzy Grant. Yes, all this is utter window dressing, and there might finally come the point when this insane incarnation of retro-mania could become just a bit too much. Still, despite the media’s excessive attention that is to be expected for Video Games/Blues Jeans, the record is an incredible piece of music – and it’s better to take part in it now and be happy about it, than to wait until Spring when really everyone will be talking about it.

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