Lana Del Rey

Video Games introduced that combination to a wide audience in 2011. The voice stays relatively close while the arrangement creates a much larger atmosphere around it. The tension comes from the difference in scale: a private-sounding account placed inside music with an almost cinematic sweep.

Born to Die followed in 2012, bringing the title track, Video Games and Summertime Sadness into the same album world. The production has considerable weight, but the songs often depend on a small vocal detail: a lowered phrase, a slight hesitation, or the way a line seems to fall rather than resolve.

Ultraviolence arrived in 2014, with Dan Auerbach involved in its production. West Coast gives the sound a looser, more guitar-centred setting, allowing the rhythm and vocal to move with a different kind of elasticity.

The change helps distinguish the singer from the early production style. Del Rey’s voice can retain its character when the arrangement becomes less sharply defined. The emotional uncertainty is in the phrasing and the writing, rather than supplied entirely by strings or a heavy beat.

There is a reason the performances resist being reduced to atmosphere. The person speaking in a song can be self-aware, doubtful, romantic or caught inside an image of her own making. The music allows those possibilities to coexist.

Video Games remains a strong introduction because it leaves the central tension exposed. The arrangement offers grandeur, while the voice sounds close enough to complicate the picture.