I can’t think of an album since My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy that was this big and sounded this good.
Although it’s not quite the perfect pop record ‘Video Games’ might have led us to wish for, ‘Born To Die’ still marks the arrival of a fresh – and refreshingly self-aware – sensibility in pop.
The heights it reaches at its best still leave you wanting more. Born to Die is a brilliant album, but it's one that leaves room for a few improvements, and inspires confidence that they'll happen.
Forget what you used to think about Lana Del Rey, Born To Die provides more than anything you could ever expect from an internet sensation.
Whole thing sounds like a poppy Bond soundtrack remixed for the clubs, although even her faster songs sound slow.
There is a lot of room for Del Rey to grow if she wants to, as she already has a developed style for delivering her ideas and just needs a bit more to say.
There's just enough promise here to show that there is indeed talent beyond all the hype.
This record is not godawful. Nor is it great. But it's better than we deserve.
Through it all, she credibly makes us see through her own lens, one that reflects an artist who’s so sure of herself she’ll bypass any critique brought upon her.
Born to Die attempts to serve as Del Rey's own beautiful, dark, twisted fantasy, but there's no spark and nothing at stake.
Listening to Born To Die is like watching a movie billed as a comedy and discovering that the only funny scenes are in the previews
She's unable to consistently sell herself as a heartbreaker, and most of the songs here sound like cobbled retreads of "Video Games."
A deeply, deeply flawed meditation on love, image, and fame in the 21st century, and a collection of ideas thrown at the wall to see what sticks.
Shallow and overwrought, with periodic echoes of Ke$ha’s Valley Girl aloofness, the album lives down to the harshest preconceptions against pop music.
#4 | / | Complex |
#9 | / | Slant |
#11 | / | The Fly |
#17 | / | The Guardian |
#19 | / | FACT Magazine |
#42 | / | Gigwise |
#45 | / | NME |
#45 | / | Spinner |
#51 | / | Uncut |