Born To Die
| Lana Del Rey
Born To Die
Born to Die is the second studio album and major label debut by American singer-songwriter Lana Del Rey. It was released on January 27, 2012 by Interscope Records and Polydor Records. Del Rey collaborated with producers including Patrik Berger, Jeff Bhasker, Chris Braide, Emile Haynie, Justin Parker, Rick Nowels, Robopop and Al Shux to achieve her desired sound. Their efforts resulted in music that the album incorporated alternative pop, baroque pop, indie pop, and trip hop. - Wikipedia
Critic Reviews
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Pitchfork
A collection of torch songs with no fire.
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The Guardian
What it is, is beautifully turned pop music, which is more than enough.
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Rolling Stone
American dreams are tempting, which is why they’re dangerous. Unfortunately, this one is neither.
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Consequence of Sound
Born To Die is where the conversation surrounding the artist formerly known as Lizzy Grant should have begun, and, hopefully, where it will end.
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NME
Beyond the hype, a stunning debut.
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BBC
Intelligent, ambitious and brilliantly realised, Born to Die defies any backlash.
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AV Music
If there is a joke in the song, it isn’t on the boyfriend, but on Del Rey, a one-note vixen who’s so solely self-defined by her feminine allure that sexual rejection undermines her reason for being.
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Slant Magazine
Del Rey may be the pop-star equivalent of a teenage girl naïvely playing dress up in her grandmother’s vintage clothing and singing into a hairbrush that conveniently looks like an old-fashioned microphone, but that doesn’t make Born to Die any less close to pop perfection.
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SPIN
This record is not godawful. Nor is it great. But it’s better than we deserve. We broke her; we bought her.
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Drowned in Sound
I’ve a genuine love for Born to Die
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Albumism
Despite its flaws in several places, Born to Die paints a realistic portrait of addiction, sexual obsession, abnormality, and fear. In many ways, Lana Del Rey is an anomaly in today’s formulaic world of pop music, a young lady who’s runway gorgeous, fascinated with the Old Hollywood era, and confronting her personal demons rather than evading them.
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Pretty Much Amazing
One sound overcomes the cacophony of argument and analysis that surrounds Lana Del Rey, and encapsulates my opinion of Born to Die: the noise of my hand, scraping the top of my head.
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The Telegraph
Lana Del Rey's Born to Die doesn’t walk on water but its misty-eyed retro-pop makes for compelling listening, writes James Lachno.
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Chicago Tribune
"Born to Die" is depressing in several ways.
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All Music
An intriguing start, but Del Rey is going to have to hit the books if she wants to stay as successful as her career promised early on.
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PopCrush
The album is a sexy, sprawling ode to sex and death. There is not much in the way of variation when it comes to the pace of the songs: They are slow and they take their sweet time making their points.
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Paste Magazine
Unplug your modem and these expert pop songs still exist in a world they won’t change. But shutting them out for the sake of it is to deny highly listenable pop songs that defy easy answers
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KRUI Radio
I love the album for what it’s worth: a beautiful sounding pop record. I won’t be coming back to this album for its lyrics.
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Our Vinyl
Despite all of the back-story that has closely followed the album it’s really not bad; weak in places and strong in others.
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CNN
All tabloid tawdriness aside, she unleashes some truly A-level songs. But its baffling failures drop "Die" to a middling, maddening rating.
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The Independent
Born to Die offers them what is effectively a fairy-tale princess fable for our degraded times. No wonder David Cameron digs her.
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Pop Matters
Let's take Born to Die for what it is: a deeply, deeply flawed meditation on love, image, and fame in the 21st century, and a collection of ideas thrown at the wall to see what sticks.
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Velocities in Music
With better lyrics and a more mature approach, this album really could have been something good, but it’s just not.
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Muu Muse
Despite who or whatever she was prior to becoming Lana Del Rey, the rich, romantic stories and sweeping melodies that pour out each gorgeous track off of Born To Die will outlast any hateful headline that ever comes her way.
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Sputnik Music
So, it seems that subtlety, nuance and alt-learnings actually wins the day making this one of the better pop debuts of the 2010’s.
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The Highlander
“Lana Del Rey,” has absolutely nowhere to hide, much less offer up any good explanations for her tarnished image as the next “it” girl of indie pop.
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Entertainment Weekly
Born to Die‘s wild swings between unqualified stunners and bizarre miscues provide no real answers, but they do produce plenty more chum for the message-board sharks.
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Fact Magazine
One major impression that Born to Die leaves, it’s that Lana and the team behind her don’t quite know what she is either.
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Seattle Pi
As it happens, Born To Die is brimming with highlights. To wit, at 12 tracks the entire thing is wonderfully listenable, which is no easy feat, mark you, in this age where mass appeal so often trumps pure artistry.
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Digital Spy
The irony, of course, is that Born To Die is probably the most stunningly refreshing album you'll hear all year. We don't care how she got here; but we for one are glad she did.
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Now Toronto
Much of her music aims to capture elusive emotions, yet she ends up spelling them out with literal refrains, banal narratives and sexed-up histrionics that leave little to the imagination.
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Spin or Bin Music
I know it's all about consistency in an album, but it almost seems as if Lana was afraid to step out of her comfort zone to venture into a different music style.
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Under the Radar Magazine
So the question becomes, is Born to Die more good than bad, or vice versa? Let's err with the former, hype be damned
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What Culture
What this album is though, is proof that Lana Del Rey isnt perfect, but that she may well achieve or come close to it, if we let her.
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No Ripcord
Right from the start, she doesn’t hold any punches and flat out pleas her man to walk on the wild side.
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Mind Equals Blown
At the end of the day the problem with Born to Die is that it doesn’t have the chops to keep a fan of pop like myself entertained.
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Beat Magazine
Either way, Born To Die is only alluring on the surface and difficult to connect with emotionally. The saddest thing, though, is that she’s painted her female song characters with the same limitedness.
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The Line of Best Fit
The issue is that she inhabits each character so unconvincingly that it becomes impossible to truly care about any of them.
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Yuppee
Born To Die is soulful, with elements of pop, hip-hop and jazz.
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Daily Star
Pretty much every track could be a single, especially when she cuts loose with some ghetto attitude and hip hop beats on Diet Mountain Dew and Radio.
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Uproxx
Lana Del Rey’s ‘Born to Die’ slumps on impact.
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DAWN
Lana Del Rey embodies the notions that if you market a product well, if you make it look pretty, and you stick by the old idea of sex sells, people will forgive a complete lack of depth in the field of real artistry.
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Pinpoint Music
Born To Die is a more than satisfactory pop album.
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askmen
Each track offers bespoke positivies, but it’s as pieces of a whole they excel. A carefully choreographed, beautiful monster she might be, but Lana Del Rey and her Dr. Frankensteins have somehow sculpted an album of effortless, laconic quality.
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Daily Mail
Believe (some of) the hype.
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Damez Music
All in all, the dark twisted fantasies, illusions and heartbreaks bluntly announced throughout the record make it nothing less than an almost-superbly-crafted pop album; one that could probably be deemed the 'diamond in the rough' in the depths of today's bubblegum pop music ocean.
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LA Times
This lack of belief in in her protagonist is what ultimately dooms "Born to Die."
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The Amherst Student
Overall, I am definitely a fan of Lana Del Rey’s, and would recommend checking out Born to Die.
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Red Online
The self-proclaimed bad girl of NYC, Lana Del Rey lets rip with her gangsta Nancy Sinatra style debut album, Born to Die.
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Way Too Indie
Lana Del Rey is not just another pretty face who sings nice, she is a serious artist that has a distinct voice and has something to say.
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the pop break
Born To Die could be great, but it’s not and only adds to Del Rey’s persistent detractors.
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