I tried dammit. I tried going into this review without mentioning hype. It’s becoming a byword on this blog and I really didn’t want to do it for fear of repetition. But forgive me general public, for I have sinned and with this particular review, it is an inevitability so hear me out.
Last year, newbies Viva Brother were billed as the next big hope of rock & roll. Prophets sent by the heaven’s to save us from the talent show hacks and generic boredom. Unfortunately for our hearing; Viva Brother’s debut stank up the place and have dropped off the face of earth ever since, another casualty of the hype machine using it’s disgusting mitts onto a relatively average collection of musicians and building them up for reasons of profit and lulz.
But Viva Brother were the latest in a long list of artists billed as music’s next big thing, only to fail miserably. In this day and age, Viva Brother lacked a certain something that can certainly help in terms of revenue. They weren’t twenty-something girls with stage personas, bizarre outfits and/or liberating titillation that boarders on good whoresome values.
Girls are the next big thing in music. Oh sure, Madonna started this trend nearly thirty years ago, but Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Rihanna have basically perfected the outlandish, other-worldly popstar with music that the general public indulge in like a fat kid on cake, but what critics don’t take particularly seriously.
But not all female artists are carbon copy cartoon characters of one another. Last year, Florence and the Machine’s follow-up album was a deep, expansive and impressive album. PJ Harvey released an effective, introspective album of our times on par with her previous excellent work and with artists like Emmy the Great and Laura Marling delivering work that showcase substance without resorting to mania, there’s plenty to pick from.
But obviously, the most successful artist of last year Adele, having situated at number one for nearly a year with her spectacularly average/immensely overrated 21, occasionally giving her peers a chance to sit on the throne before putting them in their place, is the prime example of the change in demographics where women reign supreme in the field of pop music.
But this is 2012, the year of Lana Del Rey. A character conjured up by Elizabeth Grant’s flagging career after a relatively unknown debut album, Grant has reinvented herself as a “gangster Nancy Sinatra” (which as one of The Guardian readers nicely points out, considering Frank Sinatra’s connections, this is a tad moronic) for a technical follow-up with a radical overhaul of not only herself, but eyes on the entire musical landscape.
Her breakout single; the sombre, minimalist Video Games captured the imagination of the general public. The video; a youtube diatribe of a pouty Lana with clips of Hollywood, youth and the occasional cartoon showcased a almost tragic looking figure with a backdrop of iconography was as simple as it was brilliant.
Her potential breakout album; Born to Die. Built as the next big thing, mark your calendars, book the day off work, it’s the biggest thing in the history of everything and you’re all invited for a fee.
But Born to Die, despite it’s hype, despite it’s premise, despite it’s ambition, is unfortunately not a game-changer, in any shape or form.
Opening number Born to Die leads the charge, starting with strings and a slow beat, it goes on for a tad too long with simple lyrics that aren’t particularly inspiring but it does set the tone for the rest of the album and is a somewhat decent opener.
Off to the Races has unsettling high notes for vocals and an RnB inspired chorus with light background noises of what sounds like a playground. Although longer than Born to Die; it has more bang for your buck and flows far better.
Blue Jeans has simple chord progression, lyrics focusing on bad boys and a steady beat. The vocals are more harmonised and easier on the ears. It’s also thankfully shorter than the two tracks preceding it which is a nice plus. Video Games rears it’s delicate soul next, it has a longer outro here but, as with the opening three tracks, there’s notable flaws beginning to pile up.
The first flaw with Born to Die is it’s an album built around vocal performances for a singer whose voice doesn’t excel amongst her peers. The music is minimalist with tints of Hip-Hop and indie pop but they play quietly in the background whilst the song structures focus on Lana’s nasally voice. This peaks with Video Games but never reaches a high as such. She can hit some decent notes but, in a world where Florence Welch, Emmy the Great and even Lady Gaga can deliver stronger performances, it’s an uphill struggle from the opening minute.
The lyrics are simplistic and range from decent to eyebrow raisingly poor. Diet Mountain Dew; by far the poppiest track on the album, is a heavy handed affair with the soft drink in question being used as a metaphor for the downside of sickly love. It doesn’t get much better as each song either deals with unholy trinity of pop subjects; daddy issues, bad boys and unrequited love and never branches to be anything but.
Another is length of tracks and the album in general which boarders to obscene. At their core, the tracks are generally simple two to three minute pop songs and while songs like Diet Mountain Dew, Blue Jeans and even National Anthem offer consistency in terms of running times, the remaining tracks are far too long and overindulgent, showcasing very little yet dragging on for an eternity. From National Anthem onwards it's pure filler, nothing innovative or remotely interesting as the first half of the album and it's damn near painful at times.
By the time This Is What Makes Us Girls; an introspective and attempted empowering song closes the album, it’s simply the eleventh clone of what was first showcased three quarters of an hour earlier. There’s no real revelation or innovations, it’s simply a shallow record with no substance, no meaning and no complexities.
For the brief moments that Born to Die works, it’s strangely ambient but interesting to the senses. Beneath the façade of depth and deep meaning are some genuine good pop moments that showcase an artist who wants to encapsulate a moment with, not so much borderline psychotic momentum like Gaga or Rihanna, but something fragile and at times, tragic.
But these moments are relatively short and ultimately out of place on Born to Die. It’s an incredibly dull record that doesn’t push boundaries, offers very little new to an oversaturated genre and ultimately; is an incredibly shallow record.
A well deserved victim of it's own unjustified hype.
4/10
H
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