Under the guidance of a producer called David Kahne – who apparently signed her on the strength of hearing only one demo - two years later in October 2008, Grant finally released her first three-track EP entitled Kill Kill. This was 2006, and the record label was a small independent called 5 Points Records. Her American audience was particularly savage. The online attacks were vicious and unrelenting the internet trolls feasting on all the digital hearsay. Who was this enigmatic artist, the self-coined “gangster Nancy Sinatra”? Some were saying that Lana Del Rey, far from being a fresh talent, was in fact a reincarnation of a folk singer (with a previously released, unsuccessful album) called Lizzy Grant – cosmetically enhanced (those lips were just too pillowy by far, apparently), label-made, ambitious and, rather than a new discovery, she was a bona fide fraud who sang about living in a trailer when really her dad was a millionaire real-estate developer buttressing her career. It was as if the song was too accomplished, Del Rey too beautiful. But with the praise for the song came a backlash against the singer – all before Del Rey had even officially released a single note of music. Throughout last summer, as the song spread online and across the globe, so did the critical acclaim for the New Queen Of Sadcore. It’s little wonder she’s feeling buoyant considering the news: last night in London she won an lvor Novello award for her single “Video Games” – an honour artists crave, as it’s vindication of their songwriting ability, awarded by their peers - and now she’s been crowned GQ’s Woman Of The Year. As Del Rey puffs away cross-legged on the expensive hotel carpet, speaking her mind, she seems more content than maybe she has been for some time.
For a man, that sort of tease is magnetic. Part of Del Rey’s charm is how such a projected innocence jars against lyrics that drip with a desire to be corrupted: ‘‘I heard you like the bad girls/Honey, is that true?” she sings. Forget the Day-Glo cartoonish eroticism of Nicki Minaj, the geisha-cyber-punkiness of Lady Gaga and Rihanna’s rude-girl swaggering - Del Rey is a very different sort of modern pop star.
Del Rey is sexy but with a dreamy apartness, like an old-fashioned movie star whose name you can’t quite remember from a film whose title you can’t quite place. She’s also exceptionally beautiful: the cascading, auburn hair, those blown-out lips, the thick kohl-dipped lashes. Kooky is the wrong word as that makes her sound like the sort of girl who collects Hello Kitty lunchboxes, wears American Apparel body stockings and draws pictures of unicorns all day long - or someone like Lena Dunham from HBO’s Girls. This isn’t her intention at all she’s as sweet as a peach deep down. Some, like this writer, find it refreshing, others a little too confrontational. Biting her tongue, laying it on the line.
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