Lana is for the girls who GET IT. The girls whose feelings are too crazy, too painful, too vulnerable to ever say out loud. But Lana is unafraid to croon these confessions over intoxicatingly dreamy tracks – and I’ve loved her for it ever since I was in middle school. She’s been crucified in the media time and time again for her beliefs, her lyricism, her body, and it’s time we pay respect to her efforts.

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Originally Lizzy Grant, Lana pivoted into the campy persona of feminine indulgence and glamour we now know only after her original angle failed. This, in turn, garnered accusations of inauthenticity and her being an “industry plant.” An iffy SNL performance did nothing to help her public relations, going so far as getting parodied the very next week, and yet, Lana prevails as the most domineering influence of pop music in the past decade. Those breathy vocals, the synths, the long bridges, that pepper the Top 40 charts these days? That’s all Lana, from over a DECADE ago. She was villainized for it then, but here we are now!

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This isn’t to say Lana hasn’t had her misgivings. Most notably, in 2020, she made an Instagram post lamenting criticisms of her lyrical depictions of abusive relationships. And yes, I completely agree with the fact that she was tone-deaf by bringing POC creators into the conversation and acting as if she was the only one oppressed for the content of her music. But there is truth in her assertation that modern feminism leaves no place for women who don’t always feel empowered. In these days of constant “girl power,” it feels almost shameful to fall prey to domestic violence, to admit that a part of you likes feeling crazy, to unintentionally pander to the male gaze. I think Lana sums it up perfectly:

“There has to be a place in feminism for women like me – the kind of woman who says no but men hear yes – the kind of women who are slated mercilessly for being their authentic, delicate selves. The kind of women who get their own stories and voices taken away from them by stronger women or by men who hate women.”

I’ll never forget the first time I listened to “Ultraviolence.” I’m actually writing this across from a poster of that album in my dorm – it’s that good. But these were the lyrics that cut me the hardest: “Jim raised me up/ He hurt me but it felt like true love/ Jim taught me that/ Loving him was never enough.” It was the first time I heard someone frame the toxicity of abuse from the rose-colored glasses women all wear… Until they inevitably become jaded. Though she was attacked for seemingly glamorizing these types of relationships, I think she got that initial feeling of ignoring red flags down pat.

In more recent Lana news, her body has now been getting callously picked apart by the tabloids, and even by some so called “fans.” Her body has obviously changed over the course of her career – she’s thirty-seven years old, and in my opinion still looks just as amazing as she did when she went mainstream. The statement that a woman “looks good for her age” is not a compliment – it’s a demeaning remark that implies there is a female expiry date for attractiveness, and we should cling to the last threads of it till there is none left. In one of her most famous songs from 2013, “Young and Beautiful,” she devastatingly even predicts this change in popularity due to her aging, asking if her listeners will still love her despite time passing and looks fading.

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Lana’s evolution as an artist, but even more, as a woman, has been inspiring to see as a die hard fan. Despite constant vilification for embodying the delicate female archetype so rarely seen in entertainment, she persevered. She gives me hope that one day that these intense feelings of hysteria, of loneliness, of vulnerability, will no longer be confessional, but rather commonplace. If you’re new to the Lana cult, start below. It’ll be our soundtrack to the crazy girl revolution <3.