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| Oh, is that a "Bad" multi-finger ring? Ha! Figures. |
Two singles. Mark these words though, LANA DEL REY. Know the name, because you're going to hear it without a doubt all throughout 2012. Lana's debut album is dropping in January. Two singles in and the label is confident you'll pre-order the album. I don't even buy records anymore and I'm about to pre-order this shit.
Lana's voice has something rich, and whiskeyed about it. Aside from the sound, her tone holds some remarkably acquired history. There's some identifiable experience in her lyrics. It's rich, it's honest, it's melancholy, and sexy. And Lana herself. Something about her look is giving me a plastic surgery vibe, but even if she's had a work done, it's actually working with her. So I'm not even mad. This broad is hot and she's giving it fiercely.
Video Games reminds me of the first love encounters: Hours spent smoking blunts, being silly, chilling with your homeys while your boo played Madden with his boys. You know, the hours of corrupted innocence, when the love you'd shared was still magic. "It's you, it's you, it's all for you. I tell you all the time."
Come and take a walk on the wild side
Lemme kiss you hard in the pouring rain,
You like your girls insane
Don't make sad, don't make me cry
Sometimes Love is not enough,
and the road gets tough
I don't know why...
Born To Die reminds me that no matter how powerful, how overwhelming, how destructive, or reconstructive our loves can be, this moment and every one after it will end. Like our lives, everything comes and goes. So is the way of our loves. Oh we feel them, they are powerful and all encompassing - or atleast they can be. And I don't know about you, but I know when I fell for Iain, and when I fell for James those loves took me over; they swallowed me. The Ruth that I was going into those loves died. And I came out a different Ruth after each. Everything that begins - and is born - will end, and will die.
The video for Born To Die is boner-ific too, aside from the love interest being super modelesque for our times, with his tats, and hair, and piercings (how predictable, and still hot!). But there a few super winning shots: The shot where Lana's on the chair with the two tigers gives me major Tarot card vibe - Major Arcana (in the Rider-Waith deck). The character on a throne is repeated a few times from the Empress, to the Justice Card, and Heiropahnt (just to name a few). The all white dressing clearly indicates the virgin quality, that almost goes without saying. The headdress of flowers is symbolic of the Tarot card Strength - typically depicted by a young maiden reaching around the mouth of a lion. You might (or might not) be surprised at how much esoteric knowledge makes its way into our mainstream. I wish more would.
The imagery with the light passing over her in a bed of flowers (the burial) is so super on point. I especially love when she's leaning against the wall and the light passes over her lover in a doorway and he does the "dead" symbol, with one hand across his neck - one side to other, and she repeats the same gesture later in the video. Let's be real, it's been a good long while since a music video was done so supremely well that it was an actual work of art. The video, like the artist, is at once easy to relate to in a modern context, and ripe with repetitive ancient and archetypal characteristics.
It's funny all what you can identify once you know what's all been done over and over, and all what we almost all automatically relate and respond to. Loves it.
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