“Lucky Ones” ( Born to Die deluxe edition bonus track, 2012) With a jauntier guitar-pop feel than the rest of the album, “Florida Kilos” plays like the soundtrack to a group of line-dancing cokeheads with nothing but themselves on their minds.ġ10. Though the song never uses the word “cocaine,” it crams in seemingly every other term for it. “Florida Kilos” ( Ultraviolence deluxe edition bonus track, 2014)Ĭo-written by director Harmony Korine for his unproduced film The Trap, “Florida Kilos” - the least subtle Lana Del Rey song of all time - romanticizes the drug trade in Florida. But listening to the far better demo version, you can hear what she had in mind - it originally sounded like the theme to a ’60s spy film.ġ11. At best, “Lolita” is an failed experiment, at worst, a creative dead end. The lyrics reference Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, but evoke no emotion - they’re just Lana at her brattiest, referencing icons with little purpose except as cheap signifiers of her taste. “Lolita” is cut from the same cloth as “National Anthem” or “Off to the Races,” but its hooks feel tuneless, and its hip-hop beats gaudy and cluttered. “Lolita” ( Born to Die deluxe edition bonus track, 2012) To be fair, Ultraviolence’s bonus tracks may only have been released due to iTunes’ demand for a deluxe edition.ġ12. Rick Nowels’ production conjures a thick atmosphere, like Tricky with John Bonham drums, but the songwriting is unusually lazy by her standards - a vague recollection of an unfinished demo. “He loved guns and roses,” she sings repeatedly in the chorus, reminding you of better songs, by her and Guns N’ Roses. Many of Lana’s songs have used rock ‘n’ roll imagery to great effect, but “Guns and Roses” does nothing with it. “Guns and Roses” ( Ultraviolence deluxe edition bonus track, 2014) See our ranking of all of them below.ġ13. That leaves us with 113 fascinating songs, almost all of which are good, and at least 50 of which are absolutely exceptional. While it’s worth a listen for hardcore fans, it ultimately feels like more of a prologue than a part of the Del Rey songbook. We’ve also excluded her 2020 spoken-word poetry audiobook Violet Bent Backwards over the Grass - a singular, sprawling work in her catalogue, but not directly comparable to her musical compositions. Though the album was briefly issued on iTunes, it was taken down two months later at Lana’s own request, and has never been officially available since. Lizzy Grant, where she wasn’t fully formed - even down to the spelling of her name. We’ve decided to omit her original indie debut album, 2010’s Lana Del Ray a.k.a. This list includes every commercially available Lana Del Rey song, excluding remixes, YouTube uploads, unreleased tracks, and several Great Gatsby soundtrack cuts that merely sample her voice. Here, Billboard tries to examine every facet of her identity with equal consideration - the pop star, singer-songwriter, visual artist, icon. Lana’s told so many different stories within and outside of her music, that ranking her individual songs allows a valuable opportunity to take a critical look at her entire body of work. But the last decade of popular music wouldn’t be the same without her. She’s often seemed like a figure out of her own time: a ’60s hippie, a jazz singer, an old-Hollywood icon. Now 34, she’s matured into a generational balladeer yet she’s become more down-to-earth, no longer defined by the tragic figures who once inhabited her songs. She’s influenced not just her peers, but the next generation of alternative-leaning pop stars: Lorde, Halsey, Billie Eilish, Banks, Sky Ferreira, Father John Misty, Sia, Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez, Taylor Swift, and now Olivia Rodrigo - but Lana Del Rey remains utterly inimitable. Without intending to, that album became one of the main catalysts for pop’s mid-2010s shift from brash EDM to a moodier, hip-hop-inflected palette. Born to Die has stayed on the Billboard 200 albums chart for almost a full decade, the second-longest charting album by a female solo artist in history. Through all the controversies, Lana’s artistry has endured.
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