She boasts six Grammy Awards, two Brit Awards, and a Golden Globe Award to her name.
Lana Del Rey was born Elizabeth Woolridge Grant in 1995 in New York City, NY. When she was a year old, her family moved to Lake Placid, NY. There, she began singing in her local church as a cantor in the girls’ choir.
At age 14, the singer began struggling with alcohol as a way to cope with depression and anxiety. She was sent to boarding school by her parents to get her sober. After graduating, she lived on Long Island for a year with her aunt and uncle. Her uncle taught her to play the guitar in between her waitressing shifts. Soon after, she began writing her own songs.
Grant moved back to New York City in 2004, where she enrolled at Fordham University. The philosophy major began performing at nightclubs under different names, like “Sparkle Jump Rope Queen.”
In 2006, Grant appeared at the Williamsburg Live Songwriting Competition. There, she met A&R representative Van Wilson of 5 Points Records who ended up signing her. After graduating in 2008, she released a three-track EP, Kill Kill, under the name Lizzie Grant. Her planned album was later shelved by the label, and the singer focused her efforts instead on homeless outreach and supporting those in drug and alcohol rehabilitation.
In 2010, Grant released a self-titled debut album as the alter-ego Lana Del Rey. The album was released in early that year, but was soon pulled from the shelves by the singer because she didn’t believe the label was doing enough to publicize it.
In 2011, Lana Del Rey uploaded homemade music videos for her songs “Video Games” and “Blue Jeans” to YouTube. The video for “Video Games” went viral, catching the attention of Stranger Records. The label later signed her and released the song as her debut single. The same month, she signed a joint deal with Interscope and Polydor Records to release her second studio album.
Born to Die dropped in 2012, supported by four more singles. The song “Summertime Sadness” peaked at number six on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, making it Del Rey’s highest charting single in the U.S. to date. Critics responded with mixed reviews; some praised the album for its distinct sound, while others complained it was too melodramatic. Among fans, though, it was a hit. The album sold 3.4 million copies in its first year and spent 36 weeks on the Billboard 200 chart.
In support of Born to Die, Del Rey made high-profile appearances at the Bowery Ballroom in New York City, and the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles. She also appeared on the TV shows Later with Jools Holland and Saturday Night Live.
Following the release of Born to Die, Del Rey won a number of awards, including an MTV Europe Music Award for Best Alternative Act and a Brit Award for Best International Female Solo Artist. In 2012, she reissued her second album as Born to Die: The Paradise Edition. The expanded album featured eight new singles, which were also made available on the standalone EP, Paradise. Three of the singles comprised the soundtrack for Lana Del Rey’s 2013 short film, Tropico, directed by Anthony Mandler.
Del Rey’s follow-up album, Ultraviolence, arrived in 2014. With its title drawn from Anthony Burgess’ dystopian novel, A Clockwork Orange, the album was produced by The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach and featured the singles “West Coast,” “Shades of Cool,” and “Ultraviolence.” While Ultraviolence was darker and more stripped-back than its predecessor, it has nevertheless garnered similar success, debuting at number one in 12 countries and selling over 880,000 copies in its first week.
In 2015, Lana Del Rey released her fourth studio album, Honeymoon, which marked a return to the more baroque-pop style of her earlier work. The album debuted at number two on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart and peaked at number one in three countries. It was supported by the singles “High by the Beach” and “Music to Watch Boys To.”
Two years later, in 2017, the singer followed up with a hip-hop inspired album, Lust for Life. It debuted at the top of the U.S. Billboard 200 chart, making it Lana Del Rey’s second number-one album. The title track, featuring The Weeknd, peaked at number 64 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
Lana Del Rey’s career showed no signs of slowing down from there. Her sixth studio album, Norman Fucking Rockwell!, was released in August 2019. The soft-rock record received widespread acclaim and was nominated for two Grammys. That September, Del Rey was featured on the single “Don’t Call Me Angel” with Ariana Grande and Miley Cyrus. The song appeared on the soundtrack for the 2019 movie Charlie’s Angels.
In 2020, the singer released her first book — a collection of poetry and photography named Violet Bent Backwards over the Grass. The book was accompanied by a corresponding spoken word album.
Lana Del Rey’s seventh studio album, Chemtrails over the Country Club, dropped in March 2021. This folk record debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 chart, becoming the singer’s seventh Top 10 album in the U.S. She followed it up with Blue Banisters, her eighth studio album, that October. It debuted at number eight on the same chart.
At the beginning of 2022, Lana Del Rey released a new song, “Watercolor Eyes,” which was featured on the soundtrack for the second season of the TV series Euphoria. The singer is currently working on her ninth studio album.
Leer más
