Like she told Pitchfork in 2011, "I've been singing in Brooklyn since I was 17 and no one in the industry cared at all. She's always had this vision in her: now, she gets to realize it on the world stage. " No matter what moniker they were recorded under, no matter the genre, these tracks feel true to the Lana we know.
In fact, her catalogue of 'unofficial' material is bigger than her official library. For those who think Lana's a one-trick pony, the stylistic diversity of her back catalogue proves otherwise - from experiments in hip-hop like " St Tropez" and " Live or Die," to EDM-influenced songs " Ride Or Die. Lizzy Grant (she later switched to the alternate spelling Del Rey). The latter picked up some local press a Huffington Post piece lauded her sound as "decidedly anti-genre," which still feels true today. The next year she signed with Interscope and Polydor, and the rest, as they say, is history.Īltogether, nearly 200 Lana songs that were never officially released have surfaced online, from the May Jailer tapes to loose cuts from sessions with producers that never made it anywhere. Together, David and Lana recorded the 2008 EP Kill Kill, and her sort-of-self-titled 2010 LP Lana Del Ray A.K.A. By then, she'd changed her musical moniker to Lizzy Grant (closer to her birth name, Elizabeth Grant) and had landed a record deal - but not the one that would make her famous. She succeeded, landing David Kahne, a producer who'd previously worked with the Strokes and New Order. In 2007, she recorded a demo tape titled No Kung Fu in a bid to find a producer for her first studio album. Under this name, she recorded two EPs, Young Like Me and From the End, then an LP called Sirens. None of the albums ever received an official release, but that certainly didn't mean Lana - sorry May - was going to give up. While I saw Lizzy Grant as a strong stage name in itself, there is also the argument of personal reinvention especially coming from a young woman who is discovering herself, and yet, Lana seems to hold onto saying that becoming Lana Del Rey did not change the former Lizzy Grant. Back then, she was going by the name May Jailer. 12 years ago, a 20-year-old Lana Del Rey picked up a guitar, learned four chords, and headed into the studio.