Lana Del Rey on Saturday Night Live: A Study in Hype Blowback

Lana Del Rey, the officially anointed Next Big Thing who hasn't even released an album yet, appeared on Saturday Night Live. It was entertaining, at least if you enjoy the audition rounds of televised reality talent shows. In other words, she showed us that it was possible to suck and blow at the same time.



Yikes. The performance does kind of work when you pretend it's one of SNL's resident comedians doing a sketch pretending to be Tori Amos on downers. In an interview she did before the show, she said:

So have you been practicing all week for SNL?

Well, no, I haven’t because I’ve been working. I don’t even know what I’m singing! I know it’s “Video Games” and I think “Blue Jeans,” but I thought it was supposed to be “Born to Die,” so I have to go figure that out. I better fucking figure that out! [Laughs] There’s a lot going on so there’s a lot of catching up to do.

Are you excited?

Yeah … I’m excited if it goes well. If it doesn’t, I’m gonna kill myself! But yeah, what an honor. And who knows why, but it’s really nice for me.

Gurl, I think you really, really should have practiced.




Del Rey came out of nowhere in 2011 with the successful single Video Games and was championed by bloggers as a talented new artist for approximately five seconds before they realised she used to be a lesser-lipped major label artist named Lizzy Grant who had undergone an indie reinvention. What followed were a major label signing, tiresome debates over her authenticity, breathless anticipation for her debut album and the dissection of her story by every pop commentator ever for the rest of the year. I'd say you can't buy this kind of hype except I'm reasonably sure that whoever was behind her initial viral push bought quite a lot of it.

The drawback of Del Rey's express ticket to super-stardom is that she finds herself, as a relatively unseasoned performer, doing shit she's not nearly ready for yet. Like appearing on a major career-making (or breaking) TV show like Saturday Night Live without having enough experience to avoid sounding like your alcoholic aunt at the karaoke bar.



Will we see Del Rey's calculated hype blow up in her face before her debut is even released? Or will her Ashlee Simpson-esque SNL appearance be just another footnote in the Legend of Lana? Del Rey (or at least her writers) does have some talent at least and has obviously got a big bucks studio push behind her but there's a lot riding against her.



She doesn't exactly have a persona that makes the mainstream want to root for her; she lacks that down-to-earth rootability of singers like Britney Spears or the outrageous OTT-ness of the likes of GaGa and Beyonce. The fickle hipster-collective that first propped her up is already wary of the stink of inauthentic rich-girl-playing-indie-sensation she's got hanging around her and this latest demonstration of hackery won't help. And the biggest stumbling block might be Del Rey herself, who seems to lack the drive or passion to really make it in the tough music industry.

"I consider being able to pursue music a luxury, but it’s not the most important thing in my life. It’s just something that’s really nice that ended up working for me for right now."

If her album doesn't live up to its lofty expectations, Del Rey might find herself sinking back into obscurity even faster than she emerged from it.