Lana Del Rey can’t seem to catch a break when it comes to invasive and for lack of a better term, creepy as fuck, fans.
Following his arrest last year for camping in Del Rey’s garage, 19-year-old Zachary Self has now been sentenced to 84 days in prison after pleading no contest to stalking. Self was discovered in Del Rey’s home by a construction worker before he was able to come face to face with the singer in November. In addition to the near three months jail time, Self is barred from going near Del Rey for a decade, will be on probation until 2021 and must spend a year in a residential program following his release.
While there was apparently no threat of violence towards the singer, Self proclaimed to have a spiritual connection to Del Rey, having told police that he became obsessed with her under the influence of hallucinogenics. Detectives added that “Based on ramblings in his [laptop] notes, he was clearly infatuated with Lana.”
Self was tracked down after fleeing the property when police discovered that he left behind a court citation for a previous offence – a burglary which took place in Kansas. Detectives used the name (Self) on the citation to track down the 19-year-old. What they found were photos Self had posted online of himself on the balcony of the singer’s home.
The singer has not commented, but it isn’t the first time that she has had to take legal action against fans. Just last week, news broke that she won a restraining order against two Russian fans, Nataliia Krinitsyna and Iuliia Vladimirovna Pozdina, after testifying in a court case. Prior to obtaining the restraining order, Del Rey had hired a full time body guard and moved homes to escape the women, however they found her new residence and resumed sleeping outside her house, screaming her name in the middle of the night.
In a separate incident just days after Self was discovered in the singer’s home, two of Del Rey’s cars were stolen from her house by Icess Floyd. Floyd has since been charged with two counts of burglary and two counts of felony joyriding.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnxpHIl5Ynw
Del Rey isn’t the only pop star of recent times who has had threatening encounters with stalker-fans. In 2010 a Russian student by the name of Anastasia Obukhova wrote a letter to Lady Gaga saying “You come to my dreams. I want to die and I want to die together with you. I am not Mark Chapman. It is not only you who will die. I will shoot a bullet through my head too.” Gaga obtained a restraining order soon after Obukhova attempted to make it to the backstage area of one of her shows.
Del Rey is reported to have feared for her safety following this recent run of events. Considering the long list of celebrity stalking situations (some of which have ended in tragedy) it’s hardly surprising.
Lana Del Rey released her fourth album, Honeymoon, last year.
It’s been alleged that Lana Del Rey has successfully obtained a pair of restraining orders against two Russian girls who reportedly are so obsessed with her that Del Rey fears for her life.
The pair have allegedly “hunted her down”, put violent and threatening letters in her mailbox and even threatened suicide, TMZ reports.
According to TMZ, Del Rey has even hired a full-time bodyguard and off duty LAPD officers to protect her from them and other fans, and even prompted her to move house to shake them – to no avail.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnxpHIl5Ynw
Nataliia Krinitsyna and Iuliia Vladimirovna will now be forced to stay 100 yards clear of Lana and her home. Whether this prevents them from attending any of her live shows in unclear, which presumably would be the ultimate of punishments for a pair of super-fans.
It follows a tumultuous few months for Del Rey, whose 2013 Jaguar Xk was allegedly stolen from her house just a few weeks after a man was discovered living in her garage.
Despite dropping her acclaimed fourth album Honeymoon this year, there’s no tour yet on the cards, much less a tour to Australia. Hopefully now she can get started planning one.
Lana Del Rey has previewed her cover of Daniel Johnston’s Some Things Last A Long Time in the trailer for his upcoming short film.
In the trailer for Hi How Are You Daniel Johnston, Johnston and his past self have a conversation via a message recorded 30 years in the past. Towards the end of the trailer, Del Rey wears a Marilyn Monroe-esque wig and a white vintage lace dress, swaying as she sings the 1990s track and blows a kiss to the camera. Very iconic.
Del Rey was one of the artists who funded his Kickstarter campaign for the film in 2013. Mac Miller also donated.
The Kickstarter page says of the Gabriel Sunday creation:
“We began shooting with a simple outline: an intimate interview between Daniel and his younger self addressing his most prolific and maddening era. Our hope was to bring his stories, memories and art to life. What ensued during shooting was beyond anything our crew could have hoped for. Daniel not only opened up and told stories none of us had ever heard, but embraced and relished the idea of speaking with his younger self, gifting advice and warnings from the future. That became the backbone of our script.”
Her cover comes only a few months after Del Rey released her latest album Honeymoon, in which was her fourth in five years. It sounds as though she’s showing no signs of slowing down.
The film will be available on November 11th. Watch the trailer below.
Sometimes there is a certain essence in the air, and this week in our roundup of the coolest new music videos, it is desire. It has blown in strong with the smells of spring and treated us with a collection of clips that are heavy with longing. Then, just to make sure you aren’t left in a puddle of tears, there are a couple of real bangers to dance it out too.
Get clicking.
Disclosure – Magnets feat. Lorde
Since Disclosure recently dropped their much-anticipated album Caracal (read our review here), the musical world has been eagerly devouring its contents. Now, the striking track Magnets has a video to add to the feast that is a perfect pairing for a glass of red wine and a case of forbidden love. Featuring Lorde, the track is what you would expect from the match up with signature vocals from the songstress and high quality production to match. The stunning lyricism is enough to take a long cab ride home alone too: “Pretty girls don’t know the things that I know.” But where most of us just cry ourselves to sleep, Lorde breaks out in a noir tale of murder. What else did you expect?
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_KfnGBtVeA]
Joy – About Us
Hailing from Brisbane, Joy is a breath of fresh air. With a voice that is so serene it sounds like unicorns, it is hard not to fall in love. We recently chatted to her at BigSound where she won our hearts, and couldn’t be more infatuated by her recent clip for track About Us. Taking place on a low-lit night, the singer wades into knee-deep water, trying to wash herself of a relationship gone bad. The visuals are interspersed with patterns of swelling tides and rippling currents. It’s simple, but lovely. Having already taken out the Unearthed competition to perform at Laneway this year, we are expecting big things from this talented gal as she embarks on her headlining tour next month.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fgCHboFrJM]
Lana Del Rey – Music to Watch Boys To
Pretty ladies submerged in water might just be the flavour of the week, but as usual, Lana shows she is at the top of the game. Her clip for track Music to Watch Boys to is sensual and all kinds of hypnotising. As smooth as a shell picked up from the sand, press it to your ear and be transported. The track is off album Honeymoon, released just a couple of weeks ago, and as the singer says: “…Lends itself to a visual of shadows of men passing by.” The surrealist clip sees the singer on a beach chair surrounded by swirling horns while boys play basketball and kick skateboards. And she is a total babe as usual. Girl power.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kYsxoWfjCg]
Aquilo – Good Girl
English duo Aquilo took me by surprise with their track Good Girl. Not familiar with their languid electro-pop, I pressed play on the clip and watched as the song and the accompanying story unfolded. The track takes melodic tiptoes along, as the video tells the story of a religious evangelist who is bewitched by a kind-hearted but rebellious stranger. It is not as corny as it sounds. I don’t know if it’s just the accents that we hear in the prelude, but the characters are a little bit beguiling and you can’t help but be spellbound as they embark on a journey into the unknown.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpFwCKlSTwE]
No Zu – Ui Yia Uia
There is no other way to put it; No Zu’s clip for track Ui Yia Uia is straight up weird. With taxidermied kangaroos partying alongside an army of body builders in an underground nightclub, it’s a real trip. But, that’s not to say it isn’t really really good. It is contagious and raucous and surprisingly accessible, from a band that have coined their own genre (heat-beat), and sound like this country’s and this decades answer to the B52’s. It’s might not be something you would imagine yourself dancing to, but it’s just unavoidable. All those dirty synths, nonsense vocals and gaudy saxophone (YES! Saxophone!) demand hair flipping, arm flailing good times. Sadly, forthcoming album Afterlife isn’t due out until 2016 so just chuck this one on repeat for now.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWWD2mdK4sA]
World Champion – Avocado Galaxy
The Sydney electronic duo dropped their single Avocado Galaxy last month, and have followed up with a clip that is even more infectious. High res images of space are interspersed with vintage television footage of dancing crowds and badly costumed aliens from an unknown scifi series. It is a sonic journey through a track that makes you want to hit the dance floor, like, now. Directed by Elliott Shields, it captures all the bands cosmic energy and has us pretty excited about what is to come from these guys.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qt10R2XpjIg]
I’ll call it – Honeymoon is Lana Del Rey‘s magnum opus; her masterpiece. If she never makes another song again, that’s okay – we’ve got this and it’s all we’ll need. She would be going out on an almighty high if she were to call it quits right here and now. On Born To Die, it was the transition from Lizzie Grant to Lana Del Rey, documented with a desire for dangerous passion and an innate need to be loved. She craved fame and fortune, but would give it all away in a second to be whisked off on the back of a motorbike with a man your parents wouldn’t approve of. She was old time, glamorous (but from a trailer park) and reminded us all of what America wanted to be just a few decades ago. She was what the “American Dream” of the sixties turned out to be, untouched by history. Timeless.
Then, Ultraviolence and her romanticising about the position she was now in. Likened to The Weeknd and his narcotic-tinged love songs (or rather, he is likened to her), she sung lyrics like “He hit me and it felt like true love” as she moved away from Summertime Sadness and sunny California for Brooklyn Baby and New York. She’d left it all behind in search of love, and now was convincing herself this was what she had always wanted. She is perfectly fine to give her entire existence to the man she loves, regardless of what he does to her in return. After all, he loves her too, right?
Now, we come to Honeymoon, and the third chapter in the chronicles of Del Rey. She’s famous, rich, adored and should be happy – but there’s something wrong. The cracks you thought were there in Ultraviolence are still there. She almost sounds bored. But, she is at her most powerful and her most artistic. She has taken us with her over the last few years, getting us ready for this moment, the moment where she can be herself. And with that, she effortlessly, woozily, seamlessly and enchantingly takes us on her honeymoon. This should be the happiest time in her life, except it isn’t. Her all-consuming devotion has made her a sitting duck, and now she is taking it upon herself to expose the flaws that she was too naive to see (or maybe she just plain didn’t want to). Demonstrating the full effect and influence of her artistry, Lana takes the final step in creating an entire league of her own. She has finally arrived.
The cinematic strings of the title track open the album like a pair of velvet curtains being drawn back to reveal our star, Lana, lounging as she sings the first lyrics, “We both know that it’s not fashionable to love me”. Exposing, raw, real and – as always – dramatic, you can almost picture her with her hand on her forehead in a “woe is me” sigh. Her voice is it’s most powerful, her warbling and solemn delivery makes a beeline for your heartstrings. You can’t help but feel her forlorn uncertainty, but also dangerously addictive love. A honeymoon has never sounded more unnerving or unsettling as she begs, “Say you want me too”.
She flirts with danger, and just wants to be loved. She speaks when spoken to, but happily peers over her sunglasses as she quietly observes like is Music To Watch Boys To. However, her all-consuming devotion remains on full display in tracks like Terrence Loves You. She’s in that type of love that slowly kills you; that turns you into a depressed and desperate shell of yourself. She sings of dancing to The Eagles and feeling free when she sees no one and when nobody knows her name in God Knows I’ve Tried, an exhausted ode to what once was and what she’s been through. Her voice is magnificent, her lyrics are exposing and raw as she sings “I’ve got nothing more to live for ever since I found my fame”. This is also the one of the very few songs she has that does not mention a man, and is also one of her absolute best. Her realness continues with High By The Beach, where she sounds tired and, frankly, over whoever it is she is singing about. “The truth is I never bought into your bullshit” she shrugs, the gut-wrenching and agonising love she sung about just a few songs before long gone. Instead, we now here Lana 2.0, who just wanted to get high by the beach. Even the video for this track shows how over it she is, in which she literally guns down a helicopter with a bazooka for not leaving her alone. She’s bored, and wants to be alone.
As the album progresses, it’s also evident that Lana’s progression has also made her confident to mix up her signature sounds, as she starts to work with trap style beats, intricate soundscapes and a multitude of sounds far away from her Born To Die days. Freak, in which she sounds so inviting when she tells you to come to California and be like her, and High By The Beach particularly showcasing these new styles. Is it that she no longer has to prove who she is that she now feels comfortable to try new things, or is it that she still has some proving to do and is going to do it this way?
From here, Art Deco (my least favourite song), Religion (where we once again revisit just how much she is capable of loving someone), Salvatore (with her vocal strength on full display) and The Blackest Day (one of the best songs she’s ever made), you get the feeling these songs already exist – but in the best way possibly. They’re so quintessentially Lana; they’re familiar, without sounds monotonous nor repetitive or overdone. They’re just Lana, being Lana. No matter how sick and tired she gets, she can’t change who she is and she goes through phases of acceptance and wanting to rebel. Just like the rest of us.
“I don’t really want to break up / We got it goin’ on,” Lana reasons in The Blackest Day, before lamenting about her black days since her “baby went away”. The song plunges as she sings about going deeper, harder, darker “looking for love in all the wrong places”. She exclaims in frustration at herself and her devastation in the aftermath of a breakup. Her love is gone, and she’s left alone. As the song progresses, so too does she through her grief as she finally reaches acceptance, repeating the realisation she’s on her own again. In 24, her lust is powerful but she’s starting to slip, realising probably what her mother told her – “If you lie down with dogs you’ll get fleas / Be careful of the company you keep.” And with that, we reach her Swan Song, her final ode to leaving it all behind and being “free”. That’s all she wanted. After an astounding Nina Simone cover in the form of Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood, she’s done. Gone. Will we ever hear from her again? Has she been whisked off into the sunset once more on that motorbike she so desperately craves?
Say what you want about Lana Del Rey, but the fact that she has managed three albums with some of the most bare, revealing and honest songs we’ve heard in a long time. She represents the side of love you warn your friends about, but then suddenly find yourself in the throws of. She, like the love she sings about, is a drug you can’t quit. She entices you, sucks you in and keeps you, but you’re okay with it because it’s kind of nice there all warm and loved – or at least you think it is. Honeymoon represents exactly what it should represent: a natural progression of a girl who just wants to be loved and will not stop until she gets it. She tricked herself into thinking she knew what it was, and now this is where she is in chapter 3. Quite frankly, I can’t wait for chapter four.
Following the release of her new album Honeymoon five days ago, Lana Del Rey has appeared in a live session with Huw Stephens for BBC 1 to perform three of her favourite tracks. The album is beautiful, maintaining that mournful nostalgia that she delivered so poignantly in her previous work, while also taking the new album in a completely new direction. Honeymoon is, in many ways, much more surreal and otherworldly than her first album. Del Rey chatted with Stephens about how her sound has become even more plush, and almost trippy in its layering of different sounds.
“It started with me knowing exactly what I was doing, and then when I kind of was trying to build it up bigger, instead of going bigger the songs were still really left but the production got louder. So I think it gave it that trippy feel, almost like a touch of psychedelia instead of going pop.”
The refreshingly candid interview proves once again that contrary to popular opinion, Del Rey is a smart, down to earth, incredibly talented musician. The artist received a lot of hate earlier on in her career, when it came to light that her image was largely constructed. Instead of being the indie working class girl that found fame with her single Video Games, and the nostalgic home-made music video to go with it, she in fact came from quite a lot of money. She also sparked controversy when it came to light just how surgically altered her face really was. Thankfully as time goes on wounds heal, and Del Rey has worked consistently to prove that she is more than just the image she projects.
Del Rey performed High by the Beach, Terrance Loves You and Honeymoon for BBC 1, accompanied by her band. Of Terrance Loves You she said is was her favourite song to perform.
“The vibe of it kind of encompasses the sound that I thought the whole record was going to take, kind of jazzy and noir but still really thoughtful.”
High By the Beach is similarly thoughtful, but it is the title track that really blows your breath away. With crooning vocals and a simple soundtrack of piano chords and drums, it evokes an old world sense of loss and pain. As Honeymoon progresses however, it builds in pace and finishes with a profound sense of optimism.
Del Rey’s album is now available for purchase on iTunes and other major music platforms. You can read our review of her live performance of Salvatore here.
Lana Del Rey has released another track from her forthcoming album Honeymoon, which is due to come out September 18 this year. Salvatore is remarkable, evoking a sweet, otherworldly sense of nostalgia for times passed. Del Rey spoke to Huw Stephens on BBC Radio 1 show yesterday about how the song stands out against other tracks on the album, saying, “I guess it has a little bit of an old world Italian feel. It’s kind of a weirder song.”
Combining simple lyrics with gentle, slow building strings, Salvatore could be a soundtrack straight out of a film from the previous century. Del Rey adores working with film directors, and has done music for some incredible movies, including two tracks for Tim Burton’s recent feature Big Eyes, and of course Baz Luhrmann’s adaption of The Great Gatsby. Right now however she is in London, anticipating the release of Honeymoon on Friday, which she will be doing album signings for in London, LA and New York.
Despite her hectic schedule, Del Rey has also managed to squeeze in an awesome collaboration with fellow artist and long time friend The Weeknd, which is featured on his freshly dropped album Beauty Behind the Madness. Slickly edited and intrinsically modern, Prisoner stands in complete contrast to Salvator. Its a testament to both artists that they can collaborate to make song that is both natural, and incorporating of their own incredibly unique sounds. The Weeknd spoke about working with Del Rey;
“Me and Lana have been friends for a long time. I’ve inspired her, she’s inspired me. I feel like we’ve always been talking to each other through our music. She is the girl in my music, and I am the guy in her music. It’s just this ghostly collaboration that feels the most natural on the whole album.”
Last year Lana Del Rey caused some controversy about feminism. In an interview with The Fader, she said she wasn’t interested in feminism. “I’m more interested in, you know, SpaceX and Tesla, what’s going to happen with our intergalactic possibilities. Whenever people bring up feminism, I’m like, god. I’m just not really that interested,” she said.
Now, in an exclusive interview with James Franco, Del Rey has addressed those comments. She defends herself in the passage below:
“The luxury we have as a younger generation is being able to figure out where we want to go from here, which is why I’ve said things like, ‘I don’t focus on feminism, I focus on the future.’ It’s not to say that there’s not more to do in that area. I’ve gotten to witness through history the evolution of so many movements and now I’m standing at the forefront of new technological movements. I’m not undermining other issues. But I feel like that’s obvious, like I shouldn’t even have to bring that up.”
Her full interview with Franco will be published in V Magazine’s Fall issue.
Del Rey’s fourth album Honeymoon will be released September 18th, featuring her newest single Terrence Loves You.
Lana Del Rey is soon to release her fourth album Honeymoon, a swift follow-up to last year’s wildly successful Ultraviolence. In preparation for the September reveal, she has now released the fourteen-song tracklist to get us even more excited. We’ve already heard Honeymoon and High By The Beach, and newest single Terrence Loves You. For now, the rest is gloriously left up to our musical imaginations. We’re particularly looking forward to the cover of Nina Simone’s Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood.
Del Rey has been slowly leaking information out about the upcoming album. In January she wrote, “It’s very different from the last one and similar to the first two, ‘Born to Die’ and ‘Paradise’. I finished my last one in March and released it in June and I had a follow-up idea. It’s growing into something I really like. I’m kind of enjoying sinking into this more noirish feel for this one. It’s been good.”
Much like her previous singles, Terrence Loves You once again shines with her signature cinematic touch, from the very first moments of the strong bass intro. From this, we are led to the combination of piano and strings that act as the perfect base layer to highlight the unique sound of her voice. It rings out in sheer beauty, with that special room-filling quality all artists crave. It’s a song full of love that will have you floating on a cloud of happiness as you keep your finger firmly on the repeat button.
Honeymoon:
01 Honeymoon
02 Music to Watch Boys to
03 Terrence Loves You
04 God Knows I Tried
05 High by the Beach
06 Freak
07 Art Deco
08 Burnt Norton (Interlude)
09 Religion
10 Salvatore
11 The Blackest Day
12 24
13 Swan Song
14 Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood
Honeymoon will be released on September 18th.