Lana Del Rey, ‘National Anthem’ – Song Review

Love her or hate her, the Lana Del Rey train (or, in her case, sedan?) keeps rolling. The “controversially lipped” not-quite-yet pop star has a new single dropping July 8, the little girl gangster ‘National Anthem.’

While the song first appeared on her album in January, the single release will be the full-on Del Rey treatment. We’re talking a music video — preferably with alligator-humping — as well as a slate of remixes, from underground producers like German house DJ Tensnake, American house DJ Todd Terry, British drum-n-basser Afterlife and London house duo DC Breaks. So expect Lana’s slow-stepping Notorious BIG meets Gwen Stefani act to put its dancing shoes on.

Lana drops pouty rhymes about being taken to the Hamptons — this is the girl that called herself the “Gangster Nancy Sinatra,” after all. “Tell me I’m you’re national anthem,” she coos in the chorus, dropping the rapping act for her more native vamp serenade, getting all clumsy seductive on the listener, one of her stock mechanics: veiled drug references (“Can we party later?“), sex (“Baby, bow down / Making me so wow wow“) and reptiles (“Over your body / Hold you like a python“).

In an age when quality (read: quantity) is read by social media impressions and page views, Lana Del Rey has a perfectly adapted business model: the indie cognoscenti can’t resist deconstructing her, and the populist YouTube crowd keeps watching her videos. Plus, with all the ways the reproduces her work, from remixes to dropping a video every few weeks, there’s always a chance of Del Rey in the forecast. She’s an internet elemental.

We can already hear her reply, right there in the pre-chorus: “Didn’t you know who you were dealing with?”

Listen to Lana Del Rey’s ‘National Anthem’

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zgcnZNrE74&feature=youtube_gdata_player