Lana Del Rey, otherwise known as Lizzy Grant, started her music career at 20 years old, now at the age of 38 she continues to release some of the most beloved music of this generation. Rolling Stone even placed her on their list of 200 Greatest Singers of All Time (2023) as well as naming Del Rey The Greatest American Songwriter of the 21st century (2023).

The beginning of Lizzy Grant

Del Rey released her first album titled: Lana Del Rey aka Lizzy Grant, on January 4th, 2010 the album itself did little to boost her career, and even got pulled from retailers shortly after its release due to her label’s inability to fund it. Two years later, she released her sophomore album Born to Die, which ultimately launched her into the artist we know now.

In Born to Die, Del Rey features Video Games, the song that led her to perform her iconic SNL performance. That left many critics with strong opinions on her singing abilities, with one calling it “one of worst outings in SNL history.” Despite this criticism of the performance, she continued to release many more albums that dominated the music billboards.

The SNL performance

This leads us to the recent release of her ninth album Did You Know There’s a Tunnel under Ocean Blvd. She produced alongside the famous Jack Antonoff, who also helped Taylor Swift produce many of her famous albums like Lover, Reputation, Folklore, and more. Did You Know There’s a Tunnel under Ocean Blvd. opened at number 3 on the Billboard 200 chart selling around 116,000 copies and getting 36.4 million streams.

The Grammys 

Tunnel under Ocean Blvd. got Lana Del Rey nominated for Album of the Year at the Grammys. Including her single, A&W, which was nominated in the category Song of the Year, but when Del Rey lost both Grammys it left many fans shocked and some even discouraged to see such a talented singer’s potential get forgotten. This included Lana herself, she was seen wiping tears throughout the night but she claims she “felt no negative emotions” at the Grammys.  

But why do so many singers get overlooked for a Grammy? The answer may lie in the long voting process the music and Artist go through, including submitting the music, screening, nominations, final voting, and more. Each piece of work has to go through this process making it seem exclusive when in reality some voters are biased towards their choices making it not a truly fair operation.

One Grammy voter out of the 350 stated his opinion on her saying  “I haven’t taken Lana Del Rey seriously as an artist since her infamous SNL performance and never will.” This may sound unbelievable considering the performance was over 12 years ago. Still, these are the “exclusive Academy members” voting on Grammys and determining who wins an award that many musicians consider the most important for them to receive.

If the Grammy voters are considering one of the worst performances from Lana Del Rey that was at the beginning of her career can they be trusted to recognize the amazing growth other artists have had too?