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Lana Del Rey Steals Late-Night Spotlight From Nas, Evanescence, Korn

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Remember earlier this week, when everybody was in an eloquent, must-read tizzy about Lana Del Rey? Well, the seductive singer’s Born to Die is on pace to hit No. 2 on Billboard‘s Top 200 albums chart, Katie Couric wants to know about her, and last night she appeared on Late Show With David Letterman to make everybody forget all about theSaturday Night Live performances that everybody on the NBC payroll wants you to know were awful.

Last night, once again, Del Rey sang her deeply catchy online hit “Video Games,” with its Thom-Yorke-discovers-sex piano chords, desperate-to-please lyrics, and delicate sprinkling of a string section. And hey, just like last time — no matter what you might have heard — it was pretty OK! Again with a cream-colored dress, Del Rey did look a bit more relaxed (“Freedom’s just another word for…”), and Letterman’s people just seem to know how to make a band sound better than SNL has a history of doing.

Letterman, whose history of Mad Men sexual politics combined with highbrow self-regard makes him basically Del Rey’s target demographic, was predictably aflutter with leering praise. But for those of us not in need of a cold shower, it was just the latest instance of a still-developing artist with an earworm hit or two prematurely pushed at us from a national stage. It’s like the ’90s, except that Natalie Imbruglia SNL performance was awesome! (Via the Audio Perv)

Hip-hop luminary Nas visited Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, where he performed his no-chorus return to form “Nasty,” backed by the Roots. Nas repped his New York Giants during the appearance in Indianapolis, site of this weekend’s SuperBowl. “Nasty” comes from an upcoming album apparently titled Life Is Good, which has yet to receive an official release date (Via Yardie).

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Evanescence, meanwhile, brought their heavy rock to Conan. On the air, the band plowed through the throttling, proggy “Made of Stone.” As a web exclusive, Amy Lee and the boys performed another song from Evanescence’s 2011 self-titled album, “The Other Side.”

Recent Skrillex collaborators and self-proclaimed dubstep forefathers Korn also got into the late-night action. Watch the hard-rock veterans bring the thrashing wub-wub to Jimmy Kimmel Live! with heavily self-censored renditions of “Get Up”and “Narcissistic Cannibal.” Both cuts are singles from the band’s 10th album, last year’s The Path of Totality.

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