Lana Del Rey entered into the public consciousness a mystery. The woman formally known as Elizabeth Woolridge Grant had, in pursuit of her art, surrendered herself entirely to aesthetic.
She was a gangsters moll, a femme fatale with a heart of ice, a victim trying really, really hard to not be perceived as such.
This was no accident, this is how she wanted it - what the character of Lana Del Rey (and yes, Lana Del Rey has always been a character, a construct) was.
Today (January 27) marks a decade since Lana's landmark debut album Born To Die was released. An immediate success, it debuted at Number 1 on the Official Albums Chart, with opening week chart sales of 116,000.
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