Studied philosophy: Who is Lana Del Rey?

Elizabeth Woolridge Grant, better known by her stage name Lana Del Rey, is an American singer and songwriter. Del Rey first started singing in clubs in New York at the age of 18. She made her first deal with 5 Points Records at the age of 20 and released her album Lana Del Rey AKA Lizzy Grant in June 2010. She signed deals with Interscope, Polydor, and Stranger Records and released her first single, Video Games, on YouTube with a music video she directed. After the song and video were shared on the internet, she released her second studio album, Born To Die, in January 2012. The album sold 5 million copies worldwide and became one of the best-selling albums of 2012. Born To Die: The Paradise Edition, a combination of her third EP (Paradise) with Born to Die, sold more than 67,000 copies in the first week and debuted at number 10 on the Billboard 200 chart. Looking at her discography so far, she has 3 released studio albums, 4 EPs, 7 singles, and 13 music videos.

FAMILY

Lana Del Rey was born in New York on June 21, 1985, as one of the three children of Robert England Grant Jr. and Patricia Ann "Pat" (Hill), who worked at the famous advertising and marketing firm Gray Group. Her sister, Caroline Grant, was born in 1988 and her brother, Charlie Grant, was born in 1993. Her mother, Pat, left Gray Group and continued her life as a high school teacher for a long time. Her grandfather (his father's father) Robert England Grant was a very big banker and investor.

BORN TO DIE

Lana's breakout album. The total sales of the album, which was released in 2012, have exceeded 5 million worldwide. It is known as the album in which Lana changed her name, image, and musical style, in short, she was completely renewed and reborn. Lana dominated both the charts and music channels for a long time with her singles 'Video Games', 'Born to Die', 'Blue Jeans', 'Summertime Sadness', 'National Anthem' and 'Dark Paradise'. With all these songs, she became the new phenomenon of the digital world. The fact that Lana herself took part in the writing of all the songs in the album, which was evaluated within subgenres such as baroque pop, indie pop, alternative pop, and trip-hop, proved that the beautiful artist, described as the "phenomenon of the Instagram age", was more than just a "project that was packaged and put on the shelf".

Elizabeth Woolridge Grant (born June 21, 1985), known professionally as Lana Del Rey, is an American singer-songwriter. Her music is noted for its cinematic quality and exploration of tragic romance, glamour, and melancholia, with frequent references to contemporary pop culture and 1950s–70s Americana. Her vintage Hollywood glamour aesthetic is presented not only in her music, but also in her music videos. She is the recipient of various accolades, including two Brit Awards, two Billboard Women in Music, two MTV Europe Music Awards, and a Satellite Award, in addition to nominations for eleven Grammy Awards and a Golden Globe Award. Variety honored her at their Hitmakers Awards for being "one of the most influential singer-songwriters of the 21st century". Rolling Stone placed Del Rey on their list of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time (2023), and Rolling Stone UK named her The Greatest American Songwriter of the 21st century (2023).

CHELSEA HOTEL NO. 2

Everyone knows that Lana Del Rey is a huge fan of Leonard Cohen. In 2013, the singer crowned this admiration by covering one of Cohen's famous songs, 'Chelsea Hotel #2', and making a video clip for this cover.

CHILDHOOD

Lana grew up in Lake Placid, New York. She studied at a Catholic primary school and then moved to high school, where her mother was also a teacher. However, after her mother retired, their relationship at the same school lasted only 1 year. Her interest in singing started from her childhood. She took part in the church choir and started to attract attention and applause with her voice at that time. She later completed high school at a different school, where her uncle was one of the administrators. Her family sent her to this school so that she could end her alcohol addiction, which started at an early age. She enrolled at the State University of New York for her university education, but instead of continuing her education, she went to her aunt on Long Island and started working as a waitress. Around this time, she learned to play the guitar and started performing in nightclubs around him.

DISCOGRAPHY

Lana Del Rey had an EP and an album released before taking this name. After the name change, 3 studio albums (“Born to Die”, “Ultraviolence”, “Honeymoon”), 1 reissue album (“Born to Die: The Paradise Edition”), 3 EPs (“Lana Del Rey”, “Paradise”) ”, “Tropico”), 1 box-set (“The Singles”).

ELIZABETH

Did you know that Lana Del Rey's real name and surname are Elizabeth Woolridge Grant? Now you know.

FEMINISM

Lana Del Rey is one of the names targeted by feminists because she made negative statements about the idea of feminism. She once said, “I don't think feminism is an interesting concept. After saying "I am more interested in scientific ideas that deal with intergalactic possibilities," she said that she did not know much about the history of feminism and said, "If being interested in men makes me anti-feminist, accept it. I am anti-feminist."

PAST RELATIONSHIPS

Who do you think makes Lana write those lyrics? Their exes, of course. Her relationships that have been reflected in the press to date are as follows: Between 2011 and 2014, she was with Barrie-James O'Neill, a former member of the Kassidy group. Later, she fell in love with Steven Mertens, one of the producers of her first album. Afterward, she had a relationship with the owner of the record company she was affiliated with, which lasted for 7 years. (Lana says she is the love of her life.) In 2014, she had a relationship with Italian photographer Francesco Carrozzini. She was once seen leaving the same hotel room as Guns N' Roses frontman Axl Rose.

HONEYMOON

Lana's album was released in 2016. She moved away from the rock waters she entered in her previous album "Ultraviolence" (2014) and returned to her unique style in this album.

JAGUAR

The most striking among the advertising campaigns in which Lana took part was the Jaguar commercial. Lana, who is the promotional face of Jaguar's F-TYPE model, used her song 'Burning Desire' for the vehicle's advertising campaign.

KILL KILL

Lana Del Rey had an EP released when she was still using the name Lizzy Grant. The name of this short album dated 2008 was “Kill Kill”. This EP, consisting of three songs named 'Kill Kill', 'Yayo' and 'Gramma (Blue Ribbon Sparkler Trailer Heaven)', is now a treasure trove for archivists.

LANA DEL RAY

After using the name Lizzy Grant for a while, Elizabeth switched to the name Lana Del Ray. She even released an album under this name and named that album dated 2010 "Lana Del Ray". When the album did not do any business, Elizabeth would go through a change again. The next step was to turn Ray into Rey.

MAY JAILER

Lana Del Rey has a demo that was never released. The name of this demo she prepared in 2005 is "Sirens". Lana was planning to release this demo under her stage name at the time, May Jailer. As you can see, Elizabeth went through quite a few name changes before arriving at Lana Del Rey. By the way, you can listen to the “Sirens” demo on YouTube.

NATIONAL ANTHEM

One of Lana's songs from her explosive album "Born to Die". The song, which was also released as a single on June 6, 2012, tells about one of Lana's turbulent relationships. The song was a hit, especially with its video clip about the assassination of John F. Kennedy. In the clip, we watch Lana as Marilyn Monroe and Jacqueline Kennedy, and ASAP Rocky as John F. Kennedy.

ONCE UPON A DREAM

The song "Once Upon a Dream", inspired by the ballet play "The Sleeping Beauty" by the Romantic period Russian classical music composer Tchaikovsky, has been covered many times until today. One of those who interpreted the song was Lana Del Rey in 2014. Lana recorded the song for the soundtrack album of the movie “Maleficent”.

AWARDS

Lana has won many awards so far. When we consider the most prestigious of these awards, the picture that emerges is as follows: 48 nominations, and 12 awards. Here are some of those awards: 2 Brit Awards, 2 ECHO Awards, 1 GQ Award, 2 MTV Europe Awards, 1 Q Award, and 1 UK Video Music Award.

PRISONER

Lana is not one of those who do duets often, she has very few duets so far. One of them is the duet 'Prisoner' with The Weeknd. The song is included in The Weeknd's album "Beauty Behind the Madness", released this summer. If you haven't listened to it yet, find it on YouTube and listen to it now, it's a wonderful duet!

RIDE

The "Paradise" EP, which was released after the success of the "Born to Die" album, opens with this song. The song was written by Lana Del Rey and Justin Parker and produced by the famous musician Rick Rubin; It touches on the themes of family problems, alcohol addiction, and loneliness. The video for the song is amazing, starting with a long monologue from Lana. In the short film-like clip, we watch Lana's relationship with several different lovers.

SUMMERTIME SADNESS

One of Lana Del Rey's biggest hits. Of course, she appears in “Born to Ride.” The song, which can be described as a trip-hop ballad, is one of Lana's classic steamy love songs. In the video, Lana plays a gay couple with Jaime King.

TROPIC

Lana also made a short film. This movie called "Tropico", released in late 2013, focuses on the story of Adam and Eve. While Lana plays Eve, we watch Shaun Ross as Adam. The film also stars Kevin Lee Right as John Wayne, Lloys Douglas as Elvis Presley, Jodi Fleisher as Marilyn Monroe, and Stan as Prophet Muhammad. We watch in the role of Jesus. The entire 28-minute film, directed by Anthony Mandler, known for her video clips for world-famous artists, is available on Lana's YouTube page. Lana also released an EP called "Tropico", which is like the soundtrack to the movie. This EP includes songs called 'Body Electric', 'Gods & Monsters', 'Bel Air', and 'Tropico'.

ULTRAVIOLENCE

Lana's album was released last year. It stands out as the most extraordinary album of her career so far because she only approached the rock sound in this album. This is because Lana worked as a producer with Dan Auerbach, guitarist, and vocalist of The Black Keys. The songs 'West Coast', 'Shades of Cool', 'Ultraviolence', 'Brooklyn Baby' and 'Black Beauty' from the album were released as singles.

VIDEOGAMES

It is the first song, the first single, that Elizabeth released after making a new start under the name Lana Del Rey. This song, which she wrote together with Justin Parker, tells about a person who watches her girlfriend play video games and can be happy with the simplicity of life. The song became a huge hit with its video clip created by combining amateur camera shots and made the name Lana Del Rey resonate in the music world for the first time.

PLEASURE

Lana has very good musical taste. Her inspirations include Elvis Presley, Antony and the Johnsons, Frank Sinatra, Madonna, Eminem, Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Jeff Buckley, Leonard Cohen and Amy Winehouse. So Lana has a wide-angle taste. She also loves the movies of the '60s and '70s and the music of those movies. In short, Lana reflects a "retro" taste in her life in many ways.