Lana Del Rey Is Going for Personal, Not Show-Stopping on New Album

If you don't know Lana Del Rey yet, you will as 2012 roars in. The red-headed singer, who is set to release 'Born to Die' next month, is hovering just under the surface of pop superstardom, with her throwbacky, smoky voice and edgy style.

In a recent chat with Australia's Pedestrian, Del Rey (real name: Elizabeth Grant) revealed that she had been adding "lush cinematic elements" to some of the album's tracks. Despite adding some sweeping measures, the singer said that she doesn't go for epic or "show stopping" when she writes. Instead, she tends to stick to personal. "I think most of the songs verge on dark and beautiful," she said. "I mean, when I make a record, I’m not really going for a big show-stopping sound. I've been singing for so long now that you just end up writing for yourself and making it as personal as possible."

Despite her desire to make her music personal, Del Rey admitted that her name was created in order to convey the emotion of the music and to sound beautiful rolling off the tongue.

Del Rey, who has resided in the Bronx, Brooklyn and New Jersey, reveals that she absorbed the sights and sounds of Gotham in order to write her songs. She said, "I used to just walk the length of Manhattan and think about the way things used to be and sing different melodies to my song as I was walking along the water."

Now, as she has producers and writers at her disposal, she has changed her approach up a bit. She said, " Now that I’ve been working with producers, it depends. Sometimes Justin [Haynie] will come into the studio and tell me he has a chord progression that reminds him of me. And if I like it I’ll take it from there and start freestyling and just rhyme things out. Again, reflecting on my life. It really does depend on the situation."

Expect to here a lot more from Lana Del Rey in the future.

Watch the Lana Del Ray 'Born to Die' Video