ALBUM ANALYSIS By Naseha Yasmin

LANA DEL REY – BORN TO DIE

‘Born To Die’ was released in January 2012 by indie pop artist, Lana Del Rey. Her music generally appeals to young adults, who enjoy vintage and rather old fashioned style of music. The use of a simple mid shot/medium close up on the album cover establishes the artist’s beauty and displays a voyeuristic feature. This is common to find in an indie pop artist’s album cover as it allows the record label to create an individual representation of their artist. Similarly, this can be seen in other indie pop artists album covers to the right; Marina and the Diamonds ‘Electra Heart.’ There is much focus on the artist due to the close up, likewise, the audience can notice a vintage, retro style which is a common feature used by indie pop artists.

MISE EN SCENE Overall, the simplicity of the album cover allows the audience to clearly focus on Lana’s style, with regards to her outfit, hair and makeup. The wavy yet polished hair creates a sense of effortlessness and the soft colours used for makeup contributes to this natural look.

She is slightly pouting which accentuates focus on her mouth area; yet again, another feature usually found in her H&M posters and adverts aswell. Subsequently, allowing her to create a visual style which is a high demand – this illustrates what she stands for as an artist and allows the target audience to recognise her for vintage style.

The white blouse has connotations of purity and innocence, which is ultimately the look she is trying to create – coincides with the natural and simple layout of the cover.

COLOUR AND FONT The pastel colour scheme conveys a very fresh and youthful ambiance, which resembles her young target audience. The style of font is very bold yet simple, which displays the artist’s style and is consistently used across other albums. It is a feature that she is easily recognised for, enhancing how she can create a unique and individual style. The simplicity of the styled font relates to the simplicity of Lana’s music; meaning her message within her songs are very straightforward and can be comprehended easily by her target audience.

CONNECTIONS BETWEEN ALBUM AND MUSIC

The filter that has been used softens the image and reflects a link between Lana and her music, by extension her lyrics aswell. For example, in the music video ‘Blue Jeans’ the artist is in a white bathing suit throughout the whole video, with a similar hairstyle and natural makeup, alluding to this idea of her being this innocent, possibly chaste character. The lyrics within the video illustrate her demure nature; she is hopelessly in love with a ‘bad boy’ character and states ‘I will love you til the end of time.’ These lyrics establish her naïve persona and contributes to this idea of innocence – which is also evident in her album cover, where she looks very youthful and fresh.

On the back of the digipack, there is a listing of all the tracks, in a similar style font as the one on the album cover (creates the same visual style). The simplistic style resembles her simplistic nature within many of the songs. Redundant elements such as the barcode can be seen at the bottom of the album. Moreover, I believe the fact that there are no images on the back allows the audience to focus on the tracks’ names and allows us to discover the meanings of the names.

However, there is a difference in terms of the colour scheme – the red and black connote a more intimate and passionate vibe. These dominant colours suggests the powerful emotions displayed within the lyrics of the songs. The red has connotations of love, which is the key theme within the songs and generally a topic included in many indie pop artists’ music.

The inside of the digipak consists of a same style image as seen on the album’s front cover, however, it draws the audience’s attention towards Lana’s body language. The slight low angle, close up allows us to concentrate on her slightly serious yet playful facial expressions. This coincides with Goodwin’s theory of vouyeuristic features where the audience get an insight to what the artist is like as a character; and from Lana’s music we are aware she is very serious.

Similarly, these elements are used with other indie pop artists, where there is an evident focus on the artist’s facial expressions or body language – this can be seen in the album cover of Florence & the Machine’s ‘Ceremonials.’

Yet again, the simplicity of the whole album is conveyed on the actual cd. The plain white background allows us to focus intently on the red roses; they are very prominent and suggests the idea of love, which is a central theme throughout the album and in most of her music.

By placing the roses on a white background symbolises the innocent love the artist has encountered. However, there is also a slight melancholic vibe about it, the hints of black within the red roses implies the dark side of romance. This interlinks with some of Lana’s gloomy and depressing lyrics; ‘Dark Paradise.’