Her music is noted for its cinematic quality and exploration of tragic romance, glamour , and melancholia , with frequent references to pop culture and sβs Americana. After numerous projects, including her self-titled debut studio album , Del Rey's breakthrough came in with the viral success of her single " Video Games "; she subsequently signed a recording contract with Polydor and Interscope. Born To Die became her first of six number-one albums in the UK, and also topped various national charts around the world.
Del Rey's third album, Ultraviolence , featured greater use of guitar-driven instrumentation and debuted atop the U. Billboard Her fourth and fifth albums, Honeymoon and Lust for Life , saw a return to the stylistic traditions of her earlier releases, while her critically acclaimed sixth album, Norman Fucking Rockwell!
Del Rey collaborated with Taylor Swift on " Snow on the Beach ", from Swift's tenth studio album Midnights ; [ 9 ] it debuted at number four on the U. Billboard Hot , marking Del Rey's highest peak on the chart. Del Rey has collaborated on soundtracks for visual media; in , she wrote and starred in the critically acclaimed musical short Tropico [ 12 ] and released " Young and Beautiful " for the romantic drama The Great Gatsby , which was highly praised by critics and received Grammy Award and Critics' Choice Award nominations.
In , she recorded " Once Upon a Dream " for the dark fantasy adventure film Maleficent and the titular theme song for the biopic Big Eyes , which was nominated for a Golden Globe Award. Agnes School in her elementary years [ 22 ] and began singing in her church choir, where she was the cantor. She attended the high school where her mother taught for one year, [ 27 ] but when she was 14 [ 29 ] or 15, [ 30 ] her parents sent her to Kent School , [ 31 ] an Episcopal boarding school in Connecticut, to get sober from alcoholism.
Alcoholism, along with drugs , had been a problem that started in her teenage years and had become so serious that her entire family, including Grant herself, was worried. Grant shared in an interview: "That's really why I got sent to boarding school aged 14βto get sober. When I was very young I was sort of floored by the fact that my mother and my father and everyone I knew was going to die one day, and myself too. I had a sort of a philosophical crisis. I couldn't believe that we were mortal.
