Lana Del Rey connects with Billie Eilish over the “trial by fire” of being young women in music

nme.com:

Lana Del Rey and Billie Eilish recently connected for an “in conversation”-style interview with each other, and at one point, bonded over their struggles as female artists who rose to popularity in their youth.The topic was broached around halfway into their chat – published yesterday (February 14) by Interview Magazine – when Eilish mentioned Del Rey’s recent surge in critical acclaim. “You are so romanticized online,” the former singer-songwriter observed, “specifically different eras of you and your music and your visuals.”Eilish went on to assure that Del Rey was “always the coolest of the cool in my world”, but asked her if “having older versions of yourself romanticized later in life” made her reflect on her early years in the industry, when she was often denigrated for being outspoken in her views and scoffed at for her aesthetic choices.

Del Rey answered in the affirmative, telling Eilish that she’d just recently wondered “if it’s better to be initiated into that club where it’s like, ‘She’s wonderful,’ right away”.Del Rey explained that after building a respectable following on YouTube, she assumed “there was going to be this very niche lane where I knew that I could thrive”.

That wasn’t the case though, and Del Rey was suddenly thrust “right into the middle lane where everyone could see it and could hear the music”.“As soon as that happened,” she said, “I knew I was in for it, but I didn’t know to what extent.