Dripping with diamond jewellery and vampy make-up, Lana Del Rey sits naked on the front cover of this month’s GQ magazine to celebrate her Woman Of The Year award.
The magazine’s reason for giving her the award?
Video Games announced her arrival as a fully formed pop star, but it’s the No.1 album, Ivor Novello award and GQ award that confirm the enigmatic, pneumatic bombshell is here to stay.
“Pop star takes clothes off for magazine” is hardly ground-breaking news, but Del Rey’s photo shoot for GQ has raised more eyebrows and questions than usual. Somehow, it feels different to Natasha Khan posing naked on the cover of upcoming Bat For Lashes album, Beyonce’s black-and white cover for ‘I Am… Sasha Fierce’ or Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Madonna getting her kit off. Perhaps it’s partly because she bridges the pop/indie hipster divide; you wouldn’t expect Cat Power, Hayley from Paramore or Sharon Van Etten to do the same.
It’s not that the photographs aren’t tasteful (even the boob-grope one). Or that serious artists haven’t set themselves up as sex symbols in the past (Prince). But what about the music, Lana? She seems to be enjoying her modelling and the idea of writing for films more than song-writing at the moment. If that makes her happy, great – but it will be a shame if we don’t hear the likes of ‘Video Games’ or ‘Blue Jeans’ again.
by Wallace McTavish
