Lana Del Rey responds to criticism received in her early career

Lana Del Rey has opened up about the negative reviews and criticism she received during the early days of her career.

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The artist – who has released several chart-topping albums – spoke candidly about the harsh reviews she got from critics during the start of her time in the industry in a new interview with Harper’s Bazaar.

Speaking with the outlet, she looked back particularly at the response to her 2012 debut album ‘Born To Die’, which was described by many publications as being “inauthentic”.

“I think in one week, The New Yorker, The New York Times, The New York Post and New York magazine agreed that it was the most ridiculous act that had ever come out,” Del Rey recalled in the discussion (via Music News).

“[But] it was 100 per cent authentic,” she added. “It’s just that where I was at the time was malleable in my own life – easy to, like, acquiesce … I kept rereading the idea of somebody who was feigning vulnerability. Perhaps what they saw was what was vulnerable.”

Despite the negative reviews, ‘Born To Die’ went on to become the fifth highest-selling album globally back in 2012, and gave the singer some of her fan favourite hits including ‘Video Games’, ‘National Anthem’ and ‘Blue Jeans’.

She also recalled what it was like moving past the criticism with the follow-up album, ‘Ultraviolence’ in 2014 – the LP which earned the singer her first Number One single.

“That may have been just pure ‘Let’s try and make this work!’ energy,” Lana shared. “I’m sure my intuition in my everyday life was still pretty strong. But with the career, I think it was like ‘Let’s just try and see if we can make this work’ instead of having it come to a brutal end.”

“It’s almost like they were wrong,” she concluded, referring to her initial critics. “That’s all. They just got it all wrong. That’s all.”

More recently, Del Rey shared her latest LP ‘Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd’ earlier this year, which has since been nominated for five Grammy awards ahead of the 2024 ceremony, including Best Album and Best Song.

Elsewhere in the interview, the ‘Video Games’ singer insisted that her voice is “all over” the first version of Taylor Swift’s ‘Snow On The Beach’ after fans claimed they couldn’t hear her on the track.

She also revealed in the discussion with Harper’s Bazaar that she threw out all of her gold Gemini jewellery after discovering that her star sign is actually Cancer.