向死而生 (2012)

Born to Die is the second studio album by American singer-songwriter Lana Del Rey. It was released on January 27, 2012, through Interscope Records and Polydor Records as her major label debut. A reissue of the album, subtitled The Paradise Edition, was released on November 9, 2012. The new material from the reissue was also made available on a separate extended play (EP) titled Paradise.

Before the album's release, Del Rey had attracted attention with her 2011 singles "Video Games" and "Born to Die", which contrasted contemporary electronic/dance music with a cinematic sound accompanied by dramatic strings. A predominantly baroque pop and trip hop album, Born to Die features the same cinematic composition. The lyrics are about love, sex, and drugs, and feature prominent references to 1950s and 1960s Americana. The album was the world's fifth best-selling album of 2012. In 2023, it became the second album by a woman to spend more than 500 weeks on the US Billboard 200, where it peaked at number 2, and topped charts in Australia and various European countries including France, Germany, and the UK. In December 2025, Born to Die became the longest charting album by a female artist in Billboard 200 history with 618 weeks.

Born to Die was supported by four further singles: "Blue Jeans", "Summertime Sadness", "National Anthem", and "Dark Paradise". "Summertime Sadness" peaked at number 6 on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming Del Rey's highest-charting single in the US at the time. The album polarized contemporary critics; praise was directed toward the album's distinctive sound, while criticism targeted its repetitiveness and melodramatic tendencies. Del Rey's image during promotion of Born to Die was controversial; tabloid media accused her of inauthentic marketing tactics to gain an audience in the indie music scene. Despite an initially ambivalent reception, the album has been retrospectively ranked in best-of lists by several publications including The Guardian and NME, and helped Del Rey acquire cult status among music fans.

Background and development

In 2007, Elizabeth "Lizzy" Grant signed a recording contract with the record label 5 Point Records, and began planning her debut studio album. But after hiring new management services, taking an interest in adopting the stage name Lana Del Ray, and a perceived lack of motivation during production, she found herself in conflict with the record label and her producer David Kahne. The final product, Lana Del Ray, was digitally released in January 2010, and her stage name was respelled Lana Del Rey shortly after its launch. Grant was successfully bought out of her recording contract at her manager's request; consequently, Lana Del Ray was pulled out of circulation before physical versions were produced.

After settling on her current stage name, Del Rey signed a recording contract with Stranger Records in June 2011, and released the track "Video Games". Initially, she had released the song because it was her "favorite" and had no intentions of releasing it as a single, although the video went viral on YouTube after its premiere. During an appearance on the French television series Taratata in November 2011, Del Rey announced that her second studio album would be titled Born to Die.