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Jan 27, 2012 Lana Del Rey By Mike Hilleary

As most people know by now, before love/hate lightning rod Lana Del Rey became Lana Del Rey, she was Lizzy Grant, who recorded a self-titled debut back in 2008.

Sitting on the shelf for two years it went on sale on iTunes in 2010 for just two months before being pulled from circulation. Now it seems the newly christened Del Rey has announced that she will be re-releasing the album sometime later this year.

Much has been made about this supposedly “lost” first album, from why it was pulled from retailers to why Del Rey was keen on buying back the rights to the songs. In a recent Billboard feature on Del Rey, the album’s producer, David Kahn, claims that it was part of a strategic reinvention. “[Her team] wanted it out of circulation. That’s why they bought the rights from them,” Kahne says in the interview. “I think she wanted to be Lana Del Rey and didn’t want to be Lizzy Grant. That was her family name, and she’s very dramatic. She wiped [out] this other person. I think she actually thinks that she’s that other person, and she probably is. So that was the decision that she made, that she didn’t want traces of that whole person around, as far as I can tell.”

Del Rey, however, dismisses such tactics in an interview with BBC. “People act like it’s so shrouded in mystery, the ‘forgotten terrible album,’” she says. “But if you look on YouTube, all 13 tracks are available with millions of views, so it’s not like no-one’s heard them. We were all proud of it. It’s pretty good.”

Lana Del Rey’s album Born to Die is out Jan. 31 via Interscope.

(http://lanadelrey.com/)