Lana Del Rey’s place in the pop firmament has been ambiguous from the start. At the beginning people argued about her relevancy and authenticity, whether she was a legitimate artist working within the aesthetic culture of hipsterdom, or a corporate shill mining it for major labels to market in a watered-down way to a mainstream audience. After her disappointing coming out on SNL a lot of the anti-Lana contingent gleefully labeled her a flop. The fact that she and her album Born to Die failed to dominate pop’s attention in the way that Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, or even Adele have seemed to confirm that, and since music journalism has become as bubble-fied as political journalism it’s been easy for some often very vocal people to hold onto that view.
But while the song does a good job of sounding like a Lana Del Rey track (I’d give it a B minus), it fails at feeling like one. Del Rey’s appeal, which drives her online cult, goes further than her looks or her charmingly awkward attempts at hip-hop appropriation—much of it comes from how thoroughly existential her portrayals of romance and general existence are, how seductive she can make self-annihilation seem, whether through abusing substances or letting your identity be subsumed within a romantic partner’s. Her songs succeed because they ache, and the major-key self-help that Perri dishes out on the chorus gives us bland chicken soup for the soul where Del Rey would offer well liquor and weed.
