Elizabeth Woolridge Grant, known professionally as Lana Del Rey, is an American singer-songwriter. Her music is noted for its cinematic quality and exploration of tragic romance, glamour, and melancholia, with frequent references to contemporary pop culture and 1950s–70s Americana.

Early life and education

Elizabeth Grant was born on June 21, 1985, in Manhattan, New York City, to Robert England Grant Jr., a copywriter at Grey Group, and Patricia Ann "Pat" (née Hill), an account executive at the same organization. She has a younger sister, Caroline "Chuck" Grant, and a younger brother, Charlie Grant. She was raised Roman Catholic and is of Scottish descent. When she was one year old, the family moved to Lake Placid, New York. In Lake Placid, her father worked for a furniture company before becoming an entrepreneurial domain investor; her mother worked as a schoolteacher. There, she attended St. Agnes School in her elementary years and began singing in her church choir, where she was the cantor.

She attended the high school where her mother taught for one year, but when she was 14 or 15, her parents sent her to Kent School to get sober from alcoholism. Grant shared in an interview: "That's really why I got sent to boarding school aged 14—to get sober." Her uncle, an admissions officer at the school, secured her financial aid to attend. According to Grant, she had trouble making friends during much of her teenage and early adult years. She has said she was preoccupied with death from a young age, and its role in her feelings of anxiety and alienation:

Impact

Del Rey has been mentioned as an influence by a number of artists including Billie Eilish, Lauren Jauregui, Kevin Abstract, Maggie Lindemann, XXXTentacion and Olivia Rodrigo. Billboard credited Born to Die with being one of the main catalysts for pop music's shift from an overall brash EDM tone to a moodier, hip-hop-inflected palette in the mid-2010s, and opined that Del Rey is indispensable to the decade's pop music, having influenced alternative-leaning pop artists such as Lorde, Halsey, Banks, Sky Ferreira, Father John Misty, Sia, Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez and Taylor Swift. In 2019, Billboard included "Born to Die" amongst the 100 songs that defined the 2010s, adding that it marked "a sonic shift that completely changed the pop landscape". Norman Fucking Rockwell! was named one of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time by Rolling Stone. Del Rey has received praise from older artists, some of whom have been inspirations to Del Rey herself, including Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Nicks, Joan Baez, Elton John, Courtney Love,[ and directors David Lynch and John Waters.