Lana Del Rey envisioned a Southern California dream world constructed out of sad girls and bad boys, manufactured melancholy, and genuine glamour, and then she came to embody this fantasy. At first, her stylized noir-pop garnered skeptical sneers -- the rise of her 2012 debut, Born to Die, was impeded by a tentative live debut on Saturday Night Live -- but Del Rey proved to be tougher than her soft exterior suggested.
