Darling Doesn’t Have a Problem

Carmen doesn’t think she has a problem. She has top-shelf liquor and a mirror and a very clear idea of what men want, and for now that’s enough. Lana Del Rey’s Carmen, from Born to Die, is one of the quieter disasters on that record—no orchestral surge, just a slow dissolve into the glass. The character she draws here isn’t quite tragic and isn’t quite triumphant; she’s somewhere in the gap between both, using her body and her recklessness as a kind of armor that’s also doing the damage. The melody sits in the chest wrong, in that good way. I keep listening to it and feeling like I’m watching something I probably shouldn’t.