Lana Del Rey Plays A Bride In "Ultraviolence"

Lana Del Rey's "Ultraviolence" video is nothing like what Stanley Kubrick or "A Clockwork Orange" author Anthony Burgess, who coined the term the singer used for the title of this song and her album, could have dreamed up. Instead, it's an innocuous bridal fantasy, in which Del Rey wanders around outside in a low-cut wedding dress trudging through the woods, wistfully and sensually singing the lyrics to her track. The soft-focus lighting and the 29-year-old singer carries a look that suggest her thoughts are in some distant place, and the visual has a grainy look it and gives off a haunting and eerie vibe.
The laconic, string-laden torch song finds Del Rey exploring the close distance between love and pain. Far from just a casual "A Clockwork Orange" reference, the ultraviolence that Del Rey is singing about is between a husband and wife, and many feel that lines like, "He hit me and it felt like a kiss" serve to glorify domestic battery. The violins, lightly thumping drums and Del Rey's angelic singing gave the song a church-y feel, pointing out that the track presented her title sound.
The song's eerie, controversial title was inspired by Del Rey's connection to the seemingly conflicting emotions of aggression and softness. She explained: "I like that luxe sound of the word 'ultra' and the mean sound of the word 'violence' together. I like that two worlds can live in one." "I like a physical love," Del Rey added. "I like a hands-on love. [Pauses.] How can I say this without getting into too much trouble? I like a tangible, passionate love. For me, if it isn't physical, I'm not interested."
The Francesco Corrozzini-directed direct clip was shot entirely on the iPhone in soft-focus colors and appears to capture the singer's dream state, in its depiction of Del Rey wandering down an overgrown path that's maybe meant to symbolize a long, long walk to a groom? However, on the way to the alter, the enigmatic songstress does stop to suck on an orange and the fingers of a male companion, which almost looks like an orgasmic experience for Del Rey. When she arrives to the alter, no one is in the church except her, leaving her to have one sad wedding day. Poor Lana.

Lana Del Rey Gets Decadent in "Shades of Cool"

During the "Born To Die days," Lana Del Rey made model Bradley Soileau her video muse. As her sophomore full-length "Ultraviolence" finally makes its way out into the world Tuesday (June 17), a new man hits the scene - an older paramour featured in the video for "Shades Of Cool," the second single from Del Rey's sophomore full-length, which is about many things, but her music videos for the album have tended to be about something very specific: entering hopeless relationships with older gentlemen who happen to have slicked-back hair.

Del Rey wrote with the San Francisco-born songwriter Rick Nowels for this slow sweeping and slightly gloomy ballad marked by reverberated guitars, slight atmospherics that contrasts the more pop-savvy swaggering "West Coast," and the song also consists of a chiming guitar, slow-burn bass line, and swelling orchestra which surround Del Rey's vocals that alternate between a hushed whisper and ephemeral wailing. "Shades Of Cool" is the most Bond-sounding single off Del Rey's "Ultraviolence," but the video is more fairy tale than action movie.
It's steeped in the mirage-like American iconography that has colored Del Rey's music in since "Video Games," depicting a romantic fling with an older man. There are also some stylized images involving birds that could be described as "adult Disney." The man in question is Hollywood tattoo artist Mark Mahoney, and he was also featured in the video for "West Coast." In a sense, the videos for both songs kind of bleed into each other, telling the tale of love most certainly primed to go bad. If "West Coast" was all about Del Rey burning down L.A., "Shades Of Cool" is all about dousing it with water.
Directed by Jake Nava and blurring fantasy and reality, the clip opens with a close-up of Mahoney's face, bathed in blue, he drives off into the California sunset as Del Rey writhes in her heartbreak, and eventually very '70s-styled abode. Initially, our "Ultraviolence" heroine appears as a flickering hologram, swaying until she finally finds purchase in the physical world, frolicking with Mahoney through a landscape filled with pools, retro houses and strawberries, but the lines between fantasy and reality mesh further as the nearly 6-minute track haunts ever onward. It's very Gatsby-core.

Lana Del Rey sets two love affairs in 'West Coast'

Lana Del Rey goes all sad and burns up L.A. screen queen in a moody black-and-white music video for her already-sultry dark whispery new song "West Coast," the first cut to be released from Del Rey's sophomore installment "Ultraviolence," which is expected to make its way out sometime this summer. "It is absolutely gorgeous - darker than the first - so it's almost unlistenable and wrong," she reveals what to expect from the upcoming record. As always, we can expect a stunning, cinematic video from Del Rey, the mysterious, melancholy and sun-stroked new clip is about a walk on a beach, a cruise in a car, and flames.
There's something so utterly dark and mysterious and '60s surf-rock sexy ballad about Del Rey's "West Coast" that it makes you want to go get shot by a hot red-lipped gun moll with impeccable taste for vintage threads and left for dead in some remote area of the Hollywood Hills, just to feel the authenticity of the atmosphere. This ode to a guy and the western US seaboard which features a stronger, clearer emphasis on Del Rey's vocals. This is just a haunting, hypnotic piece of music that sends chills up and down my entire skeleton, especially when the tempo shifts downward on the chorus. And, like a nod to her own music, which blends old-world style and modern pop, she strikes up affairs with both young and old lovers.
The minimalist hazy clip was directed by Vince Heycock sees Del Rey hanging out on the Californian coastline through a black and white filter. It starts off with Del Rey narcotically frolicking on a beach with a group of long haired surfer male pals of her age during the day. The group dances around on the beach before dunking Del Rey in the ocean. The video then flashes between the beach scenes and ones where Del Rey is cruising down the coast and around the town while languidly lying on the shoulder of a shades-sporting older lover in a convertible during the night, intercut with scenes that look like they were shot on a low-quality camcorder.
We are getting some serious love triangle vibes from the video, between Del Rey, the surfer guy, and the older gent. When the 'Summertime Sadness' singer is with the older man she's longing to be with the younger guy and vica versa. There's a strong contrast at the end that breakout of the monochrome mood and feature Del Rey in a splash of livid red dress being engulfed in orange flames. We guess love really does burn. The video is Del Rey, well, being Del Rey. It might just be her most Del Rey-y video yet. Watch her frolic in sand and fire below.

Lana Del Rey lets sin & symbolism fly in 'Tropico'

After months of teasing online, Lana Del Rey released her short film for "Tropico" at the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood, and now you can watch the whole thing. The 27-minute passion project is just that: a work of overflowing, era-traversing passion. Ultimately it's a love story. Del Rey's new "Tropico" works, more or less, as a glossy but bugged-out extended-length music video, a pretentious but sensationalistic dive into her center-free aesthetic. As the virgin mother, hints "Tropico" film will send Del Rey's career to heaven.
Del Rey lives to provoke. From her suburban bad girl gangsta pose to explicit lyrics that give us way too much information about which part of her tastes like Pepsi, the singer with the sad eyes lives up to her reputation in a short film accompanying her new EP, "Tropico." The three-song album  features the songs "Body Electric," "Gods & Monsters" and "Bel Air," comes with a super trippy mini-movie of the same name in which Del Rey plays Eve to model Shaun Ross' Adam as the pair glide their way from the Garden of Eden to a brazen stick up and outer space.
"Tropico" is the word kind of lends itself to a paradise and a paradise lost. Del Rey had always had it in her head as the title. The film, directed by veteran Anthony Mandler, puts a contemporary spin on stories from the Bible and opens with the singer and Ross portraying Adam and Even, dancing seductively to Del Rey's "Body Electric" around the Garden of Eden as the aforementioned quartet of Wayne, Elvis, Monroe and Jesus hangs out on the sidelines. Following the inevitable eating of the apple from the forbidden tree of knowledge, the couple are transported to modern day Los Angeles, where Del Rey finds herself transformed into a stripper with a heart of gold, while Ross becomes a bored convenience store clerk.
With life not offering much, the two enter a life of pure debauchery to the tune of "Gods and Monsters," and unsurprisingly, all the guns and boozing lead to an inevitable breaking point. Following the heist and suitably ridiculous celebration, the couple steal away for a nice romantic romp through a field at sunset while Del Rey sings "Bel Air." Ostensibly reborn and cleansed of their sins, the couple put on some white clothes to prove it and then ascend to heaven in each other's arms. The ambition in this extended morality play about love, lust and loss of innocence is hard to deny, as it invokes multiple religious and pop culture figures in exploring the extremes of human experience.

Lana Del Rey has another "Summertime Sadnes"

Lana Del Rey has teamed up with French DJ Cedric Gervais for a dance remix of her haunting trip hop ballad "Summertime Sadness," her biggest chart debut yet from 27-year-old Indie pop singer's debut set "Born To Die," which has seen huge success since its release in January of last year, is one of those rare albums that just keeps feeling fresher as time goes by. The glamorous and classy songstress is currently working on her sophomore studio collection to be distributed under her Lana Del Rey guise.
No one knows what it's like to experience that "Summertime Sadness" quite like Del Ray. The gloomy cut is Del Ray at her most head down and the pouty title alone drew giggles at Del Ray's Bowery gig, but the lovelorn ballad itself proves to be one of the more durable tracks here even if its lyrics start to get redundant. But even though there is a palpable damaged girl in her raspy voice, she commands attention with her lazy delivery. Now, “Summertime Sadness” is climbing the charts due to a new house remix by Gervais, who transforms Del Ray's lachrymose original into a dancefloor stomper, and now there's a video to match, a tale of lesbian love and broken hearts!
An accompanying video for the house remix of "Summertime Sadness," is another vintage home video-styled clip and shows Del Ray as a ride or die chick with actresses, Jaime King and performing the song through a series of vintage and colorful filters. Exactly a year after the original "Summertime Sadness" video's release. The new clip was directed by King's husband, Kyle Newman, shot using a retro, blown-out camera filter, and features cut-up footage of Del Ray and suicidal lesbian lover, King, laughing and smiling together in the beautiful summer weather. Eventually, however, things turn sour and after a teary-eyed fight in a car and some incredibly despondent faces, Del Ray jumps off a cliff and plunges to her demise.
Later, we learn that King has done the exact same thing. It's debatable whether or not the two reunite in a bizarre afterlife filled with coral-colored smoke, but it seems unlikely, as the clip closes with an image of Del Ray and her ghost walking alone down an empty road. Sad, sad times. It's just stitched together with familiar glitchy footage of Del Ray in her conventional Tumblrwave style from the original video, but it's still a nice visual accompaniment; the euphoric house production contrasts with the melancholy aesthetic in that way that feels quintessentially Del Ray and, well, if nothing else, the track is straight fire.

Lana Del Rey is sad but "Young and Beautiful"

Lana Del Rey defines what stunning is in the most enthusiastic music video for the cinematic ballad, "Young and Beautiful," the first single and the official theme song from the soundtrack to the theatrical remake film of the novel "The Great Gatsby," by visionary director Baz Luhrmann. The clip was expected to dropped on April 22, and changed to the same day that "The Great Gatsby" hit theaters on Friday. The dark video is fitting. Simple, emotional, epic and styled perfectly for the films era with typically lush Del Rey.
The alternative rock ballad, "Young and Beautiful," finds Del Rey channeling some of the film's spirit, and the era's fragile glamor. With the lyrics, "Will you still love me when I'm no longer young and beautiful?" Del Rey adds a hint of desperation which parallels the idiosyncrasies faced by the characters in F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel, a story about the young and mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby and his quixotic passion for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan on prosperous Long Island in the summer of 1922. The track falls very much in-line with what Del Rey's fans have come to expect from the singer.
Del Rey's dreamy vocals are draped over sedated strings and canned percussion. The soft and dreary vocals play over an epic backing, making it easy to see how this song would fit within the world of the decadent 1920s, falling in line with her affectation, fit the atmosphere of the 1920s when the novel is set. The lyrics rotate around the themes of pleasing a lover, nostalgia, and the gloom of aging. The song was relevant to the book because of its obsession with decay and the fleeting nature of the good life certainly resonate. It is an artifact of Del Rey's consistently dark tone, and a big, sweeping ballad with piano, violins and Del Rey's warbly delivery.
Directed by Chris Sweeney and shot by Sophie Muller, the dark clip features close-up shots of the 26-year-old songstress in her typical melancholic fashion, sultrily singing with two bedazzled diamond tears on her face, about life, love, age, and looking simply exquisite in 1920s art deco grand hall as an orchestra plays the "Young and Beautiful" notes and elaborated a tale of wealth and power, betrayal and downfall with a full orchestra ensemble backdrop playing the haunting and strikingly somber tune. The clip does not feature any characters from the film, but instead focuses on just the indie pop singer up close and personal, performing her soundtrack contribution.

Lana Del Rey crashing waves in "Summer Wine"

Follows her reverently reserved cover of Leonard Cohen's "Chelsea Hotel No. 2" last month, Lana Del Rey has gone all vintage on us, this time, the 26-year-old singer has teamed up with her boyfriend, Scottish alt-folk band Kassidy frontman Barrie-James O'Neill for another cover of Nancy Sinatra's 1960s hit, "Summer Wine." And like last cover, this one is pretty damn faithful to the original. Saturated in sex, sepia, and her patented smoky voice, Del Rey never disappoints with those vintage-style visuals that she's become synonymous with, and her latest clip is absolutely marvelous!
Lyrically, "Summer Wine" describes a man, who meets a woman, Sinatra, who notices his silver spurs and invites him to have wine with her. After heavy drinking, the man awakens hungover to find his spurs and money have been stolen by the mysterious woman; the subtext of which being they experienced intercourse and as repayment she misappropriated his "silver spurs a dollar and a dime." He then declares a longing for more of her "wine." Another interpretation, often cited, is that the song is an allegorical description of drug use and that the lyric "she reassured me with an unfamiliar line" specifically refers to cocaine.
Del Rey has never downplayed her affection for Sinatra, you might remember she once called herself a “self-styled gangsta Nancy Sinatra” back in the “Video Games” days. Now, out of nowhere, she's covering a song Sinatra made famous and duet with songwriter Lee Hazelwood in 1967. "It's a little more stripped down but still cinematic and dark," Del Rey, has taken an old-school sound as of late, recently said of her new material. "I've been working on it really slowly but I love everything I've done." And yet, O'Neill in true Sonny & Cher fashion, steps in alongside the Paradise chanteuse, and together the two breezily remake the song with handheld footage of crashing Santa Monica waves and canoodling.
The accompanying music video itself is filmed on a Super 8, and like everything else in the visual world today, sees vintage-filtered home video footage of the pair performing the track in their garden, mostly composed of shots of Del Rey vamping it up on the gorgeous sandy beaches of Los Angeles, prances around flower fields and the twosome cuddling as they serenade each other and sparkle in "Summer Wine" for a very '60s effect. Typical Del Rey, being all perfect and whatnot. There's a reason they call her the gangster Nancy Sinatra, after all!

Lana Del Rey Re-Visits "Chelsea Hotel No. 2"

Lana Del Rey - she of bouffant hair, pouty lips and that crooning voice - surprised fans last night by debuting a new eerie video on her Twitter in the most Del Rey way possible with an all-lowercase simply tweet that read "new video." The 26-year-old sultry and melodramatic singer provides vintage visuals for her gentle acoustic rendition of an already gentle Leonard Cohen's classic ballad, "Chelsea Hotel No. 2," that tells an old story of Cohen's brief relationship with the late Janis Joplin.
The Chelsea Hotel, in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, is a famous New York musician breeding ground and cultural landmark with a storied history, and is where Cohen lived when he wasn't at his home in Montreal or his cottage on the Greek Island of Hydra. He chose the Chelsea because he heard he would meet people with a similar artistic bent, which he did. For some years, Cohen would often tell a story about meeting a famous singer Janis Joplin in an elevator of the Chelsea, which led to the sexual encounter he describes in this song, a reveal that he later came to deeply regret.
Redone in a typical Del Rey fashion, a feather-light slow jam, Del Rey is well-suited for Cohen's lyrics, given her often husky and surprisingly agile voice and how much she trucks in nostalgia. She's done '50s Hollywood glamor, been a prim '60s First Lady, and now she is taking on the role of '70s folk period troubadour. All she needs is a guitar and her voice for the soft-spoken cover and sends chills down our collective spines. The forlorn lyrics about the illusory tryst are perfect fodder for romantic fatalist Del Rey, whose feather-light purr captures the uncomplicated tenderness of Cohen's original. The beautifully drifting cover fits rather nicely into Del Rey's continual effort to spin an image of tragic glamor.
Del Rey keeps it simple and tame in her vintage-styled minimal clip, just relatively stripped-down Del Rey herself, singing a faithful version of Cohen's reflective ode. The clip is filled with grainy, sepia-colored footage to give forlorn vibes as Del Rey sitting on a couch in a gloomy dimly-lit room and fumbling occasionally with a Marlboro cigarette and matchbook, Del Rey strikes the same spare, wistful tone as Cohen, and croons lyrics describing a sexual encounter between two lovers in the Chelsea Hotel, many dubbed as New York City's most famous Bohemian hostelry.

Lana Del Rey driving Jaguar in "Burning Desire"

The Queen of sultry pop Lana Del Rey has a new rival. It is a sleek red Jaguar F-Type which competes for attention with the singer in her new music video for her latest sexy ballad, "Burning Desire," the only iTunes track off of 26-year-old indie pop star's third EP, "Born to Die: Paradise Edition," is also being used as the title track to a special promotional film for the new 2014 British automotive Jaguar sports car model F-Type, called "Desire."
The song was written and composed by Del Rey, who literally wrote "Burning Desire" for what will probably be an extended Jaguar commercial dressed up as cinema, and the song is about driving to a booty call, breaking the speed limit in order to get to the object of your desire, even touching yourself in the car. It's got a sensual trip-hop beat, Del Rey's signature impossibly-low growl, an addictive six-note piano hook, and a sultry chorus. It's almost like it was written to be a sex song.
The melody is quite catchy in conjunction with lyrics about riding, cruising, and driving fast with the wind in your hair. "Making art means making tough decisions. I do believe you create your own life path and that you will be rewarded for following your passions and sticking to it. It's just good to know now, with people like Jaguar and working with them, that I'm not the only one out there with such strident, creative beliefs," Del Rey explained.
Del Rey is her usual sultry self in the video, which is basically tastefully done, with the singer taking center stage and performing the song in a historic theater Rivoli Ballroom, looking sultry as she sings behind a microphone stand in her slinky elegant white silk dress in front of red velvet curtains. Shots of the new luxury sports car cruising along flash by as she metaphorically sings about her desire for her man that used a lot of car and driving references. The distinctive venue's eclectic mix of neon-classical, deco style perfectly complements Del Rey's original style which make the overall clip all the more chic and stylish.

Lana Del Rey Frolics With Bikers In "Ride"

Lana Del Rey continues to evade definition with a new sprawling and cinematic video for her new single, "Ride," the lead single from the upcoming re-release of her debut album, "Born To Die: The Paradise Edition," due out on November 13. The epic 10-minute vision of what she says "Country America used to be," will either silence her critics forever, or just add flames to the fire. But, anyone with an open mind can't deny it's one of the most important works in popular music to come around in a long time.
"Ride" is a long, dreamy ballad that swells into full view during the chorus, composed in the indie pop, soul pop, and baroque pop genres. In the song, Del Rey sings over a string-drenched, piano-driven melody. The 26-year-old singer sings what she knows best: loneliness, some daddy issues and day-drinking. All of this is probably a metaphor for something, but honestly, we're still trying to figure out what those "Born To Die" tigers mean. "Ride" is more accomplished than Del Rey's previous endeavors, with the strengths of the track outshining the flaws.
The Antony Mandler-directed video told from the perspective of a character who stumbled across a disconcerting alternate meaning of true freedom. It opens with the now familiar image of Del Rey arching over a suspended tire swing against a desert cliffside, looking bored, or maybe meditative, or maybe sad, or maybe all of the above, as depicted on the single cover, and it's unclear how the tire swing is suspended, with no visible trees nearby. Del Rey amped up on the smokey vocals and narrates: "I was in the winter of my life and the men I met along the road were my only summer." Del Rey expresses how she found sanctuary through traveling, while on tour, because the singer had not had a proper home for a long time.
Following the confession, we see a shifting series of striking images of the singer, joyful on the back of a motorcycle, wandering around sketchy motel parking lots and fulfilling her dreams of a singer at a nightclub as her gang rolls down the highway; alone on the sidewalk outside a city convenience store; composed in a pretty white dress before a performance; back in the desert, wearing a novelty t-shirt, and wrapping herself in an American flag. The video certainly succeeds in crafting a wistful, ultimately lonely backdrop for song's melodrama. Indeed, it can also be seen as simply a continuation of the '60s nostalgia trip that Del Rey began with "National Anthem."

Lana Del Rey falls hard in "Summertime Sadness"

Lana Del Rey showed us her penchant for tragedy when she and A$AP Rocky played the Kennedys in her last video for "National Anthem," and she continues down that road in the hazy new video for "Summertime Sadness," a cut off her major-label debut studio album, "Born to Die," which the 26-year-old raspy-voiced singer describes as "Hollywood Sadcore."
You know that feeling you get on cool nights in the dog days of summer? That tight feeling in your chest as you watch the sunset from your third floor walk-up? Well, most adults like to supplement that with cigarettes and beer, but Del Rey would rather jump off a bridge than deal with that type of twilight sadness. The scenario of "Summertime Sadness" is typical of her debut album, and tells the super true sad love story of two lesbian lovers ending their own lives.
Keeping the buzz alive while sticking with sepia-tones and a healthy dose of melodramatics, Del Rey probes a crumbling relationship in the new video, which was filmed in April in Santa Clarita, California with "Hart of Dixie" actress Jaime King playing her other half, and directed by King's husband, filmmaker Kyle Newman with the help of "Hesher" helmer Spencer Susser - looks like a visual ode to Instagram, which is similar to Del Rey's other videos.
The video is bittersweet with beautifully shot, sepia-soaked and melodramatic, and flickers through mock found footage of the viral singing sensation and her girlfriend enact a love story during their happy days that ends in suicide attempts with both the grief stricken lovers falling in slow motion off of a bridge, suicidal after realizing the irreparability of their relationship. "I just wanted you to know," Del Rey intones as she tumbles slowly into the abyss, "that baby you were the best."

Lana Del Rey pays tribute with 'National Anthem'

Lana Del Rey has just released the music video for her new single "National Anthem," which places her in the midst of John F. Kennedy's final days. With Harlem rapper A$AP Rocky playing the part of the young commander in chief, Del Rey takes on both Marilyn Monroe in her best effort at all its slinky and seductive glory, and Jackie Kennedy, a very loose-hipped, dancing version of the First Lady. This song fits in well with the indie pop intrigue's post-Lizzy Grant cinematic "gangsta Nancy Sinatra" public image.
"National Anthem" is the fifth single taken from Del Rey's debut album, "Born to Die," which peaked at No.2 on the Billboard 200 upon its release back in January. Save for the fact that the song is called "National Anthem," its hard to see how the presidency and death of JFK really figure in here. The takeaway line from the whole song: "Money is the anthem of success." Throwing Rocky into the mix actually makes a bit of sense, as the song was produced by Emile Haynie and Jeff Bhasker, two maestros with resumes rich with hip-hop and rap productions.
"Every so often, I top what I've done, and this video is definitely the most beautiful thing I've ever done," the 26-year-old moody songstress previously said. The Mandler-directed 7-minute epic clip lives up to the hype by coming in with a sprawling nearly eight-minute run time, and boasts a visual ode to money and success more so than a history lesson. Through good performances and gorgeous Super-8 cinematography and a complete indifference to anything related to governing, actually does an amazingly nice job depicting Del Rey and Rocky embrace their characters completely.
The clip begins in black and white, and flashes back in time with Del Rey as Marilyn Monroe sings her seductive "Happy Birthday" to the cigar-smoking President in 1962. The clip then segues to Del Rey as Jackie Kennedy sitting beside her husband during the tragic Dallas motorcade in November 1963 during which the President was assassinated, but as the music fades out, Del Rey leaves the viewer with some food for thought.

Lana Del Rey Strikes A Pose In "Carmen"

Lana Del Rey is back with another visually arresting music video for her new single "Carmen," is taken from Del Rey's first major-label album "Born to Die," which debuted at No.2 on Billboard Hot 200. "The album is a tribute to living life on the wild side. I'm sort of kidding because I'm not that wild any more... I used to drink a lot. Too much," she once said. "I haven't had a drink for seven years now," the 25-year-old singer said.
"Carmen" is a dark tale of pretty-girl psychosis and it narrates the lifestyle of a 17-year-old Hollywood party girls like Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan, and the 'Blue Jeans' singer tries to give hints at how she grew up in the Big Apple and returns to the found-footage motif with a mix of strippers, instructional drug videos and digitally aged clips with vintage, early-1960s appeal that "explains everything" in the newly-released clip. Among the images in the video are blooming roses, athletically gifted pole dancers, as well as clips from a scientific video that explores the chemical effects of crystal methamphetamine.
This cautionary tale of a doomed woman who sells her body on the streets is littered with Coney Island references. Del Rey told The Sun: "Carmen is a song I can't say too much about because it's so close to my heart. It's the song on the record I relate to most closely. It's set partly in Coney Island, a place that's been important to me throughout my New York City career." Coney Island is a peninsula in southernmost Brooklyn, and was America's original Sin City, decades before Las Vegas, and was rife with prostitution.
Spliced into the footage of the video are schematics of methamphetamine and audio blurbs that ask how meth can change your brain. With a siren-like voice, Del Rey is no stranger to the mash-up video style herself and she continues in this vein for "Carmen," and she designates the video as a "BIO PIC" in the video's YouTube description, but it's up to the viewer to decide how much or how little is an authentic glimpse into the life of the singer, who has been widely criticized for relying too heavily on artifice.

Lana Del Rey takes a deadly dip in "Blue Jeans"

Lana Del Rey unleashes her sensual side in the monochromatic new video for her cowgirl anthem "Blue Jeans," the third cut taken from her major-label debut ablum, "Born to Die," which debuted at No.2 on the Billboard 200 chart. The lush-lipped singer and songwriter, has been making headlines since the release of her "Born To Die," and as the release of her latest single, "Blue Jeans," approaches, it appears that the young songstress hasn't lost her ability to stir up controversy.
This sleazy, gangsta track finds Del Rey singing of her love for her blue-jeaned James Dean-lookalike boyfriend. "You fit me better than my favorite sweater," she sings. Her heart is crushed when he walks out on her. The newly released sees the 25-year-old instead in a classic one-piece bathing suit, flashing her patented blend of emotionless allure as she devotes her heart to and then laments the breakup with a pursuant swimmer. Black and white and pulling focus throughout, the video rocks like a boat floating on a calm sea, better to peer deeply into Del Rey's unblinking eyes.
Like many of the songs on "Born To Die," this was inspired by an actual relationship that went sour for the singer. She said in an interview: "It's not my fault that love went bad. I met this person I was going to spend the rest of my life with. We were both clean and sober. We lived together and then he started getting into trouble, and he had to leave. There's a lot of facets to my life, they don't all seem like they would come together. It's been a strange ride."
Del Rey teams up with director Yoann Lemoine and Actor/Model Bradley Soileau again for her new slick black-and-white clip, in which the sultry singer cavorts around a pool in a retro '50s-era one-piece white vintage-looking bathing suit, still looks good. She is pursued by a pair of alligators and heavily tattooed model Soileau. Maybe it defies the laws of nature, but the New York-born singer's red-hot rise will suffer no cool down from the watery dive in her new video. The latest move is just another polarizing ploy by the young singer that has many in the media gawking over her ability to garner attention.

Lana Del Rey Turns Up The Heat In "Born to Die"

Much buzzed-about newcomer Lana Del Rey has unveiled a controversial new music video for her second single, "Born To Die," the moody title track to American Indie-Pop singer-songwriter's forthcoming full-length debut album, will be released in January. The much-hyped singer described the song as a "homage to true love and a tribute to living life on the wild side."
The retro fabulous singer, a Lake Placid, N.Y. native whose real name is Elizabeth Grant, and her stage name is a combination of the late old Hollywood actress Lana Turner and the Ford Del Rey. The 25-year-old bewitchingly pouty indie-ballad goddess whose debut single "Video Games" garnered her a crazy amount of internet ink this summer, and true to polarizing form, the new clip, charting a volatile relationship between stunning Del Rey and a heavily tattooed man, is already got people worked up.
The Woodkid-directed video for the beautifully dour tune features Del Rey sharing a topless kiss in front of an American flag with her on-screen lover and revealing a profile of her right breast while gazing ever-so-sultrily at the camera. A pale-skinned, red-lipped Del Rey, wearing a flower crown and sitting on a throne in a French gothic cathedral between two tigers, and engaging in various displays of affection in and around the car that eventually leads to an explosive car accident that leaves Del Rey bloody, lifeless and splattered corpse in front of a burning background before going back to the opening shot.
As an artist, she's really no worse than any number of singer/songwriters decent drowsy voice, tasteful arrangements as a controversy magnet, she's near-perfect. The lavish promo is all very shadowy and very moody, where Del Rey looks more Ann-Margret than ever. In a Facebook post, Del Rey says "I hope you like it – this isn't the time or the way that I wanted to show you the video but I'm in Beijing with not access to social media, and the video's been leaked from Russia so someone is posting this for me."