Lana Del Rey EP by Lana Del Rey

Lana Del Rey, the singer's self-titled EP, came out through Interscope on January 10, 2012, as a teaser for Born to Die, the album that followed later that year. It exists because of "Video Games", the slow-motion torch song whose viral breakout in 2011 landed her the record deal in the first place.

Emile Haynie led the production and wrote the songs with Del Rey and Justin Parker, dressing her melancholy romance and glamour in a moody, hip-hop-tinged gloss. "Video Games" drifts like an old Hollywood daydream, "Blue Jeans" smolders in slow motion and "Born to Die" swings its heavy beat like a threat. Critics landed somewhere between mixed and warm, but the EP still climbed to 20 on the Billboard 200, and to six on the Rock and Alternative Albums charts alike.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.