User:Raphael99/Sandbox

Background
The music video for Blue Jeans was directed by Yoann Lemoine, who also worked with the signer for the video of Born To Die. On 15 March, 2012, Del Rey tweeted a text saying that the video is “coming soon”, and, then, posted the cover of Blue Jeans, taken from the music video. It draws her lying down on a beach and wearing a white dress, grabbed by a hand in which is tattooed the word “Fuck”. The next day, Del Rey released two stills from the music video. The first show the signer wearing a one-piece bathing piece while Bradley Soileau, who also appeared in the music video of Born to Die, caresses her body and kisses her neck. In the second shot, Del Rey smokes a cigarette and stares at Soileau. In an interview with Billboard magazine, the model described the shooting of the three music videos – Born to Die, Blue Jeans and Carmen – in which he figures, saying

"'I got picked because the photographer, Armen Djerrahian, shot me for The Wild Magazine and knew the director of the video, Yoann Lemoine […] Lana was amazing to work with. The whole crew was […] [In the video,] I was just an object. I was brought in because of the way I look. I'm not mad about it, but it's a very shallow industry.'"

Three days later, an unfinished version of the music video surfaces on the web. The unedited pirate version of the video, which leaked on the platform Twitvid, was rapidly removed due to a copyright claim by Universal Music. The official video releases the next day on VEVO.

Synopsis
The monochromatic music video is a prequel of Born to Die’s video. It commences with Del Rey’s face floating on water while a violin piece is playing. Then, the song begins and a tattooed man, played by Bradley Soileau, appears smoking a cigarette in front of a retro pool in a 1960-era house situated in the Hollywood Hills. He takes of his clothes and goes on Del Rey’s body, putting his fingers on her mouth and caressing her. Afterward, he jumps on the pool. Quickly, the signer, who is wearing a white vintage one-piece swimsuit, joins him and dives under the water. Suddenly, four alligators emerge and surround her. Therefore, she comes back on the water and kisses Soileau, who is in fact one of the reptile. The signer continues to embrace him until she becomes unconscious. Subsequently, the man raises a bloodied Del Rey in his arms. Finally, he takes her neck and drowns her until they both die. The video ends by a shot on which Del Rey and Soileau are inanimate under the water.

Reception
The music video received mixed reviews from critics. Alsin Taylor of Daily Mail appreciated the video, saying that it has a “dream-like quality”. Comparing the style of Del Rey to the one of a “pin-up from a bygone era”, he praises the sense of artistry and drama that the video propagates. Gill Kaufman of MTV considered the clip as something “classic”, but emphasizes on the fact that sometimes it becomes confusing while Jason Lipshutz found that it “straddles the line between the two styles, offering a no-frills setting but a gaudy, cinematic vision of the ballad”. NME chronicler noted that the reactions concerning the video were extremely shared: some criticizing that it was too simple, due to Del Rey’s choice to use only one outfit, whereas others love its look. Daniella Graham of Metro described the video as “vintage glamour” while Ethan Sacks of New York Daily News admitted that it “still looks good”, enumerating the retro touch as the best element of the clip. On the other hand, Yahoo! Philippines calculates the web impact of the video. Rapidly after its release, it becomes the tenth most spoken subject on Twitter, behind topics such as Tokyo Drift and Sweeney Todd.

Track listing

 * UK CD Maxi
 * 1) "Video Games" – 4:41
 * 2) "Blue Jeans" – 3:29

Credits and personnel

 * Lana Del Rey – vocals, songwriter
 * Emilie Hayne – songwriter, producer, instrumentation
 * Dan Heath – songwriter, audio engineering
 * Dan Grech Marguerat – audio mixing
 * Duncan Fuller – audio mixing assistant