Lana Del Rey's Most Misunderstood Album (Trigger Warning: SA and Suicide)

Even in the year of our Lord Baby Jesus, 2025, I still see comments about Lana Del Rey romanticizing Lolita, abuse, etc. and it's pissed me off enough to share my "Roman Empire" with the group: Born to Die is Lana Del Rey's most misunderstood album.

I will entertain a good argument for Ultraviolence, but I still think it's BTD and this is why:

Let's start with where this archetype began: the fictional novel Lolita, written by Vladimir Nabokov, which is considered one of the greatest books of all time. If you haven't read it, it's written in first-person from the perspective of a highly problematic, abusive, and unreliable narrator who is a pedophile obsessed with a 12-year-old little girl. Unfortunately, this unreliable narration creates a focus that almost validates the predator and lacks opportunities for the reader to clearly see the impacts of his abuse. The story is taken at face value by some and creates another gross abuse fantasy for men, which becomes integrated into pop culture through movies, none of which humanize the child, but sexualize her even more.

Enter Lana's debut album, Born to Die: an album heavily influenced by Nabokov's Lolita, with songs that tell stories of her own personal experiences while layering them in rich symbolism and metaphors that ultimately humanize Lolita - flipping the narrative.

Just as Nabokov wrote a book exploring the psyche of the "predator," BTD explores the psyche of the "victim/survivor/etc."

The stories in the album are chaotic and messy, and BTD's Lolita isn't a "perfect victim" -- but that's the point. She navigates the trauma she's experienced in her life through alcoholism, sex work, repeating abusive relationship dynamics with older men, and generally living self-destructively with passive suicidal ideation, all while still having hope in the "American Dream." However, when she achieves these dreams, they don't bring the healing or escape she was hoping for (enter Paradise and Ultraviolence).

It's why the album comes across as super fucking sad, and at the time of BTD's release, "sad girl music" didn't really exist apart from very few exceptions.

I think this is also why when BTD was first released, critics (the majority of whom were men) were uncomfortable hearing the experience of a victim - either because they couldn't relate or because they were predators themselves, and one really took the time to understand her music. So because no one was paying attention, she was criticized for romanticizing Lolita and romanticizing abuse when her whole fucking album exposes the creepy, silent caricature of Lolita by giving her a voice to expose how her trauma impacts her.

When A&W was released, it felt like an encore to her BTD era because she writes about the same themes, but in a more raw, honest, and direct way where the message is hard to miss. I noticed after this release that people started to understand the Born to Die, Paradise, and Ultraviolence more.

Obviously those albums are all a lot more layered and people can have whatever opinions about interpretation, there's a lot there. She's obviously not perfect either and there are valid criticisms from that time (like the Ride music video, for example).

But still to this day I am filled with rage whenever I see the same critical comments that I used to see from boy bloggers back in 2012 and 2013 who were trying to look feminist, but were really just being super misogynistic.

Anyway, thanks for coming to my TED Talk... Interested to see if people hold this perspective or think another album is more misunderstood.