From the outset of Lana Del Rey’s career, the artist born Elizabeth Grant has faced increasingly harsh accusations of inauthenticity, as if a musician had never before adopted a persona that differed from their true, IRL self. Lana Del Rey’s subsequent releases have, to anyone really listening, put those suspicions to rest, as it’s become increasingly clear that Lana knows exactly what she’s doing, and she’s great at it. Now, the music world’s second hottest ironic creation, Father John Misty, is teaming up with Lizzy Grant in an upcoming video. And the world just might explode from the five-minute smirk that is sure to result.
Announced earlier today via Lana’s Instagram account, Father John Misty (born Josh Tillman, onetime drummer for the singing Seattle beards also known as Fleet Foxes) will appear in the video for “Freak,” a languid ballad (what isn’t?) from last year’s Honeymoon. The video will also feature, according to the Instagram post, the women who appeared in the “Music To Watch Boys To” video.
This is such an interesting development for anyone fascinated by the character creations of musicians in 2016. Father John Misty is a big ball of irony, totally self-referential, self-aggrandizing, and self-deprecating, all at once, impossibly. And Lana Del Rey is, too, in a much subtler way, the lines of her songs referencing a “boyfriend in the band,” and singing like Lou Reed. She knows the signifiers, and she plants them deep, with intention, and then does it all with nothing but a rhinestoned wink.
The video for “Freak” will be out “soon,” which could be today, tomorrow, or next week. But it’ll be fun to watch where it goes, whether or not it delivers Misty from the fraternities and into Urban Outfitters.