Born To Die - why the fuss actually matters.

The best thing about Lana Del Rey and the album 'Born To Die' is that she has finally got many more people to bury their fears concerning on-line comment and share what they really feel about it. That is good work in anyone's book.

I don't actually care about the detail of what they feel or say, because everybody is entitled to their own opinion on a whole host of issues concerning this release... it is this virtual-audience participation that matters more than anything else. This is what music is supposed to do.
I'm not sitting on the fence as concerns the album: I like it a great deal and, some admission, I admire the decision of (major label, Universal) Polydor to take a gamble on the somewhat controversial. Whether it will stand the test of time as an album in its own right is anyone's guess. Some that don't, at least in their time and place, are later realized to have defined a moment.  Maybe it will, maybe it won't...  but that is never a reason not to try.  

History is nothing but all of tomorrow's yesterdays and much of it happens accidentally. Should she choose to quit the major-label hotchpotch, or should Interscope decide to let her go, I can imagine several truly independent labels that might be willing to take her on and probably be quite amenable to the way she wants to portray herself through her music. That is when things might become really very interesting indeed.