CAN someone please explain to me what it was exactly that Lana del Rey did to get the back up of, well, just about everyone?

In the space of a few weeks the 25-year-old chanteuse has gone from flavour of the month to virtual pariah.

I can’t remember such a hasty backlash since the American public realised that Obama didn’t actually have economy-healing magic powers after all.

One minute fashion magazines were hailing Lana below with her pin-curls, rockabilly overtones and pillow lips, as this year’s style icon. The next she was being decried as “manufactured” and “style over substance” by half the music industry and everyone with access to the internet.

Hang on a minute, since when was being styled or manufactured a bad thing for female pop stars?

Show me a woman who has topped the charts in the last 30 years without being manufactured or styled in some way and I will show you Susan Boyle. And even she dyed her hair and tweezed the monobrow.

The case for the prosecution seems to be the fact that Lana del Rey does not exist.

She is the creation of Elizabeth Grant, an Elvis Presley-loving American singer who released an album under her own name a few years ago before coming back with a new image, a new name and, some claim, the support of a record label all the while purporting to come from the indie scene.

Given that my field of expertise is style rather than sound I don’t even really understand what that means.

Nor do I care really. I think Lana is stunning and I quite like her tunes.

And if it took a new haircut and some sexy duds to get them noticed then what is wrong with that?

Despite the vitriol from critics, I am clearly not the only one enjoying Lana’s lyrics. Her album Born to Die was number one in 11 countries at the last count, and looks set to top the charts here on Sunday.

She is also up for three NME awards so not everyone in the music industry can hate her.