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Video: Lana Del Rey - ''Video Games' Represents Me'

A fragile star with a mysterious dark past, attempting to gain legitimacy in a world that doesn’t want to take her seriously. Sounds familiar, eh? Yes, Lana Del Rey has made the link between her re-tooled Americana and Hollywood’s most mystifying and tragic icons, Marilyn Monroe.

It begins with a sample of the actress singing The Star-Spangled Banner before we’re swept into a newsreader announcing her death, intermingled with JFK squawking about the actress singing Happy Birthday for him. This is a 20th pop culture re-told, Lana style.

That her trail of broken hearts has lead her to MM is logical (from the Tupac featuring ‘Video Games’ video to ‘Off To The Races’ hints of a Mickey and Mallory from Badlands-type bad romance, one of her themes has been the doomed and glamorous) but that she manages to re-imagine the tale in her terms is not.

She almost raps the verses off the beat of the trip-hop rhythm. As she sings of a relationship of a well-heeled man and a blank canvas woman, she invokes not only the dreamland of the monied classes (The Hamptons) and their could-be motto “Money is the anthem of success” but also invokes the spectre of Vietnam with a reference to "The Queen Of Saigon".

In the chorus, she may baldly re-visit the beat-driven chorus of ‘Born To Die’ but what lifts it is the whiff of something not quite right. “Tell me I’m your national anthem/ Red! White! Blue!,” she sings like a perfect mannequin. It feels less like the evocation of true love and more like something workman-like, as if love is something to clothe yourself in for a moment and then unthinkingly step out of. Which seems like a fairly astute assessment of Kennedy’s view of his relationship with Monroe.

The denouncement at the end comes via Richard Nixon stating: “I’m not a crook,” like the end of The American Dream as well as this unsteady relationship.

Lana’s ability to paint a multi-layered narrative within four minutes proves jaw-dropping once again.

Priya Elan

To read all our reviews first - days before they appear online - check out NME magazine, on sale every Wednesday

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Date/Time	Venue	Town/City	Seetickets	Viagogo
May 20, 2013	Hmv Hammersmith Apollo	London	Tickets not currently available.	Buy Lana Del Rey Tickets
May 20, 2013	Hammersmith Apollo	Hammersmith	Buy Lana Del Rey Tickets from £28	Buy Lana Del Rey Tickets
May 23, 2013	O2 Apollo Manchester	Manchester	Tickets not currently available.	Buy Lana Del Rey Tickets from £38
May 23, 2013	O2 Apollo	Manchester	Buy Lana Del Rey Tickets from £27	Buy Lana Del Rey Tickets
May 24, 2013	O2 Apollo Manchester	Manchester	Tickets not currently available.	Buy Lana Del Rey Tickets from £60
May 24, 2013	O2 Apollo	Manchester	Buy Lana Del Rey Tickets from £27	Buy Lana Del Rey Tickets