CD of The Week

Poor Lana Del Rey. Or is it Lizzy Grant? I can't keep it straight at this point. Not only has she gone through the whole internet hype cycle from dizzying highs to depressing lows in a scant nine months. She went from savior to nadir of pop before even releasing her debut album. Indeed, it's hard to listen to Born to Die without being informed by the maelstrom of buzz and backlash that precedes it. That said, those patient and forgiving enough to look past the debates of her authenticity and debacle that was her Saturday Night Live performance will find what people should have been expecting all along: a promising if tentative statement of purpose from an artist still exploring her sonic identity. Odds are you've already heard the highlights. "Video Games" and "Blue Jeans" remain intoxicating, melancholy masterstrokes that should be able to retain at least some of the good faith that Del Rey has built up and (ostensibly) thrown away. Those two songs would be hard for any artist to top with one record, and Lana wisely doesn't try. She does come close with the slithering "Dark Paradise," which almost sounds like Florence + The Machine covered by Nancy Sinatra. Elsewhere, she surfs a comfortably lush groove of shuffling to meandering beats that recall Fiona Apple and even early Portishead. Will this record change the world? Doubtful, but who said that was Lana Del Rey's intention? Anyone expecting otherwise has only themselves to blame. It's easy to lose sight of the actual artist in the waves of an oversaturating, unforgiving hype cycle. What's really important is whether or not the artist herself does. It's still too early to tell if Lana's lost sight, but we do have a fairly clear idea of her vision. And that should be enough. For now.