Taylor Swift’s ‘I Knew You Were Trouble’ vs. Lana Del Rey’s ‘Ride’ Videos: Did Taylor Steal It?
Andy Warhol once intimated that good artists borrow and great artists steal. When it comes to intramural theft, no one has stickier fingers than the newly minted Lana del Rey, a calculated chanteuse who somehow manages to make Youtube feel like an ad-served speakeasy. The world (of blogs) took notice of Lana when she uploaded the indisputably beautiful "Video Games," a dreary song about how sad life isn't, sometimes. In the wake of the much-deserved critical blogosphere buzz that followed its release, the world was her oyster; unfortunately for Lana, her debut album "Born to Die" was akin to her announcing a shellfish allergy.
Rather than saying something new, something honest- or even anything at all- Lana del Rey's first album was content to tell us everything it thought we wanted to hear. It probably wasn't wrong in its easy estimations of our taste, either, considering its commercial success on both sides of the pond. In response, music critics, perhaps performing their duties as consumer watchdog, ripped her to shreds with eager, adroit cruelty. It could've been that they wanted someone worthier to hold the mirror to society, and that Lana's debut wasn't nearly reflective enough for that honor, in spite of its distinctly plasticine shimmer.
In spite of its cooed confessions of vulnerability, "Born to Die" still felt opaque and irrelevant. Every claim she made seemed to debunk itself, making the album-as-a-whole feel too contrived, too market-researched; the musical equivalent of choosing an Instagram filter. When she asks a former love of hers in one song, "How do you like me now?" it feels like there's some suit in some department that already knows the answer to that question. Though "Born to Die" is not without its moments and merits (the aforementioned "Video Games," for one, as well as the lushest parts of "National Anthem" and "Radio"), Lana exposed herself as naked empress of the Tumblrwave. "Born to Die" was as immediate as instant coffee, and just as good.
Still, the music trended on Billboard, and in light of the bruises left by many a critic, defending Lana del Rey felt hip and urgent, in spite of the fact that most of her apologists simply reminded detractors that Lana del Rey had First Amendment rights. If she was being ironic in "Born to Die," others had done her schtick so much better. If it ends up that she was being earnest, then the album and the act are really and truly insufferable.
The ambiguity was neither captivating nor important. We could have closed the door on her entirely, but an amusing interview here-and-there kept us glued. And just when it seemed like she could do no right, out came the announcement of a deluxe re-issuing of her first album, the "Born to Die: Paradise Edition." The name served as an inadvertent reminder of her debut's lack of rapture, its pathological obsession with stringing tinsel across the most banal iterations of love and loss. We were curious about its shape, its scope, and its thematic concerns. It would prove once and for all whether or not Lana del Rey was a sociopath ("Serial Killer"), or simply stupid ("This Is What Makes Us Girls").
Our curiosity was rewarded, and then some, with the release of "Paradise Edition." In spite of the extensive work (that may have been) done to her face, one could now clearly see her tongue protruding from her cheek. The opening verse of "Cola" is ugly and seductive, crude and coquettish, unruly and submissive. "American" marries over-the-top patriotism to a meth-addled tenderness. A "Blue Velvet" cover (and its use in an H & M commercial for Lana del Rey's line of clothing) is bound to piss off some David Lynch fans. But it's the most straightforward song on the redux album, opener-and-lead-single "Ride," that's also the most curious. Though the simple, special beauty of the verses is undermined by the dime-a-dozen chorus, it's the song's video that begs for serious attention.
In the "Ride" video, Lana del Rey is bent over a pinball machine by a fat trucker. She's a lounge singer, a motorcycle groupie, and a prostitute. She swings on a tire across a desert landscape; it's unclear what the rope is tied to. Where once we looked for proof of irony, all we now see is hardcore trolling-the absurd outer limit of assemblage Americana. She even dons a Native American headdress in the video, to the extreme rage of many a person. But just as her hero's infamous, glorious masterpiece wasn't a love letter to ephebophilia, neither should we be quick to tie her authorial intent to our literal interpretations. However, as low-brow/high-art as this trolling is at its best, it took the unapologetic efforts of Taylor Swift to hammer home Lana's relevance.
There's the music video for Taylor Swift's "I Knew You Were Trouble," and though it's unclear whether she's using the second-person singular or plural, it's very clear from where she drew her inspiration. Between the obsession with leather-clad men, the literal interpretation of lyric in image, and the heavy use of overwrought voiceover, it's nigh-impossible to separate this video from Lana del Rey's "Ride," which came out months before the Taylor Swift mega-single. The problem, here, is that Lana del Rey's video feels like a parody of a video that didn't even exist yet- an anticipation of the commodification of cool, and a criticism of it before (and while) anyone could make a buck off of its inevitable watering-down.
If that's the case, then Lana del Rey is a prophet. Even if "Born to Die" isn't worth re-examining, we're once again eager to see what Ms. Grant does next.