While Ariana Grande’s grandiose style (in the vein of Mariah Carey) wouldn’t quite work for adapting Lana Del Rey’s own grandiose vocals to her oeuvre (though, for some reason, one can imagine Grande going apeshit on “Body Electric”), Del Rey, as recently proven with her cover of “Break Up With Your Girlfriend, I’m Bored” on BBC1’s Live Lounge, is capable of infusing some of Grande’s more tragedian tracks with her distinct mark. What follows is a list of some of the more rife Ari songs for Lana Del Rey-ification.
1) “Honeymoon Avenue”-Already echoing the symphonic intro to Del Rey’s “Honeymoon,” the first track on Grande’s debut, Yours Truly, offers the maudlin sort of lyrics Lana could surely get on board with. Yearning for a time when she and her lover were more passionately attuned to one another, Grande sings, “I looked in my rearview mirror and it seemed to make a lot more sense than what I see ahead of us/I’m ready to make that turn before we crash and burn.” Del Rey knows the feeling.
2) “Almost Is Never Enough”-Again speaking to the fatalism of most great, therefore doomed, loves, “Almost Is Never Enough” fits perfectly into the Del Rey wheelhouse. If she were to execute it with utmost “Lananess,” however, Nathan Sykes would have to be substituted in favor of A$AP Rocky for that optimal trap tinge as Del Rey would bemoan, “If I would have known that you wanted me the way I wanted you/Then maybe we wouldn’t be two worlds apart.”
3) “Best Mistake”-Showing Ari’s predilection for collaborating with her boyfriends, this single from her second album, My Everything, also reveals the pop star’s fondness for painting a Shakespearean portrait, a trait that also smacks of Del Rey. Conjuring images of nature and destiny, Grande muses, “‘Cause if the water dries up and the moon stops shining, stars fall and world goes blind/Boy you know I’m savin’ my love for you, for you.” It sounds vaguely familiar–sort of like, “It’s you, it’s you, it’s all for you/Everything I do.”
4) “Be My Baby”-Apart from The Ronettes connotations of it, this song is well-suited to the Del Rey treatment for its earnestness in wanting to be sexually pleased (both women are Cancers right on the verge of Gemini, after all). So it is that one can hear Del Rey saying just as imploringly, “If you know how to be my lover, maybe you can be my baby/Hold me close under the covers/Kiss me boy, and drive me crazy.”
5) “Break Your Heart Right Back”-Evocative of Del Rey more for the cliches it’s filled with that Grande somehow manages to make her own, the track displays parallels to Del Rey’s vengeful (toward G-Eazy) cut, “In My Feelings” from Lust for Life.
6) “Hands On Me”-While not the most obvious choice (even if it does feature an A$AP on it) for Lana considering how overtly sexual it is (whereas Del Rey tends to favor more subtlety), there is something in the lyric, “Skirt off, high heels on” that reeks of Born to Die-era Lana.
7) “Moonlight”-Being that “Moonlight” is the song that kicks off Grande’s most Del Rey-oriented album, Dangerous Woman, it’s a natural choice for many reasons. Aside from its retro 60s vibe in title, allusions to James Dean and Elvis Presley are right up the Del Rey reference alley.
8) “Dangerous Woman”-One of the most perfect singles of Ari’s for a Del Rey doctoring, the slow burn sound of the music and vocals might have easily made the cut on any of the records in Del Rey’s discography.
9) “Side to Side”-“My friends say I should give you up/Can’t hear them ‘cause I/I been here all night” harkens back to Del Rey’s lackluster attitude to her friends’ opinions on “Dark Paradise” when she sings, “All my friends tell me I should move on.” Nicki Minaj, being “retired” and all now, might need to be replaced with Cardi B for the rap portion though.
10) “Leave Me Lonely”-Even if it’s Macy Gray’s lyrics that sound more on par with Lana’s when she declares, “Dangerous love/You’re no good for me, darling/Yeah, you turn me away like I’m begging for a dollar/Danger, oh how you hold me/I get a chill inside/And nothing frightens me baby, oh.” It’s got that Amy Winehouse meets Nina Simone (the latter of which Lana has already covered a couple of times) that Del Rey can’t help but appreciate.
11) “God Is A Woman”-Del Rey’s ferocious feminist tones of late (further corroborated by “Don’t Call Me Angel” with Grande and Miley Cyrus) would make this a perfectly suited anthem to her canon. Plus, it’s not like she’s any stranger to the Garden of Eden after Tropico.
12) “Goodnight n Go”-Already a cover of Imogen Heap anyway, the sugary sweetness of this song is in the realm of Born to Die. As in, “Now my life is sweet like cinnamon, like a fuckin’ dream I’m livin’ in.”
13) “Pete Davidson”-Though also a hair too on the sweet side (the album, after all, is called Sweetener) for Del Rey, she made it work so well when she sang along to it on her Instagram story last September. But maybe she could change the name of it to whoever inspired the bulk of her fatal love songs.
14) “Needy”-With thank u, next being neck and neck with Dangerous Woman for its Lananess, the emotional candor of “Needy” marks the first of many tracks on the record that would be ideal for a Del Rey interpretation.
15) “Bloodline”-Considering Del Rey’s more bombastic cheekiness toward men of late (e.g. “Goddamn man-child, you fucked me so good that I almost said ‘I love you’”), the insistence, “Don’t want you in my bloodline, just wanna have a good time” seems to be right in tune with Del Rey’s present headspace with regard to what, if anything, men are good for (other than muses for songwriting).
16) “Fake Smile”-Taking into account Del Rey’s branding by the media as pop culture’s resident Sad Girl, no one could agree more with the sentiment of “fuck a fake smile” (despite that one-off on the album cover of Lust for Life).
17) “Bad Idea”-In keeping with a love of self-destruction on songs like “Off to the Races” and “Carmen,” one can effortlessly envision Del Rey surrendering to the same temptation as Ari does on this track.
18) “Ghostin’”-Being that Del Rey is typically loyal to one ill-fated relationship at a time as opposed to two on a song, “Ghostin’” is something of a curveball save for its slowed down pacing that would come oh so naturally to Del Rey’s droning sensibilities.
19) “Thank U, Next”-Beyond Taylor Swift, there is no other songwriter who should be so fuckin’ grateful for their ex than Del Rey in terms of lyrical inspo. Well, her and Grande, of course.
20) “Break Up With Your Girlfriend, I’m Bored”-Bitch, make this recording official already.
