Elizabeth Woolridge Grant, better known as Lana del Rey, is a US singer, actress and
songwriter.
She was born on June 21st 1985 in New York, in a well-off catholic family.
Her parents are Robert and Patricia Grant, and she has two little siblings, Charlie and
Caroline.
She spent her childhood in Lake Placid , a small town in the county of Essex.
Since she was very little, she has always been a curious person with great interests.
However, since she lived in such a small town, it was hard for her to find activities to
give her artistic skills free reign.
After graduating, she spent a year living with her uncle and her aunt in Long Island,
while working as a waitress.
Back then, her uncle taught her how to play the guitar, and soon after she started writing
her own songs.
A year later, she moved to New York and started her studies in Philosophy at Fordham University.
She spent some time as a volunteer helping disadvantaged people, and she started to become
interested in classic literature and cinema, something that would have a great influence
on her style in the future.
Her passion for music made her go for a career in the industry.
In April 2005 she recorded a 7-song-cd under her artistic name at the time, May Jailer,
and soon after, an album titled Sirens.
In 2006 she took part in the Williamsburg Live Songwriting Competition, a compilationcd
of artists from Brooklyn, where she included her song “Pawn Shop Blues” under the name
of Lizzy Grant.
As a result of this event she met Van Wilson, manager of the independent record label 5
Points Records.
While she was on her last year in University, the company offered her a record label contract,
and she started to work with the producer David Kahne, with whom she published her first
EP Kill Kill in October 2008.
After this, she released whats considered to be her first studio CD, Lana del Rey, in
digital format, in the US on January 4th 2010.
However, the artist would later on ask to take it off the market since she didnt really
like the result and she wanted to change her last name.
It was then that she finally went for the artistic name Lana del Rey, a nickname inspired
by the name of the actress Lana Turner and the car Ford del Rey.
Back then she met the managers Ben Mawson and Ed Millet, and after the disappointment
with her record label she decided to end her relationship with them and move to London
to start her music career again.
In June 2011 she signed a contract with the company Stranger Records, and in September
she decided to upload the song Video Games.
She coudnt imagine the great impact it’d have.
It was directed and edited by Lana herself - she recorded herself with a webcam and put
together clips of old videos from the internet.
Thanks to this song, she got several awards and good reviews.
Her music style, which mixes romantic and vintage elements with a melancholic and mournful
tone, called people's attention - they saw her as an alternative to pop.
She won an MTV Europe Music Award for Best Alternative Artist in 2012, and a Brit Award
as best female solo artist in 2013.
In April that same year, she released the song Young and Beautiful, which would be part
of the soundtrack of the movie adaptation of the Great Gatsby in 2013.
At the end of that year, she released a short film inspired in the Bible titled Tropico.
During the speech she gave before its screening she announced the name of her new album, Ultraviolence,
released in June 2014.
It debuted as the number 1 in 12 countries.
West Coast was picked as the first single, and it debuted in the 17th place in the Billboard
Hot 100.
Lana didnt take long to go back to the studio, and on September 18th 2015 she released Honeymoon.
From it came the singles High by the Beach, Terrence Loves You and Music To Watch Boys
To”.
She got lots of critics saying it was her best cd, the most authentic and thought out
musically speaking.
Only a year after, she released Lust For Life, her fifth album, which kept on with the success
of her previous works - this established her as one of the most promising artists nowadays.
In January 2019, the singer confirmed the release of her new album, Norman Fucking Rockwell,
on March 29th.
She said it'd have 11 songs - among them, the singles “Hope is a dangerous thing for
a woman like me to have - but I have it”, and Happiness is a Butterfly.
We are sure it's gonna be
a total success!