Confession: I still like Lana Del Rey, Despite Her Awful Saturday Night Live Appearance
If Lana Del Rey is the musical equivalent of that one girl you hated in high school for being prettier and more popular than you were, then last Saturday’s cringe-inducing SNL performance is comparable to spotting said girl 10 years later at the grocery store with five kids in tow and a bad dye job and a fat ass. It makes you happy in an “I feel better about my own life” kind of way. Of course, this is a false sense of superiority and ultimately means nothing; however, at the time, you can’t help but declare a few hearty “I told you so’s” to anyone who will listen.
If Lana Del Rey is the musical equivalent of that one girl you hated in high school for being prettier and more popular than you were, then last Saturday’s cringe-inducing SNL performance is comparable to spotting said girl 10 years later at the grocery store with five kids in tow and a bad dye job and a fat ass. It makes you happy in an “I feel better about my own life” kind of way. Of course, this is a false sense of superiority and ultimately means nothing; however, at the time, you can’t help but declare a few hearty “I told you so’s” to anyone who will listen.
So, heartless Internet, you did indeed tell me so. Del Rey’s primetime debut was rough, to say the least. Not only did she sing at a curiously low register (the effect making her sound like a creepy Nico impersonator), but she appeared terrified during every painstaking second she spent on stage. Perhaps it was the wide-eyed terror that made her usual sex-bomb-meets-60s-nostalgia look seem more Barbie than Briggie (one critic used the term ‘fembot’). The whole thing was rather bizarre. If this had been an avant garde art routine, I’d hail her performance as brilliant for its gawky, self-conscious delivery—a true statement on the pressures of pop culture notoriety! Unfortunately, there was nothing intentional about Del Rey’s awkwardness, it was just awkward. Watch below:
Now, will this ruin her chances for success? Probably not. I propose that one of two things will happen: 1). The propensity of celebrities to make public gaffes will deem Del Rey’s mishap “irrelevant” in about two weeks, give or take; 2). She will release her album and people will buy it. Because, at the end of the day, we all knew Britney lip-synched and Amy Winehouse was a wino and Florence (of the Machine) can only sing one note really loud, but we still listened, even if we were only listening to catch them in a blunder.
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