With the world rapidly tiring of crazy offstage antics, superstar faces looking more and more alien, and pregnancies sinking singers out of sight, Lana Del Rey has exploded out of nowhere to become one of the best-selling singers of the year. Her Born to Die CD has soared to the top of the charts since its release last month, propelled to popularity on the strength of her viral Video Games YouTube clip that scorched the internet last year with over 20 million hits. Del Rey is the ultimate extension of the web-based fast track to success that many musical artists are using to gain recognition. Armed with savagely sad tunes and melancholy lyrics, her music has swept both the web and the radio waves amid the hysterical fascination with her fabulous looks and faux-naif persona. She’s the Marilyn Monroe of our time, a sultry and often sad witness to love gone wrong. With the Born to Die CD on target to go platinum and holding steady in the top ten in most music charts around the world, Lana Del Rey has created a convincing camp aesthetic of a pop princess in frilly dresses and sneakers. She’s defined herself as a little girl lost amid failed romances and an unfeeling high-tech universe.

"I’ve felt lonely for a long time and a lot of my music comes from a darker place," Del Rey explains, her voice resonating a jarring mix of innocence and cynicism. "I didn’t expect any of this (sudden popularity) and I’m trying to think of what to do next. I’m worried more about my life and finding my way. I was disillusioned with singing before and some of the criticism has made me wonder if I really need music… But I’m trying to feel happier these days."

Del Rey has also met with a withering barrage of critical and popular backlash that was triggered by her now infamous appearance on the American TV show, Saturday Night Live. Suffering from a massive attack of nerves (though she refuses to admit that), Del Rey’s vocals were strangled with fear and her body movements mimicked those of a heavily sedated Patti Smith.

It seemed as if the Lana Del Rey bubble had burst even before the release of her album. But subsequent live appearances on David Letterman and other programs restored much of the luster to her image and upon its release, Born to Die immediately soared to the top of 20 national music charts in the US, UK, and elsewhere. It was one of the most stunning debuts of any singer and just as suddenly as people had predicted her implosion, Lana Del Rey was back on top again. She recently sang in front of a televised audience of 30 million on American Idol, delivering a manically inventive version of Video Games where she gave full expression to her vocal subversiveness.

Some critics have complained, however, that the entire Lana Del Rey phenomenon and persona is a carefully manufactured marketing scheme. That’s hardly a trenchant insight when singers ranging from Lady Gaga to David Bowie to Beyoncé to Madonna have constantly reinvented themselves musically while creating parallel and multiple pop personae.

Del Rey, however, has burst onto the scene with such extreme advance hype that it would have been hard for Beethoven to have lived up to his billing had one of his symphonies been pre-released on the web prior to a live concert.

In person, Del Rey is even more beautiful than she appears on TV or in her videos. She is also as natural and authentic as any performer/pop artist/celebrity could possibly be. She speaks softly and reflectively, and her manner betrays her small town roots, having grown up in Lake Placid, New York. She is not at all that far from her "beautiful girl behind the white picket fence" aura, albeit with David Lynch-like resonance. Despite rumors that her father is a multi-millionaire, Del Rey lived in relative poverty in New York City for several years and struggled to survive as Lizzie Gbefore her metamorphosis into Lana Del Rey ("I wanted a beautiful name to go along with the songs") and Video Games went viral. It was Del Rey herself who selected and edited the stock footage that accompanies the song and evokes with haunting effect the many sad themes inherent in the music.

The 25-year-old Lana Del Rey divides her time between New York, London, and Glasgow. She studied philosophy at Fordham University and gave up drinking eight years ago when alcohol became "a problem."

Lana, your sudden celebrity is almost without precedent. What do you make of the tremendous response to you and your music?

I’m very surprised by it all. It’s nothing I could have expected after basically being ignored for six years. I couldn’t get my songs played and I had trouble booking gigs. No one wanted to sign me and everyone complained that my songs were too long and too dark. I saw people in London and L.A. and no one was interested. It’s so strange that I have a contract now (with Universal Music) and a team of people behind me.

Was it the fact that your songs were ballads that was the problem or that they embraced a sad or dark nostalgia?

I think it was all of those things. Video Games was four and a half minutes long and struck music executives as too melancholy. They said they couldn’t market those songs and they thought my video was too creepy and weird!

You moved to New York when you were 18 and studying at Fordham University. How did your experience living in a big city affect you and inform your Born to Die album?

It was a very difficult journey, if I can describe it that way without sounding clichéd. I struggled for a long time to pay for rent and just make ends meet and during that time I met some people who weren’t really good news. I had to grow up a lot, I guess.

You allude to romantic disappointment and despair in your songs. Obviously you have had some bad break-ups?

It’s difficult to see yourself with someone and expecting so much beauty to come from that and then it all goes bad. I was with someone with whom I thought I would spend the rest of my life. We were both clean and sober and I needed someone who could respect that. It didn’t turn out that way and I couldn’t be with him anymore. But it was hard to accept that especially when I had been struggling with loneliness and then thinking that you found someone you could care about and would care for you and it doesn't work out.

Why do you think that in an era of Lady Gaga and so many other very stylized musicians that people are picking on you for creating a certain image or musical persona?

Thank you for making that point. (Laughs) I don’t think I do a lot to create an image other than wearing dresses on stage instead of wild costumes. The dresses are sometimes a bit retro which suits the music and the images on my videos and that’s really all. I think my vocals and the lyrics are provocative in some way and I can understand that. But I don’t understand the level of anger that some of the criticisms of me have taken on. I want my music to be beautiful and evocative and I’m not trying to do much beyond that.

Your video for Video Games was your big breakthrough. Did you ever expect it to have such an impact?

No. (Laughs) I thought that the images might help attract some attention and win me a small following on the internet and that maybe that would help me get a record deal. I never imagined it would reach so many people. But I worked hard on the video and it gave me a lot of creative satisfaction so I’m kind of proud that people have responded to it so well.

A lot of the lyrics and imagery of your music have a darkish vibe of lost innocence and betrayed expectations. Did you lose your way when you were going through all those tough times in New York?

I was getting into trouble a lot as a teenager and I was pretty unhappy. I was behaving wildly and drinking too much and having a hard time in life. When I went to New York I wanted to start a new life, work on my music and writing, and become an artist. I think that being in New York was a very lonely and also a very stimulating experience in a lot of different ways. I’ve met so many wonderful and strange people since I started living there and all those experiences informed my music and what I wanted to say. Like a lot of artists, your work is a way of dealing and expressing your problems.

Why the title Born to Die?

Some of the inspiration for that was that when I was a young child I kind of freaked out when I realized that my mother and father and I and everyone else I knew were going to die. So somehow that philosophical crisis has stayed with me and the sadness of that first impression is still present in some form.

Loneliness is one of the themes or impressions one finds in your music. Do you still feel as lonely today?

(Laughs) No, I’m feeling better. I think when you finally have some success and people are touched by your music that there’s so much fulfilment in that. But I’m still an introvert and some of my songs are dealing with what happens when you find someone you think understands you and will be there for you and then that dream crumbles. Being lonely and not feeling a deep attachment to anyone is hard to deal with. You want to be able to believe in meeting the right person with whom you can be happy in life.

So many people have written so many things trying to interpret the images behind Video Games…

What’s really strange for me now when I look at it is that I would have changed a lot of things, especially the images of me, if I had known how many people would ultimately be seeing it. I was experimenting with a lot of things and just trying to put something interesting together, not ever expecting that it would generate so much attention. Now that I have a record label and some money behind me, I’m so glad that I won’t have to do my own videos anymore. I’ll have input, but I love the fact that I’m going to be able to work with real professionals. I’d much rather just concentrate on the songs themselves.

Are you a very shy person?

I’m pretty introverted. I don’t easily feel comfortable with people at first and I feel very nervous when I first start to speak or get to know someone.

Is that shyness a problem for you when you’re performing live?

I think my shyness and nervousness have showed up in some of my live performances. I’m getting better at dealing with that and I’m constantly telling myself to relax when I’m up on stage and trying to feel my way into the music and not think about everything around me.

There have been articles quoting you as saying that your music isn’t necessarily that important a thing in your life. Is there any truth to this?

I enjoy music and I enjoy writing songs, but music is not the fundamental thing in my life. I have a lot of interests and I don’t see my life revolving around it, even though I’m very involved in it now. But sometimes when I’ve seen the level of hostility from some critics I wonder whether I really need to deal with this. I’m very happy with the record and the work I did on it. I’m happiest about knowing that so many people enjoy the music and I suppose I should just think about that and not worry about anything else. I think it’s more important to be a good person and live an interesting life. I would like people to think of me as a nice person and maybe I’m naïve for saying that, but it is who I am.

written by JAN JANSSEN|edited by HALEH NIA|photo Courtesy of: SIMON EMMETT