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What is it about the Lana Del Rey saga? It continues to attract attention, both critical and metacritical, from a perplexingly broad spectrum of pundits -- everyone from indie blogs to tastemaker celebrities to well-regarded network newsmen have weighed in with their opinions. I should preface this by saying that I'm digging all of it -- LDR continues to be an artist whose infinitely constructible and de-constructible narrative I enjoy immensely.

I have no shame in admitting my own affinity for certain slices of pop music. In fact, I may actually be more bashful in admitting my regular listening habits, which usually trend toward the indie scene (whatever that means this week day hour). So it's no surprise, then, that when Lana Del Rey ambushed the music blogs with her two haunting singles and a hypnotic lo-fi video last year, I was hooked. Who was this girl, who made this grandiose-yet-simple, slightly-left-of-conventional pop music with seemingly blase indifference?

Of course, by now, you probably know the story, or at least some version of it. The strength of those first two singles gained her instant adoration on the music blogs. It also landed her a hefty recording deal with a major record label, which promptly stamped her as the next big thing (one of many, sure, but arguably THE next big thing). She quickly earned more and more fans (her December 5th show in New York sold out in minutes. The $15 tickets were subsequently hawked for $100+ on StubHub. I only know this because I tried to get them), even as she settled unsteadily into that odd square of space between the indie scene and pop superstardom. Did she still have indie cred? Did she even still need it? Would she cross over and become the hit maker her record label surely demanded?

Through it all, she maintained that distant, couldn't-give-a-fuck-about-anyone-but-my-fans attitude, but there was something more there that started to intrigue me. While critics busied themselves with ripping her "gangster Nancy Sinatra" persona as an image manufactured by her label, a beguiling subplot began to emerge across the various concert videos and reviews that sprouted on the internet, like wildflowers in a roadside ditch. She could be charming in a way, sure, and she could definitely sing. But what seemed to come across most viscerally was the fact that she was awkward. She wrung her hands between songs. She clearly sought to be great, to be perfect. The indie scene clamors for cool authenticity while the mainstream has an appetite for polish, and yet here it was, so plainly butted up against all of it -- Lana Del Rey wanted this, badly, and was trying really hard not to fuck it up.

Then, of course, SNL happened.

There are performances where you're awed by the talent on display. There are performances where you're discovering something you've never seen or heard before. Then there are ones where it isn't quality or originality that suck you in, but the greater narrative unfolding behind the product. And here is Lana Del Rey's narrative that I've latched on to -- a 25 year old singer whose first go-around amounted to nothing much (the Lizzy Grant album) suddenly finds herself in the wings to the grand stage she's been chasing so long (and here I mean a metaphorical stage, not the one in Studio 8H), and even while the dream begins to crystallize, she realizes how fragilely it's held together. Maybe it's suddenly funny, in that inappropriate, funereal sort of way. Under the heat of a growing number of lights, anxiety starts to boil over. She wonders what to do with her hands and, finding no good solution, lets them wander awkwardly, occasionally in foreign, uncomfortable patterns some label executive, or perhaps her flagging confidence, has convinced her to try. She tries to stay true to some idea of herself that she promised she wouldn't lose, only now she's struggling to remember what that idea was, and what significance it had ever held. She just wants to sing her songs, under her terms, yet why is it suddenly so hard to remember how to do that?

The problem with forming these narratives is that they are inherently speculative, and usually wildly so. But to confirm or deny them would ruin the illusion (you could even argue that much of the criticism against Lana Del Rey has been based on some prefabricated narrative not being met), so they're intentionally woven together from scraps. That my affection for Lana Del Rey is built on a foundation of willful ignorance, then, is something I accept. Why not? We do it for so many other people -- actors, politicians, historical figures -- why not for a singer who makes songs that are catchy as hell? The narrative will likely one day resolve into something resembling the truth, but I'm comfortable with where it stands for now.

And where it stands is that Lana Del Rey is moving forward. After gamely taking on, and soundly winning over, David Letterman, she sits through a meandering, depthless profile for the Times. She does nothing to clearly prove, one way or the other, what her story is, and so the narrative -- my narrative for her -- continues. She heads to LA and stops by Amoeba, where perhaps one of her most illuminating performances is given.

She looks comfortable. Casual, even. The dream remains unachieved; the challenge remains unmet. But she's come through something, and found herself still standing. Her fans couldn't love her more for it. You can see the emotion bubble over for a second, before a hand is placed over her lips, bottling it in. You can't see what she's thinking, but you can speculate. You can continue to build the narrative (and even begin to wonder if maybe that's the point of Lana Del Rey's cordial detachment). Behind the artifice and the hype and the criticisms and even the speculation, Lana Del Rey is still trying like hell not to fuck it up. But she's also learned that it isn't necessarily the end of the world if you do. And if you look closely, you can see her start to believe that maybe she can pull it all off.

At least that's what I believe. And sometimes, the most compelling stories are the ones we can attach our own to.