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CRITIC REVIEWS
100
It's tempting, when considering the phrase "Hollywood sadcore" – Del Rey's own description of her musical style – to dwell too long on the second word. But the "Hollywood" part signifies more than simply silver-screen glamour.
90
I can’t think of an album since My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy that was this big and sounded this good.
11y
80
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.
11y
80
Confirms her as the most compelling new pop star around: half doomed romantic, half mordant cynic, with a distinctively conflicted vision of how love, fame and America work.
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9mo
80
What Born to Die isn't is the thing Lana Del Rey seems to think it is, which is a coruscating journey into the dark heart of a troubled soul. If you concentrate too hard on her attempts to conjure that up, it just sounds a bit daft. What it is, is beautifully turned pop music, which is more than enough.
80
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.
80
‘Born To Die’ may ultimately prove too-blinkered a vision to fully appeal to the Sheeran-loving public in the long run, but Lana has certainly proved that she’s not just here to play games.
80
Del Rey may be the pop-star equivalent of a teenage girl naïvely playing dress up in her grandmother’s vintage clothing and singing into a hairbrush that conveniently looks like an old-fashioned microphone, but that doesn’t make Born to Die any less close to pop perfection.
80
Lana Del Rey's Born to Die doesn’t walk on water but its misty-eyed retro-pop makes for compelling listening.
80
No, Lana Del Rey isn’t the indie singer songwriter we all initially believed she was. But what she is is a finely tuned popstar. She is a performer, and 'Born To Die' is a well thought out project that has been hammered into elegant shape over time.
80
Tune out the background media noise and immerse yourself.
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2y
70
As brilliant as the character of Lana Del Rey may be it can, at times, feel to be repeating the motif more than adding anything new.
70
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.
11y
70
Whole thing sounds like a poppy Bond soundtrack remixed for the clubs, although even her faster songs sound slow.
11y
67
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.
11y
64
Unplug your modem and these expert pop songs still exist in a world they won’t change. But shutting them out for the sake of it is to deny highly listenable pop songs that defy easy answers.
11y
60
Crafted, but not consistent, the unsure-of-itself Born to Die doesn’t sustain or build on the impact of “Video Games”.
60
If Del Rey is wild at heart, she is just weird enough on top to remain compelling.
60
There's just enough promise here to show that there is indeed talent beyond all the hype.
11y
60
Born to Die is no disaster but it's no work of genius. Much as Lana Del Rey aspires to be Lady Gaga's successor, she may well be Clare Maguire's. Who? Exactly.
60
The sequencing wouldn't seem so top-loaded if what followed was half as compelling as the breakout "Video Games." After that highpoint things head downhill quickly.
60
This record is not godawful. Nor is it great. But it's better than we deserve.
11y
60
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.
11y
60
On the one hand, Del Rey's aesthetic of purring sex kitten, luring you in with deliberate devilish angel vocals, hip-hop beats, and the occasional lush orchestration, is alluringly original ... On the other hand, however, Del Rey’s faux rap posturing and often ridiculous lyrics border on the offensive.
11y
60
Del Rey's debut definitely needs a re-edit, but she's still a promising prospect. Haters keep hating; we're on Team Lana.
60
It’s a fantastical and elegiac powerful album, when all said and done; one that depends on the allurement of something special – and the hefty million dollar plus price tag – yet it fails to deliver on the promise of those early minor-opuses.
58
All tabloid tawdriness aside, she unleashes some truly A-level songs. But its baffling failures drop Die to a middling, maddening C+.
55
Unfortunately, most of the appeal of the record ends with its earliest tracks.
55
Born to Die attempts to serve as Del Rey's own beautiful, dark, twisted fantasy, but there's no spark and nothing at stake.
11y
50
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
11y
50
She's unable to consistently sell herself as a heartbreaker, and most of the songs here sound like cobbled retreads of "Video Games."
11y
50
It’s telling that Born To Die’s notion of success relies on such unimaginative signifiers.
10y
43
Born to Die is neither a fiasco nor a triumph, but a sometimes competent, mostly mediocre album, unworthy of the tidal wave of infernal nattering it rides in on.
40
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.
11y
40
Much of her music aims to capture elusive emotions, yet she ends up spelling them out with literal refrains, banal narratives and sexed-up histrionics that leave little to the imagination.
40
She’s a starlet to music bloggers, who’ve been buzzing over her for the past year. But for the rest of us, she’s just another aspiring singer who wasn’t ready to make an album yet.
30
On Lana Del Rey's new album, the American singer-songwriter brings a fresh approach to baroque pop, but doesn't really bring the depth or substance to back it up.
25
Shallow and overwrought, with periodic echoes of Ke$ha’s Valley Girl aloofness, the album lives down to the harshest preconceptions against pop music.
11y
0
Born to Die is the most unintentionally depressing thing I have listened to in a long time.
11y
SHUT UP!!!!! SHUT UP!! PLEASE JUST SHUT UP!!!!!!! SUPID DUMB!!!!!! SHUT UP NO ONE CARES!!!!!@! SHUT UP!!!!!!!
𝙉𝙤𝙩 𝙧𝙤𝙘𝙠𝙞𝙣 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙜𝙞𝙧𝙡𝙛𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙙𝙨⁉️ (GF'S PICK #2)
"Tell me i'm your National Anthem"
The perfect thot pop music.I can only imagine this being some people's life soundtrack.
Lana 's debut studio album is actually better then her first project, and that's simply because it's definetly mixed better and she also shows somewhat of a vocal improvement and more variety. As far as i can tell, this album was mega hyped ... read more
I was questioning writing reviews for lana albums because im going to get attacked by Lana Stans, but who the fuck cares, its my opinion.
I went in this expecting to not like it. I have a friend who is a diehard Lana stan, so I finally gave in and decided to listen to this. Its basically a thot anthem, which is also my biggest critic, the lyrics corny. I dont need to know youre having sex Lana, Keep that to yourself. While the lyrics are weird, those damn strings on tracks like Born To Die, ... read more
Looking back on this album after everything Lana has released since, its boring and uninspired. Lana is an incredible lyricist and this album is mostly just boring pop music to me. I appreciate its influence on alt pop music, but it aged terribly. If you wanna get into Lana, I'd honestly suggest just skipping this one.
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Track List
| 1 | Born to Die 4:46 | 90 |
| 2 | Off to the Races 4:59 | 83 |
| 3 | Blue Jeans 3:29 | 86 |
| 4 | Video Games 4:42 | 92 |
| 5 | Diet Mountain Dew 3:42 | 78 |
| 6 | National Anthem 3:50 | 81 |
| 7 | Dark Paradise 4:03 | 81 |
| 8 | Radio 3:34 | 83 |
| 9 | Carmen 4:08 | 76 |
| 10 | Million Dollar Man 3:51 | 77 |
| 11 | Summertime Sadness 4:25 | 89 |
| 12 | This Is What Makes Us Girls 3:58 | 75 |
Total Length: 49 minutes
Year End Lists
| #4 | / | Complex |
| #9 | / | Slant |
| #11 | / | The Fly |
| #17 | / | The Guardian |
| #19 | / | FACT Magazine |
| #42 | / | Gigwise |
| #45 | / | NME |
| #45 | / | Spinner |
| #50 | / | Earmilk |
| #51 | / | Uncut |
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Added on: November 27, 2011