"Video Games" has received widespread critical acclaim from critics, many of whom praised the uniqueness of Del Rey's vocal performance and the song's cinematic production. The song has been considered Del Rey's "breakthrough hit" and was a commercial success, peaking at number one in Germany, Iceland and Luxembourg, reaching a top ten position in Belgium, France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom and peaked at 91 on Billboard Hot 100 chart and was certified Gold. The accompanying music video was directed and edited by Del Rey herself, combining scenes of her performing the song filmed on a webcam with clips of archive footage. Lana Del Rey's "Video Games" is, of course, the song that the internet hasn't been able to shake this fall.
And in a new video interview with the Dutch website 3VOOR12, Del Rey talks a bit about the story behind the song. In the interview, she makes it sound more straightforward than it actually is. According to Del Rey, it's actually literally about watching her boyfriend play video games, and it's about being content and discontent at the same time. Also, she says she wrote it during "a time when I had sort of let go all my personal career ambitions." Hard to imagine that! "Video Games" was met with critical acclaim from music critics. The song received critical acclaim from music critics.
Music video"Video Games" on YouTube"Video Games" is a song recorded by American singer-songwriter Lana Del Rey for her second studio album and major label debut, Born to Die . The song was produced by Robopop while the lyrics were written by Del Rey and Justin Parker. It was first released to the Internet on June 29, 2011, was later released on her extended play, Lana Del Rey, and re-released as the lead single from her second studio album, Born to Die, on October 7, 2011, through Interscope Records. "Video Games" is a baroque pop ballad where the protagonist who, despite being ignored by her significant other, resolves to love him regardless. "It's you, it's all for you… We came back up to your studio apartment.
You had to much wine at dinner and put on your friends demo. We danced with it on repeat playing from the speakers of your laptop while the rain crashed on your windowsill. After weeks of talking I finally landed in Australia. I walked through customs and kissed you for the first time dropping my headphones to the ground.
You came to the session, you watch me belt this out and you knew I wasn't the same as every other guy who let you down. You listened to the words and cried before calling me. Because you knew we would forever change each other's lives. This song has unintentionally played a part in ever relationship if had in my sobriety. And though these romances were never meant to last, the thing that always does is the music. We dictate the soundtracking our lives and when we die what we chose to connect to will play out against the tape of our time here.
The song was written by Lana Del Rey and Justin Parker in the same sessions as "Blue Jeans" during the summer of 2010. It was written about how Del Rey watched her then-boyfriend play video games. When creating the song, Del Rey had no plans for it to be released as a single, as she assumed it would struggle to gain traction. The music video for "Video Games" was directed and edited by Del Rey. It features video clips of skateboarders, cartoons and shots from old movies, as well as paparazzi footage of Paz de la Huerta falling down while intoxicated.
These are interspersed with shots of Del Rey singing, which she filmed herself using a webcam. "Video Games" is the debut single release by American singer-songwriter Lana Del Rey from her second studio album, Born to Die . Del Rey's music has been noted for its cinematic sound and its references to various aspects of pop culture, particularly that of the 1950s and 1960s Americana. I spoke to some journalists yesterday and they told me they thought Video Games was a sad song, but to me it feels happy.
Things hadn't been working out for me musically for such a long time. I wrote Video Games after I let go of my ambitions of becoming a noteworthy artist, and was just enjoying being with my boyfriend instead, living in a trailer park, watching him play video games. That was all my life consisted of and I was at peace with that, so to me it's a happy song. Today, modern pop culture legend and LGBTQ+ groundbreaker Trixie Mattel has raised the bar a notch higher on an already accomplished career with her reinterpretation of Lana Del Rey's powerhouse debut single and now-iconic 2010s indie ballad "Video Games".
With her signature autoharp in-hand, Mattel speeds up the tempo and trades the orchestral grandiosity of the original for a lonesome western whistling and an arrangement forged in the fires of classic mournful country and Americana. After recording videos for the tracks from Lana Del Ray in the same style, Del Rey continued by recording this one and interlacing clips of her with old films, cartoons, paparazzi footage, and nature clips to create the video. The first two original videos, released in July of 2011, were removed and reformatted using some new clips once Del Rey was signed to Stranger, due to copyright issues. Del Rey posted the video on her personal YouTube channel on August 19, 2011, and it was posted to her Vevo channel on October 16, 2011. Okay, not quite — the singer-songwriter's latest single is actually about a city in California, as her songs tend to be these days.
In the swaying piano ballad , she compares her body to Los Angeles and sings of Hilton hotels and Land Rovers; it's all paired with a video of Del Rey dancing in a living room with L.A. The video takes a turn at the end, closing with a trappy, mariachi-like outro that's not officially part of "Arcadia." It could be from elsewhere on Blue Banisters, the album Del Rey has been teasing since April but delayed from its intended July 4 release. Now the album is set to come out October 22, featuring three singles Del Rey surprise-released in May. It follows her previous album, Chemtrails Over the Country Club, which was released only back in March. The most devastating track on "Ultraviolence" ushers you in with a haunted arpeggio on a single guitar. Then, Del Rey begins to sing, oozing vulnerability through the cracks in her most tearful vocal ever as she sets the scene with "All the pretty stars shine for you, my love / Am I that girl that you dream of?" Of course not.
This page uses Creative Commons Licensed content from Wikipedia ."Video Games" is a song written by Lana Del Rey and Justin Parker and produced by Robopop in 2011. Taken from Del Rey's first major-label album Born to Die, the song served as the album's first and lead single worldwide and is credited for the launch of Del Rey's international success. The song was officially released as a single on October 7, 2011, as her debut single. The moment the song did hit the radio, the reception was unprecedented – and also extremely short-lived. There was a quick backlash following "Video Games" success which saw Lana Del Rey elevated and subsequently crucified by the media before she even released her first album.
It seems the backlash started around the time that ill-fated debut LP was unearthed online; entitled Lana Del Ray a.k.a. Lizzy Grant, the album hinted at the sonic potential that would later flourish; much like "Video Games", these were downbeat, lovelorn ballads rooted in grainy, lo-fi Americana. Media outlets were, on the other hand, more incensed at the discovery of Lana Del Rey as a pseudonym; shattered was the illusion that she had appeared from nowhere on YouTube, a revelation which sparked a subsequent mission to crucify the starlet for a supposed lack of authenticity. Of course the song blew up, and she became a sensation, and then there was backlash, to her voice, her image, her persona ("that's not even her real name!"), especially after her SNL performance. But I am so glad that the quality of the song and her music broke through that. I don't really care for her as a person/her opinions, but I think it's evident how influential and groundbreaking her work has been on the entire industry.
I actually first saw the video on MTVU , I was flipping through channels and I decided to stay and watch this artist I've never heard of. The random footage of classic Hollywood, skaters, and messy celebrities suits the landscape the lyrics are portraying so well, and it laid the blueprint for the aesthetics she'd work with for the rest of her career. Actually when I'm done typing this I'm gonna watch the video again lol, it's a modern classic. Anyway, this song still moves me to my core, especially while watching the video. I never really got hooked on Born to Die but "Video Games" just strikes a specific chord that her other songs at the time didn't.
The swelling strings, her haunting voice and the lyrics all come together so perfectly. On June 29th 2011, Lana Del Rey posted Video Games to her personal YouTube channel. Now a deleted YouTube video, Video Games would garner the attention of music industry professional, later to be released on her EP, Lana Del Rey. Regardless of who made it, where they came from, who their dad is, what they're called and whether or not their lips have been subject to the ministrations of a surgeon, Video Games would be a magnificent song. There's something imperishable and undeniable about its sighing melody, the way it rises and falls with the mood of a lyric that can't seem to decide whether the bloke it's about is the best thing since sliced bread or a unbelievable pain in the arse. You can see why Video Games united the guy who writes Pitchfork's Track of the Day column with whoever picks the Radio 2 playlist, why it doesn't seem to have lost any of its haunting power in the face of ubiquity.
And if one of the marks of a great song is how it can withstand radical reinterpretation, you could point to the variety of fanatstic remixes of Video Games, which in the hands of Balam Acab, reinvented the song as hallucinogenic ambience, and via Joy Orbison as strange, beguiling, disjointed house music. The strings that usher in the title track to Del Rey's first platinum album set the stage for drama. And she follows through, aching her way through the death-tripping femme-fatale lyrics with the same blase delivery that did wonders on "Video Games" while the production flirts with downbeat hip-hop atmosphere of the sort that would suggest a Drake CD or two in Del Rey's collection. The argument that she is not the mastermind behind her own image, though, can now easily be picked apart; since Born To Die Del Rey has released Paradise, Ultraviolence and Honeymoon without deviating from the captivating world that she created for herself. Unsurprisingly, critics have warmed up over time – music review aggregator MetaCritic reveals that her latest release Honeymoon is her most critically-acclaimed to date, earning a score of 78.
Comparatively, Ultraviolence earned 74, Paradise 64and Born To Die 62. Following this logic, it's fair to say that 'Video Games' is even more beautiful 5 years after its release – once removed from the debates of inauthenticity which surrounded its release, it now opens itself up to the unbiased listener as a brooding, cinematic portrayal of love and longing. When Del Rey appeared on Saturday Night Live in January of 2012 to perform the song and promote her debut album Born To Die, she found out about the downside of hype. Her shaky performance took a beating on social media, and the possibility that Del Rey would be swallowed up by the backlash seemed very real. In the verses, Del Rey paints scenes of domestic tranquility and socializing with friends, 21st-century style. Her days and nights are filled with beer, darts, billiards and, of course, video games.
"This is my idea of fun," she sings at the end of the verse in a voice somewhere between deadpan and narcotized. These seemingly trivial pursuits are given meaning by the presence of the man in her life. With his strong arms, fast car and sexy patter, he seems more like an action-movie screenwriter's construct than a living, breathing human.
Talking to The Sun, the 'chanteuse' said the song was inspired by watching him play video games and the two of them "being together in the same room". Before making her way back over into the U.S., Lana Del Rey made another stop in London at the Corinthia Hotel to provide a live performance of her hit single "Video Games." The intimate showing featured Lana front and center with piano accompaniment to her side, as she sang a stripped-down version of the fan-favorite. I first saw the "Video Games" M/V on MTV while I was on vacation in December 2011. I honestly didn't really think much of Lana's music initially because it wasn't my kind of music, but I became obsessed with it the following year when I found out my high school crush was a big fan of Lana's music.
My love for Florence and Lana's music at the time was really my gateway into loving female-led art pop at a point in my life that I was mostly listening to rock. All of the press over her authenticity kept me intrigued. I found it hilarious how Pitchfork and that were hyping her in 2011, and as soon as questions over her authenticity spread, there was a total backflip and her debut was panned in critical reviews. The persona became bigger than the music by the end of 2011 or so. But for a short time, people talked about Video Games being an amazing song instead of her lips or deleting her 2010 album off iTunes.
Musically, "Video Games" is an down-tempo ballad song with highly orchestrated instrumentation. It is composed in the key of F♯ minor, and is in common time with a tempo of around 60 beats per minute. Instrumentally, the song features pizzicato strings, swathing strings, harps, and violins.
The song lacks any major percussion instruments, but does feature minor thumping in the latter half. Del Rey's vocals range from E3 to A4, and the song showcases her using a lower vocal range than she had used previously. The crescendos, as well as feathery backing vocals create a subdued and haunting atmosphere that was praised by critics.
Both official and dry a cappellas were leaked on July 30, 2018. By September, the Village Voice was asking if she was the Kreayshawn of indie music. Then, last week, New York magazine featured her in Vulture as the new singer that bloggers love to hate. Which brings us to last night, when Video Games debuted on Ringer. In terms of whether the song is a classic, I think Lana's created better and more memorable songs that people will remember her for, but your first big song always stays with you. The future for Lana Del Rey feels a little uncertain.
She went from mysterious internet phenomenon to the Q awards at such speed you suspect even the shadowy management that suppressed her first album and got her to change her name are a bit taken aback. You might feel more confident about her ability to deliver an album that lives up to the mammoth expectations and confounds her critics if she actually were the mysterious polymath auteur she briefly appeared to be. That said, being an arch, artfully constructed figure certainly doesn't preclude making great albums and she's already made one extraordinary record, which is one more than most people make. Whether Video Games turns out to be the one truly remarkable thing about her, or a portent of greatness to come is a moot point. But, like the criticisms levelled against her it doesn't seem to matter, at least while the song is playing.
Please note that our catalog only lists songs that we've set up within our system; not every track from an album is displayed. You may request a song that's not in our catalog by using our request form. The song that sent her on her way remains a perfect introduction to her mystique, a melancholy meditation on falling in love with a loser who'd rather be off playing video games than, you know, making out with her. It's flawless, really, swathed in atmosphere with Del Rey bleeding sadness on the mike as she teases her way with disarming detachment through lines about how "heaven is a place on Earth where you tell me all the things you want to do."
Del Rey's aching pout was clearly made to sell a chorus hook that asks not "Will you love me tomorrow" but "Will you still love me when I'm no longer young and beautiful?/Will you still love me when I got nothing but my aching soul?" Recorded for the soundtrack to Baz Luhrmann's treatment of F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby," this became the singer's second platinum single, following "Summertime Sadness." And it goes beyond the semi-whispered pout of the verses. Even the guitar hook — a twangy reassertion of the Beatles' "And I Love Her" — owes more to the post-Chris Isaak tone of Del Rey's "Blue Jeans" than the Keys' approach to rock and roll.
Rolling Stone has an exclusive preview of her Breakthrough performance, in which she sang a slowed-down rendition of her hit song "Video Games." In the clip, Del Rey croons over a heavy piano and strings backing, with a little flair added courtesy of an electric guitar. There is an undeniable hint of desperation in her voice when she sings the chorus, as if this bliss she's describing can't possibly last much longer. The haunting atmosphere in the music seconds that notion, that this love affair, rhapsodized by the lyrics, is actually built on fragile ground and doomed to expire.
Del Rey wrote the song with Justin Parker, who came up with the eerie, seesawing piano chords at the heart of the instrumental backing. When it came to the lyrics, the singer-songwriter looked to a pair of recent relationships, as she told the website Socialstereotype.com. "The verse was about the way things were with one person, and the chorus was the way that I wished things had really been with another person, who I thought about for a long time," she said.
A choral a cappella version of "Video Games" was used as part of the Royal Shakespeare Company's 2017 production of Othello in the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, within Shakespeare's Globe, London. Used in place of Desdemona's "Weeping Willow" song, it was performed by live choir at various points in the production in an Elizabethan style, framing key moments of the play, as well as being used as the opening overture. I've been putting my music online for so long that I didn't expect Video Games to get more attention than any other song. It's strange that people would react to a five-minute ballad, it's great though. Referring to her forthcoming debut album 'Born To Die' she called it a "dark love story seen through hopeful eyes".
Your comprehensive live music resource for show listings, artist tracking, music news, photos, reviews and more. Bad Wolves' debuted a cover of Lana Del Rey's single "Video Games" a track from her second studio album, Born To Die, and frontman Tommy Vext stunned with his impressive rendition of the song on Friday from a candlelit room. In a feature with Consequence of Sound, Mattel sites numerous influences that spurred her reinterpretation of the track, including the cinematic vibes of films likeKill Bill Vol. 2andFantasia, classic toy commercials, Pioneertown (an unincorporated "classic western" town in the San Bernardino desert that often serves as the location for film shoots), and the beautiful yet melancholy nature of living in Los Angeles this past summer.
The video, which drops today, combines the iconic melodrama of its source material with Trixie's patented life-size Barbie style as imagery of cowboys, horses and classic videos games are projected over her, serving as an allusion to the grainy footage, vintage montage aesthetic of Lana Del Rey's original video. With Del Rey touring "Ultraviolence," here's a look at her 15 most inspired moments. One was featured on an album by the late, great Bobby Womack. Lana Del Rey is her generation's most successful femme fatale, sighing her way through a seemingly endless cycle of bad romance and dysfunctional urges in a brief yet intriguing career that has more than lived up to the promise of "Video Games," the bittersweet ballad that remains her calling card. The world's defining voice in music and pop culture since 1952. The lyrics to this song are about two broken relationships in the singer's past.
