In 2011, Lana Del Rey arrived on the music blogging scene to harsh commentary from critics, specifically pertaining to authenticity, intent, and talent. Her breakthrough song, "Video Games," engendered good will that had seemingly evaporated by the time her debut album, Born to Die, was released. The album was maligned by reviewers, but its impact has proved far-reaching; you can hear her cool, hip-hop inflected style and somewhat tongue-in-cheek generational address in the music of Lorde, Halsey, and Post Malone. Since then, Lana has only grown stronger at her craft, doubling down on her anti-pop tendencies and clearly defined aesthetic, and recruiting an incredibly dedicated fanbase in the process.
Lana Del Rey fashioned a career out of blurring the lines between reality and fantasy. The cinematic music videos, Lynch-lite Americana imagery, and willingness to draw on black culture as a white performer are all part of the carefully curated world of Del Rey. The release of her fourth studio album, Lust For Life, gave listeners writing that was as vivid as ever, and showed a different side of Lana; some of the darkness inherent in her music was beginning to recede.
In honor of Lana's 33rd birthday, the following list is a glimpse into the glimmering swimming pools, hazy southern California light, and heartbreak that define her work. Whether she’s turning diamonds into snow in Florida, lounging at the Chateau Marmont, or eating soft ice cream at Coney Island, these are the (officially released) songs where Del Rey is at her very best.
21. "God Knows I Tried" (2015)
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Album: Honeymoon
Producer: Lana Del Rey, Rick Nowels, Kieron Menzies
A song about the quality of the morning light in Southern California, “God Knows I Tried” is meditative, repetitive, forlorn. It name-checks the Eagles’ “Hotel California,” a far more uptempo song with similar thematic concerns. “God knows I tried,” is the kind of thing you tell yourself when you know you’re trapped, without alternatives. —Ross Scarano
20. "High By The Beach" (2015)
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Album: Honeymoon
Producer: Kieron Menzies, Rick Nowels, Lana Del Rey
Del Rey came out quite literally guns blazing in the lead single from her most recent album. After years of being in the spotlight, unable to pop out for coffee without having a paparazzo following her, and even a few obsessive fans hanging around her homes in both New York and Malibu, she finally reached her boiling point. The song is as much an expression of wanting carefree downtime in the sun as it is a response to critics who claimed her fame is not the result of her own ingenuity and creative aspirations. —Nora-Grayce Orosz
19. "Beautiful People Beautiful Problems" f/ Stevie Nicks (2017)
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Album: Lust for Life
Producers: Lana Del Rey, Rick Nowels, Kieron Menzies, Dean Reid
While Lana is only just beginning to wade into witchy waters, her musical partner on “Beautiful People Beautiful Problems” has been at it for years. Stevie Nicks, the white witch herself, teams up with Del Rey for a hauntingly beautiful tune that reassures us that we’re all just complicated individuals living in an equally complicated time. The pair coos “We’re just beautiful people with beautiful problems/ Beautiful problems God knows we’ve got them/ But we’ve got to try (lie la lie)/ Every day and night,” and all the worries of the world fade into the background. —Nora-Grayce Orosz
18. "Money Power Glory" (2014)
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Album: Ultraviolence
Producer: Greg Kurstin
A vow of revenge and a prayer for success, “Money Power Glory” is that moment in the movie when the villain reveals their plan to the helpless hero. But this is Lana Del Rey’s moment, meaning that when she reveals her concealed weapon, you cheer. “I’m gonna take them for all that they got.” Yes. —Ross Scarano
17. "This Is What Makes Us Girls" (2012)
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Album: Born to Die
Producer: Emile Haynie, Al Shux
Del Rey isn't shy about her reckless streak as a teenager growing up in rural Lake Placid, New York. On “This Is What Makes Us Girls,” she alludes to some of the bad habits that may have lead to her being shipped off to a Connecticut boarding school. Breaking into hotel pools, skipping school, and facing a “freshman generation of degenerate beauty queens” are scenarios any wild child can relate to. This bad girl's anthem takes us on a nostalgic trip through her troubled past and leaves us just a little sentimental for those wilder times. —Nora-Grayce Orosz
16. "Ultraviolence" (2014)
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Album: Ultraviolence
Producer: Dan Auerbach
On Ultraviolence, Lana Del Rey moved away from the hip-hop references of Born to Die to further explore Americana and vintage pop, alongside producer Dan Auerbach, of the Black Keys. The dirge-like title track pays homage to the Crystals “He Hit Me,” produced by convicted murderer Phil Spector. Fun fact: I listened to this song for the first time while watching the controlled burn of a cliff-hanging Texas mansion. —Ross Scarano
15. "Off To The Races" (2011)
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Album: Born to Die
Producer: Emile Haynie, Patrik Berger
Del Rey leans into the drama here to produce one of her most cinematic performances to date. She plays a few roles here—femme fatale, wide-eyed naïf, and measured narrator—to wildly entertaining effect. The beat, shimmering strings and movement, welcomes the bravura performances. Listening to it now, it's hard to believe that anyone's problem with Lana Del Rey was her inauthenticity; she plays to the rafters, her best instincts are for melodrama, and the show is never better than on this one. —Brendan Klinkenberg
14. “13 Beaches” (2017)
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Album: Lust For Life
Producers: Lana Del Rey, Rick Nowels, Kieron Menzies, Dean Reid, Mighty Mike
The release of Lust For Life had stans shaking. Between Lana’s angelic beam on the cover and the upbeat nature of the first single, “Love,” it seemed like she was headed in an entirely new direction. And while Lust For Life is certainly the most varied album in her catalogue, Lana showed three tracks in that she could still brood with effortless glamour on “13 Beaches.” The song, inspired by Lana’s literal attempt to find a beach on which to escape the paparazzi and read a book alone, opens with gut-wrenching strings and a sample from the 1962 horror film Carnival of Souls, a meta reference for someone whose work constantly invokes the description “old Hollywood.” It’s not her most complex song, at least not lyrically, but the combination of piano and hip-hop drums perfectly complement her vocals in a way that’s reminiscent of Born To Die. It’s old-school Lana sounds with new-school Lana storytelling, and the album’s unequivocal standout ballad. —Carolyn Bernucca
13. "Tomorrow Never Came" f/ Sean Ono Lennon (2017)
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Album: Lust for Life
Producers: Lana Del Rey, Rick Nowels, Sean Ono Lennon
This folk-heavy track brings Del Rey together with music royalty Sean Ono Lennon. In a recent Zane Lowe interview for Beats 1, Del Rey revealed that she had actually penned this particular song years ago, never to be recorded. She felt she had “written it for someone else,” but it speaks to her current state of mind that the song actually fits perfectly on Lust For Life, sandwiched between songs like “Beautiful People Beautiful Problems” and “Heroin." Whether or not she still believes that tomorrow never came, it’s songs like these that make us believe in the cosmic coincidences. —Nora-Grayce Orosz
12. "Ride" (2012)
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Album: Paradise Edition
Producer: Rick Rubin
Released on the 2012 Paradise Edition of Born to Die, "Ride" quickly became the Lana Del Rey fan anthem. The music video depicts Del Rey hanging with an older gang of bikers, living out of motels and enjoying moonlit bonfires in the desert. With dramatic orchestral backing, she croons out sultry words praising the freedom of the open road, even if she ultimately feels alone in the world. If there’s anything she can be sure of though, it is that when the war in her mind cannot be quieted, she need only take to the road and ride. —Nora-Grayce Orosz
11. "Get Free" (2017)
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Album: Lust for Life
Producers: Lana Del Rey, Rick Nowels, Kieron Menzies, Dean Reid
This one’s special. Despite being the final track on Lust for Life, it gives us the first taste of Lana Del Rey’s earned and evolved outlook on life, four albums in. She sings, “I never really noticed that I had to decide to play someone’s game or live my own life but now I do/ I wanna move, out of the black, into the blue”—the song is a cathartic release from the heavy tones and emotions that weigh down her earlier projects, and brings her fans even further to her side. The calming beach sounds of soft waves and seagulls that end the song (and album) suggest a peace of mind that things do get better, if only with time. —Nora-Grayce Orosz
10. "National Anthem" (2012)
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Album: Born to Die (2012)
Producer: Emile Haynie
Speaking of Born To Die, if you were either too young or too old and missed the opportunity to use lyrics from “National Anthem” as an IG caption for your Fourth of July post, I’m truly sorry. Lana’s infatuation with Americana has since fizzled out (she no longer uses American imagery in her tour visuals, due to the current state of our nation), but “National Anthem” reminds us of a simpler time, when the concept of sexualizing the president didn’t immediately activate our gag reflexes. Lana’s sultry whine is at its very best here, heard explicitly in lyrics like, “He says to be cool but I don’t know how yet” and “And you can’t keep your hands off me or your pants on/ See what you done to me, King of Chevron?” The genius music video, featuring A$AP Rocky as the leader of the free world, only adds to the song’s romance. Vince Staples once tweeted, “The national anthem don’t even slap,” but this one still does. —Carolyn Bernucca
9. “Cherry” (2017)
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Album: Lust For Life
Producers: Lana Del Rey, Rick Nowels, Tim Larcombe, Dean Reid, Kieron Menzies
It’s honestly shocking that we waited as long as we did to get a track like this, but damn if it wasn’t worth the wait. They say that there are only two emotions, love and fear, and Lana plays with their overlap on “Cherry.” She’s caught in another bad romance—sigh, some things never change—one in which her partner’s touch is “like heaven takin’ the place of something evil,” but he’s also ruined her cherries, wine, rosemary, thyme, and even her peaches. It’s the shortest song on this list, but manages to combine all of the best things about Lana; her foul mouth, her affinity for trap drums, her hazy, desperate vocals, and dark, summer-y imagery. Bitch! Fuck! —Carolyn Bernucca
8. “Honeymoon” (2015)
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Album: Honeymoon
Producers: Lana Del Rey, Rick Nowels, Kieron Menzies
2015’s Honeymoon left a lot to be desired; though the lead-up was fun, with the launch of the “Honeymoon Hotline” and Lana’s version of a finsta, @honeymoon, the actual body of work failed to live up to the hype. The title track, however, is one of her most cinematic. It aches with desire in a way that’s mostly non-sexual (save for the line “there are roses in between my thighs”) and instead haunting, largely thanks to both the song’s strings and Lana’s own breathy background vocals. The drums that kick in around the 3:48 mark sound like a slow march to the altar to meet a lover who’s perhaps not the most consistent (“everything you do’s elusive, too”) but nonetheless your one and only (“there’s nothing to lose now that I’ve found you”). I do. —Carolyn Bernucca
7. "Florida Kilos" (2014)
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Album: Ultraviolence (2014)
Producer: Dan Auerbach
Leave it to Lana to end an album about broken, toxic relationships with an absolute banger about cooking up cocaine. “Florida Kilos” sounds like humidity, stray palm leaves, acrylic nails, and pastel-colored buildings, and it’s delicious. We get more of Lana’s whining here, this time on perhaps her catchiest hook ever: "Come on down to Florida/ I got somethin’ for ya/ We could see the kilos or the Keys, baby/ Ooh, yeah.” Florida might be the butt of every other state’s jokes, but Lana makes it sound dangerous and wonderful—which it is. —Carolyn Bernucca
6. "Shades Of Cool" (2014)
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Album: Ultraviolence (2014)
Producer: Dan Auerbach
“Shades Of Cool” is special; Lana gives us a previously unheard (at least, in her studio albums) vocal range, gauzy notes that swim beautifully over the Wall of Sound-esque production. Some of the most fun things about Lana Del Rey’s music are the little changes and adjustments she makes as a song goes on. In “Shades Of Cool,” we get this improvisation at the end of the second verse, when she almost growls the line, “And when he calls/ He bawls for me/ And not for you.” She’s both pining and protective—need me one like that. —Carolyn Bernucca
5. “Yayo” (2012)
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Album: Paradise (EP)
Producers: Dan Heath, Emile Haynie
Lana’s Paradise EP is home to some of her most beloved work—"Ride,” “American,” Body Electric,” “Gods & Monsters”—and also to some of her most underrated, namely “Yayo.” There exist many iterations of the track on YouTube (including a “rainy mood” version), but none are as eerie as the studio version. Throughout the song’s three choruses, Lana’s vocals move from tinny and longing, her voice nearly cracking in places, to husky and demanding. Of all of the songs from Born To Die and Paradise, it’s the most similar to her unreleased work, and to have it in CDQ on an EP is a gift. —Carolyn Bernucca
4. “Old Money” (2014)
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Album: Ultraviolence
Producers: Daniel Heath
The Dan Auerbach-produced, guitar-heavy Ultraviolence was a new (and brilliant) direction for Lana. From the taunting “Cruel World” to the somber “Pretty When You Cry,” the twanging, jazzy notes sound exactly like the Nashville studio they were recorded in. The only time the album really takes a turn from this core sound is on “Old Money,” which takes us back to orchestral Lana. It gave me goosebumps the first time I heard it, and it still does to this day. It’s Lana at her finest, backed by her own vocals and a literal symphony, dreaming aloud about her wild days. It’s “Video Games” all grown up, wondering what could have been and what could still be. —Carolyn Bernucca
3. “Brooklyn Baby” (2014)
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Album: Ultraviolence
Producers: Lana Del Rey, Barrie O’Neill
Though “Brooklyn Baby” invokes the aforementioned guitar heard throughout Ultraviolence, the song still manages to stray from the rest of the album, in an entirely different way than “Old Money.” It’s as dreamy and lovely as her other songs, sure, but whereas we often hear Lana idolizing the man in her life (“I’m nothing without you”), “Brooklyn Baby” feels more like Lana’s love song to her damn self, in which she calls out the stereotypes she identifies with and has been mocked for (“I’ve got feathers in my hair/ I get down to Beat poetry”). Instead of romanticizing the past (although she does mention “the freedomland of the ‘70s”), she’s happy right where she is—”I’m talkin’ ‘bout my generation/ I’m talkin’ ‘bout that newer nation/ And if you don’t like it, you can beat it/ Beat it, baby.” We’ve heard her scat before on tracks like “Million Dollar Man” and “Honeymoon,” but it’s different here—it’s sweeter, like the scent of honeysuckle permeating the otherwise rank Brooklyn air. If endless “Wonderwall” covers have made you wary of the guitar, the song’s last 25 seconds will make you believe in its magic again. —Carolyn Bernucca
2. "Video Games" (2011)
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Album: Born to Die
Producer: Robopop
The fact that a song from Lana’s first album reigns supreme as her best ever is not a knock on the work she’s produced since then; instead, it’s a testament to just how incredible “Video Games” really is. Nearly seven years after its release, it remains her most beautiful song, and perhaps one of the most beautiful love songs of all time. If the twinkling harp and ballad-appropriate piano aren’t enough to move you, the song’s lyrics, with their symbolic use of video games as time spent together without really being together, should be. Born To Die is a wonderful piece of work in which Lana volleys between being a badass, sultry vixen (“Off To The Races,” “Diet Mountain Dew”) and poetically vulnerable, continuing to add to the now-exhausted conversation, “Who is Lana Del Rey?” “Video Games” is Lana at her most delicate and fragile, spinning us a dream we’d never wish to wake up from. —Carolyn Bernucca
