Draft:Lana Rey

Lana Taylor (born 22nd of August 1989), known professionaly as Lana Ray, is an American singer and songwriter. Her music is noted for its cinematic quality and exploration of tragic romance, glamour, and melancholia, with frequent references to pop culture and 1950s–1970s Americana. Her vintage Hollywood glamour aesthetic is showcased in her music videos. She is the recipient of various accolades, including three MTV Music Awards, IHR Music Video Award, People's Choice Award. iHeart Radio honored her at their iHeart Radio Awards for being "one of the most influential singer-songwriters of the 21st century". In 2023, Rolling Stone placed Ray on their list of the "200 Greatest Singers of All Time", while their sister publication Rolling Stone UK named her as "The Greatest American Songwriter of the 21st century".

Raised in upstate New York, Ray pursued her music career there. Ray's breakthrough came in 2006 with the viral success of her single Trash Magic; she subsequently signed a recording contract with Polydor and Interscope. She achieved critical and commercial success with her debut major-label EP, Trash Magic (2006), which contained the sleeper hit Toxic. Trash Magic EP became her first of six number-one albums in the UK, and also topped various national charts around the world. Ray's first album, Carmen (2006), featured greater use of guitar-driven instrumentation and debuted atop the U.S. Billboard 200.

Her second album, Break My Fall (2007) saw a return to the stylistic traditions of her earlier release of Toxic, a pop hit, while her critically acclaimed third album, American Whore (2008) explored alternative pop, was nominated for Album of the Year at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards, and was also named one of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time" by Rolling Stone. Ray collaborated with Tommy Genesis on Peppers, from Genesis' first studio album World Vision (2006); it debuted at number four on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, marking Genesis' highest peak on the chart.

Ray has collaborated on soundtracks for visual media; in 2013, she wrote and sang a song and wrote a monologue in the critically acclaimed musical film Wild Life and released Ride, which was highly praised by critics and received Grammy Award and Critics' Choice Award nominations. In 2017, she recorded Ain't About What You Got for the emotional drama series Star, which was nominated for a Golden Globe Award. Ray also recorded the collaboration Sway With Me for the action comedy Birds Of Prey (and the Fabolous Emancipation of Harley Quinn) (2020). Ray recorded a song Watercolor Eyes for the show Euphoria (2019).

Early life and education

Lana Ray was born on August 22, 1989, in New York City, to Roger Meedows Taylor, a drummer for the rock group Queen, and Dominique Marie Taylor (nee Beyrand), a director of Bryon and Marlowes Courts Management Company Ltd. She has a younger cousin, Carlos Alcaraz Garfia. She was raised Roman Catholic and is of British descent. When she was seventeen years old, she moved to Upper East Side, New York. In New York, she attended St. Agnes School in her elementary years and began singing in her school choir.

She attended the high school for two years but when she was 17 she started homeschooling to pursue her music career, caused by signing for Polydor and Interscope Records. Taylor shared in an interview: "I lived with my best friend to get used to living without my parents because I never got the chance to fully expirience it." She has said she was oftenly chaperoned by someone due to her father's fame, which scared her:

During my childhood and early teens I was always chaperoned because my mother was always scared of people hurting and harming me. My dad's fame wasn't at peak but being in a band that was having sky rocket fame in the '70s and '80s isn't a little deal. The emancipation from my parents scared me, and that's why I wasn't alone.

After her emancipation, she started working on her first extended play and her first album. Before that, while visiting Spain for the summer, her uncle and his band had a mini tour around Spain's capital Madrid. Taylor and her cousin Carlos helped Carlos' dad by being roadies. After one of the shows, a Polydor scout saw Taylor playing the guitar backstage and asked her to sing something. She sang her unreleased and non-recorded song Money Honey. The scout liked it and when Taylor got back to New York, she signed for Polydor and emancipated from her parents:

After signing for my label, Polydor and Interscope, I wanted to improve my stage skills. I played around teen clubs in Brooklyn, mosly covers of popular songs at the time, and I would sometimes sing a duet with some other underground singer.

Career

2006: Career beggining

Ray started homeschooling in the fall of 2006, after which she released a six-track EP, Trash Magic, featuring production by Liz Aoki. She explained: "Liz Aoki was offered to produce my music, and they offered her a higher pay for me because they tought no one would work with a 17-year-old with sad acoustic guitar songs.".

Of choosing a stage name for her feature debut album, she said: "I wanted a name I could shape the music towards. I knew that if I leave Taylor in my stage name, I would get by just by having a rockstar dad. Also, Lana Taylor sounded a bit too country for me, and my plan wasn't to make country. I played a bit with the name in my notebook, crossed letters and it just came into my head. And it was perfect."

Del Rey met her managers, Kane Dillson and Mary Stennet, two weeks after coming back to New York from her visit to Spain. Shortly after, she emancipated from her parents and moved to Upper East Side "for a few years".

Late 2006-early 2007: breaktrough with Trash Magic EP, Carmen and Break My Fall album

In 2006, Ray uploaded self-made music videos for her songs Trash Magic and Kill Kill to YouTube, featuring vintage footage interspersed with shots of her singing on her webcam. Trash Magic music video became a viral internet sensation, which led to Polydor and Interscope extend her contract for her future first album. She told The Observer: "Since there were many more greater and better artist than me at the time, I haven't got the opportunity to film a real music video, so I took things in my own hands. I thought it will be lame and that it will flop, but it did not. I kinda created my own style with it." The song earned her a MTV VMA award for "Video Of The Year" in November 2006. She started dating German guitarist for the band Tokio Hotel Tom Kaulitz in the same year. The couple has been on and off through 2006-2008, but is now married. Ray performed two songs from the EP on MTV VMA show in 2006, and received a positive response from various critics and the general public, who deemed the performance even and vocally powerful.

Carmen was released worldwide on November 29, 2006, to commercial success, charting at number one in 11 countries and debuting at number one on the US Billboard 200 album chart. Carmen sold 3.4 million copies in 2006, making it the fifth-best-selling album of 2006. In the United States, Carmen charted on the Billboard 200 well into 2012, lingering at number 1, after 36 weeks on the chart. As of February 3, 2024, Carmen has spent 940 weeks (18 years) on the Billboard 200, making Ray the first human to reach this milestone.

Break My Fall was released on March 10, 2007, as a standalone release. Break My Fall marked Ray's second top 10 album in the United States, debuting at number 1 on the Billboard 200 with 80,000 copies sold in its first week. It was also later awarded for Best Pop Vocal Album at the 49th Annual Grammy Awards. Ray received several nominations at the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards in November and won the award for Best Alternative performer. At the Brit Awards in February 2008, she won the award for International Female Solo Artist, followed by two Echo Award wins, in the categories of Best International Newcomer and Best International Pop/Rock Artist.

In May 2013, Ray released an original song and monologue, Ride for the soundtrack of the 2013 film of Wild Life. Following the song's release, it peaked at 10 on the Billboard Hot 100. Ride was awarded for Best Song Written for Visual Media.

2008-2010: American Whore, the controversy between Ray and Taylor Swift and Summer Songs

Being inspired by a recent comment on her carrer by American singer and songwriter Taylor Swift (stating that Ray "doesn't have real talent, uses autotune and fucked her way up to the top") in late 2007, Ray began writing and recording her follow-up album, American Whore, featuring production by Liz Aoki. American Whore was released on January 7, 2008, and debuted at number one in 12 countries, including the United States and United Kingdom. The album, which sold 880,000 copies worldwide in its first week, was preceded by the singles A&W, Coachella-Woodstock In My Mind, Shampain,[97] and Hundred Dollar Bill. Ray described the album as being "very pop inspired and full of frustration", while some critics characterized the record as pop princess anthems, being more pop than her previous releases.

Summer Songs, Ray's fourth studio album, was released on September 18, 2010. Prior to the release of the album, Ray previewed the track Candy Necklace, the singles Black Beauty and Knew Better. Prior to the 6 months break before Summer Songs, Ray embarked on the A&W Tour in summer 2008, which featured A$AP Rocky on North American leg of the tour and had Tommy Genesis as an opening act.

Artistry

Musical style

Ray has been labeled an "alt-pop" or alternative pop artist. Her works have been variously categorized as pop, rock, dream pop, baroque pop, indie pop, psychedelic rock, while incorporating trip hop, hip hop and trap elements. Upon her debut release, Ray's music was described as "Hollywood sadcore" by some music critics. It has been repeatedly noted for its cinematic sound and its references to various aspects of pop culture; both critics and Ray herself have noted a persistent theme of 1950s and 1960s Americana. The strong elements of American nostalgia brought Idolator to classify her firmly as alternative pop. Del Rey elaborated on her connection to the past in an interview with Artistdirect, saying "The '50s are special to me. I have always admired that time. I love the music and the visuals, the films, the Hollywood sadcore vibe, which I strongly reference in all my music videos."

Of Carmen, AllMusic stated that its "teenage yearning for fun and lust gets the adrenaline pumping when you listen to it". Ray's subsequent releases would introduce variant styles, particularly Summer Songs, which shifts to alternative mixed with girly pop. Kenneth Partridge of Billboard noted this shift in style, writing: "She sings about drugs, cars, money, and the bad boys she's always falling for, and while there remains a sepia-toned mid-century flavor to many of these songs." Upon the release of American Whore, one reviewer characterized Ray's body of work as being "about music as a time warp, with her languorous croons over molasses-like arrangements meant to make clock hands seem to move so slowly that it feels possible, at times, they might go backwards".

Influences

Ray cites a wide array of musical artists as influences, including numerous pop, jazz, and blues performers from the twentieth century, such as Nancy Sinatra, Frank Sinatra, Nina Simone, Lesley Gore, The Beatles, Tommy James and The Shondells, and Elvis Presley. "I adore the '60s rock and roll music. And Nancy Sinatra's theatricalism was my main inspiration.", she told BBC radio presenter Jo Whiley in 2012, also specifically naming Nirvana, Fiona Apple, David Bowie, and Elvis Presley.

Several rock and pop musicians and groups from the late-twentieth century have also inspired Ray, such as Bruce Springsteen, Britney Spears, singer-songwriter Fiona Apple, and rock band the Eagles. Del Rey has also named Hole frontwoman Courtney Love, rapper Eminem, and singer-songwriter Amy Winehouse as artists she looked up to.

Inspired by poetry, Ray cites Walt Whitman as instrumental to her songwriting. Ray has cited film director Sofia Coppola, and painters, Norman Rockwell as influences and has stated actress Brooke Shields is someone she admires. She has an interest in and was influenced by the book Lolita and the title character, as well as the films it spawned in 1962 and in 1997.