12. Lana Del RayBorn To Die
I always like a bit of pop appeal. But these days there’s nothing in the charts I like, actually. That’s why I included Lana Del Rey in my Baker’s Dozen, because that’s the only pop release of the last 10 years that I liked. A lot of people don’t like her but I think she’s fantastic. I like the production too, because it needs to be a really big production, and it sounds great. I first heard ‘Video Games’ on the radio and I thought "this is something different". It was really poppy and I was singing along with it because I liked it. And then I saw the slamming she got and I was thinking, ‘What’s going on there? Why don’t they like her?’ I listened to a little bit more and she has great lyrics: ‘Music to Watch Boys By’ for instance; what kind of lyrics are these? [laughs]. So there was this ‘authenticity’ nonsense, like authenticity is ever important. I met this talented young artist, and she said, ‘I want to be an authentic artist’. I didn’t really know what to say. Don’t be too authentic because then you’re going to die.
