Lana Del Rey A.K.A. Lizzy Grant: An Album Shelved too Soon

LANA DEL REY A.K.A. LIZZY GRANT

SCORE: 85/100 

Lizzy Grant was the darker, more cigarette stained version of Lana Del Rey's artistry before the massive fame that she reached with her second full-length album, Born to Die. With this album embracing the trailer trashiness that made Del Rey's early image so influential in the 2010's while creating the imagery that was her signature at the time in which this album was conceived. 

Despite the problematic nature of this album after its lack of funding and eventual pull from shelves, Lana Del Ray A.K.A. Lizzy Grant remains one of Del Rey's most important and groundbreaking projects when it comes to shaping her image, with this album acting as the blueprint for her entire early aesthetic and continued reach out into the music industry. 

On this album, Del Rey mixes her signature storybook-esque Chamber Pop sound with dark and soft elements, creating a striking contrast that makes this album a standout in the world of indie music. Despite her new status at the time of this album's release, it was clear to see already from this point that Del Rey was a star to keep your sights on, with her sultry vocals and melancholic sound palate making her an oddity in a world of music that was constantly evolving, with Bubblegum and Electro Pop ruling the charts in the 2010s while Del Rey presented herself as a changing force. 

It's unique to see such a wildly popular modern artist in their debut album so many years later - with this album's 16-year-old status making it a timepiece staple of an era that seems too far away for comfort so long after its release. Del Rey cherishes her Southern style on this album especially, with the usage of accent-heavy vocals on Queen of the Gas Station, and the lyrical content of the album feeling hazy and full of dark lifestyle influences throughout. 

Surprisingly enough, Lana Del Ray A.K.A. Lizzy Grant is one of the most appropriate usages of the self-titled album formatting imaginable - as this album more than covers all of the bases of Del Rey's personal and musical style in a way that makes her impossible to ignore. It acts as the best possible introduction to her without all of the class and polish that made Born to Die such an industry-wide hit, and this recalled album works wonders at showcasing the true nature of Del Rey's artistry and original plans for her public image as a musician and public figure. 

Some of Del Rey's most memorably sultry and melancholic works reside on this lost-to-time project; and her vocal performances on tracks like For K, Pt. 2 are some of her absolute best. Standout tracks like Queen of the Gas Station and Smarty as well as the eventually re-recorded Yayo showcase the earliest bouts of talent that Del Rey possessed, and it's evident throughout the entire album that she was more than just destined to be one of the most commercially successful "oddball" mainstream products in the entire music industry. 

Blended genres and a knack for older influences make Lana Del Ray A.K.A. Lizzy Grant an absolute standout in Del Rey's discography. Rather than adjourning to the bright, hyper styles that were ruling the charts for female singers in the 2010s, Del Rey took to something more laid back, blending aspects of both Chamber Pop and Art Pop into an album that feels almost impossible to put a true definition on when songs like Mermaid Motel push a dark atmosphere to the very front burner of the album. 

As the album progresses, so does the sonic palate in which Del Rey and David Kahne used for the project, with elements of Rock, Country, and Trip-Hop taking the center stage while Del Rey's smoky elegance rules the entire tracklist from front to back. It's an album that you can hear growth in throughout the changing and expansion of every track, and the sequencing of the project was done to absolute perfection when it came to scaling and balancing the album and its varied sounds. 

The pushback of this album made it more difficult for Del Rey to get her start as a selling artist, with the shelving of this album coming shortly after it was released due to a lack of available funding from her then-label, 5 Points. After the eventual release of Born to Die in 2012 - two years after this album's release, Del Rey was able to purchase the rights for this album on her own; but nothing ever came of it, and it remains a semi-lost oddity in her discography that is impressively difficult to come across unless you are well-versed in either her discography or the world of 2010's Indie music projects. 

Unexpected for an album with such a soft palate, Lana Del Ray A.K.A. Lizzy Grant is a deeply potent album with well-thought songwriting, dark thematic material, and a greyed out sound that allows for Del Rey to showcase her whisper-clad vocals while focusing on her songwriting and the blended production of the record itself. It's an item of teenage rebellion on a Southern-style board, and Del Rey juggles her styles exceptionally well all throughout the 13 tracks of the project.