The Lana Del Rey Paradox and Why We Enjoy Sad Music and Art
Reflections on life and art, and scientific evidence in favour of complexity
Was I ever even a kid? Of course, I was, of course I was. Even though I was the type of kid who preferred lying down on the tiled floor with no lights on and crying, staring at whispers of light dancing on my bedroom ceiling.
I would turn the key to lock the otherwise threatened-to-be-crowded room, put the Venetian blinds down if the sun was still bright outside and bouncing off the neighbour's wall into my space, choose the saddest music I could think of (there was no Lana in my childhood and teenage years) and lie down in starfish form to let the tears fall down my cheeks, or my arms during the occasional fetal position.
Fast-forward a few decades, and my favourite painter became evident to me as Edvard Munch. It is hard to get sadder than that.
Let’s keep the time-travelling game going — as nothing pairs well with low mood like nostalgia — and move back a couple of years from the present, when I attempted to make history (jk) by coining a newly researched phenomenon as the Lana del Rey Paradox. You know, like the French Paradox where some people eat more fats but have low cholesterol thanks to red wine and other unusual antioxidants. I’m…
