Lana Del Rey has endured an interesting few months, the backlash beginning from critics pretty much as soon as everyone worked out that she'd attempted to break into music's mainstream once before already under her real name Lizzy Grant. From then it's been a whirlwind up and down few months, coming to a head in recent weeks with first an online leak ahead of the release of her "debut" album 'Born To Die' and secondly when she came under criticism following a nervous looking performance on the Daniel Radcliffe-hosted edition of 'Saturday Night Live' - leading some to suggest it led to the subsequent cancellation of her forthcoming tour dates, though her camp have denied the claims, citing illness instead.
When it all comes down to the facts and figures though, the furore starring Grant has all amounted to nothing in its attempts to derail the burgeoning star and, as 'Born To Die' was finally released in the UK last week, it's no surprise to report that the LP went in straight at Number One on the UK charts. In more pleasing news for the Del Rey camp, it became the fastest selling album of the year, with 117,000 copies sold meaning she outsold the rest of the top five combined.
Billboard reported that the success of the album had also spread back to her breakthrough single 'Video Games,' which had climbed from number 20 on the Singles Chart to 17, meaning that it stood just short of 300,000 copies sold in total. The press' opinion may be split on Del Rey, but it doesn't seem that the detractors are going to be doing anything to dent her rise anytime soon.