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Lana Del Rey · S2 E2
SNL
January 14, 2012: the most controversial Saturday Night Live performance in years
Studio 8H, 30 Rockefeller Plaza, January 14, 2012. Lana Del Rey walks onto the Saturday Night Live stage in front of millions of viewers, opens her mouth to sing, and what comes out will be the most debated musical performance of the decade.
Lana Del Rey, live on Saturday Night Live, January 14, 2012. This is the performance the internet tore apart. Watch it now, knowing everything that came after, and decide for yourself: was it really that bad, or was it just a nervous artist on the biggest stage of her life?
The Performance
Lana performs "Video Games" and "Blue Jeans" to a live audience of millions. She looks stiff, her voice wavers, and the between-song silence feels like it lasts hours. For an artist whose entire appeal is a carefully constructed cool, the vulnerability on display is almost painful to watch.
Sources
The Guardian
Pitchfork
NBC broadcast
TAP TO REVEAL: Did the SNL disaster actually hurt Lana Del Rey's career?
Shades of Cool, Lana Del Rey (2014)
Built around a surf-rock guitar line that sounds like it's playing through water, this is Lana at her most detached and elegant. The production layers reverb so thick the vocals feel like they're coming from another room. Listen for the guitar solo in the back half, which erupts out of nowhere and is one of the heaviest moments on Ultraviolence. Two years after SNL, this is Lana proving she never needed a live audience to be extraordinary.
Sources
Pitchfork
NME
SNL: January 14, 2012
Without You, Lana Del Rey
From Born to Die (2012). "Everything I want I have: money, notoriety and rivieras." Released two weeks after the SNL disaster, this song captures the hollow feeling of getting everything you wanted and realizing it doesn't protect you from anything. The timing was almost too perfect.
Without You, Lana Del Rey (2012)
The lyrics read like a diary entry from someone who just watched her reputation collapse on live television. "I can be your china doll, if you want to see me fall." She was already writing about falling before the fall actually happened.
Who hosted Saturday Night Live on the night of Lana Del Rey's controversial performance?
Two weeks after the worst night of her career, Born to Die arrives. Next: the album drops, the critics can't agree on anything, and it sells millions of copies anyway.
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