Lana Del Rey

Elizabeth Woolridge Grant (born June 21, 1985), known professionally as Lana Del Rey, is an American singer and songwriter. She is known for her cinematic music style and exploration of themes like tragic romance, glamour, and melancholia, Del Rey often references pop culture and 1950s-1970s Americana in her work. Her music videos showcase a vintage Hollywood glamour aesthetic, solidifying her unique artistic identity. She has received numerous accolades throughout her career, including an MTV Video Music Award, three MTV Europe Music Awards, two Brit Awards, and two Billboard Women in Music Awards. She has been nominated for eleven Grammy Awards and a Golden Globe Award. In 2023, Rolling Stone listed her among the “200 Greatest Singers of All Time,” and Rolling Stone UK named her “The Greatest American Songwriter of the 21st Century.”

Raised in upstate New York, Del Rey moved to New York City in 2005 to pursue a music career. After several early projects, including her self-titled debut studio album, she achieved breakthrough success in 2011 with the viral single “Video Games.” This success led to a recording contract with Polydor and Interscope Records. Her major-label debut album, Born to Die (2012), was a critical and commercial success, featuring the sleeper hit “Summertime Sadness.” The album topped various international charts and marked the first of her six number-one albums in the UK.

Del Rey’s third album, Ultraviolence (2014), debuted atop the U.S. Billboard 200 and featured a more guitar-driven sound. Her subsequent albums, Honeymoon (2015) and Lust for Life (2017), revisited the stylistic traditions of her earlier releases. Her sixth album, Norman Fucking Rockwell! (2019), explored soft rock and received critical acclaim, earning a nomination for Album of the Year at the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards. Rolling Stone also named it one of the “500 Greatest Albums of All Time.”

In 2021, Del Rey released two albums, Chemtrails over the Country Club and Blue Banisters, both exploring Americana themes. She collaborated with Taylor Swift on “Snow on the Beach,” a track from Swift’s tenth studio album, Midnights (2022). The song debuted at number four on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, marking Del Rey’s highest peak on the chart. In 2023, she released her ninth studio album, Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd, supported by its title track and the critically acclaimed single “A&W.” Later that year, she released the Billboard Global 200 top-20 hit “Say Yes to Heaven.”

Del Rey has also contributed to various film soundtracks. In 2013, she wrote and starred in the critically acclaimed musical short Tropico and released “Young and Beautiful” for the film The Great Gatsby, which received Grammy and Critics’ Choice Award nominations. In 2014, she recorded “Once Upon a Dream” for Maleficent and the title track for the biopic Big Eyes, which was nominated for a Golden Globe Award. In 2019, she collaborated on “Don’t Call Me Angel” for the film Charlie’s Angels.

Before gaining prominence as Lana Del Rey, she performed under several stage names, including Lizzy Grant and May Jailer. Born in Manhattan, she moved to Lake Placid, New York, in her infancy. After overcoming a troubled adolescence marked by heavy drinking, she achieved sobriety and graduated from Fordham University in 2008 with a degree in philosophy, specializing in metaphysics. Lana Del Rey’s work is often classified under genres such as alt-pop, dream pop, and baroque pop, and she remains a significant and influential figure in contemporary music.