Teenage Woman: Going Through My Lana Del Ray Phase at 23 | #03
Moody, angsty, and misunderstood with a 401k.
I discovered Lana Del Ray around Christmastime.
I know this sounds a little wild, especially because I was a frequent Tumblr user, a big fan of the Arctic Monkeys, and a proud owner of an Urban Outfitters record player at the age of 13. However, I mostly used Tumblr for One Direction-related fandom activity, I listened to the Arctic Monkeys mainly to say that I listened to them, and my most frequently spun record was 1989 by Taylor Swift. I probably heard Lana a bit here and there at the time everyone else in my demographic was obsessed, but she wasn’t someone I worshipped.
Music is a little difficult for me because I listen to it throughout the entire day, from waking up and working out to commuting to work, all throughout the work day, commuting back home, running errands, and getting ready to go out. I easily become sick of songs, I run out of podcast episodes, and I’m disinterested in all of the AI generated playlists Spotify provides.
What made me stumble upon Lana was listening to a playlist called “this one’s for the this is me trying’ girlies”—as in, girls who can relate a little too hard to Taylor Swift’s this is me trying.
As Lana perfectly fit the archetype Taylor was depicting—someone who’s miserably failing after giving something her all and not being recognized for it—, I was introduced to Norman Fucking Rockwell! and the songs Happiness is a butterfly, How to disappear, and, what really drew me in, Cinnamon girl.
Since this discovery, I cannot be stopped. And there’s truly no better time than my second coming-of-age to be obsessed with someone I may consider to be one of the voices of my generation. She gets it. She gets girlhood. She gets womanhood. Most importantly, she gets teenage womanhood.
Whenever I listen to her music, it’s like the soundtrack to a movie that is my life. I have cringe main character energy, and I simply don’t care. I walk around pretending like I’m in an indie film, as an effortlessly chic girl with tousled hair, smoky eyeliner, a 2012-Serena Van der Woodsen-esque outfit on, walking the streets of Brooklyn, when really I’m just walking to the deli on my lunch break at my very normal corporate job.
The reason we love our favorite artists is because of the ways they make us feel, and the full body experience of a Lana Del Ray song while being just a girl, is simply magic. Her ability to portray femininity in such an honest way, making it elegantly abrasive and raw, is probably why so many people I know (especially as an attendee of art school) were infatuated by her. She has older sister lore. She’s the cool, mysterious girl that everyone whispers about at school and makes up rumors about. She’ll always seem more mature than you no matter what, even when you’re around the same age she was when she wrote songs like Video Games.
It’s weird to be obsessed with her when I have free will. I could smoke cigarettes, but I won’t. I could dye my hair black and style it in a Pricilla Presley-esque manner, but I won’t. I could act on the alt-girl vibes she makes me feel, but, I won’t. These are probably all good choices, and just goes to show that during my teenage woman years, I will just have to ride all of these emotions through till my prefrontal lobe inevitably becomes developed in about a year. For now, I’ll continue listening to Lana Del Ray radio during my long, hard days as a Copywriter, just as I’m sure she intended.
Tune in next week for #04 of Teenage Woman, Olivia in Paris (for the first time ever).