Lana Del Rey

and that isn't a negative in my book either.

a lot of the reviews coming out are good writing but - i said this last year re: gaga - please please please please can people live with an album for more than TWO DAYS before pronouncing on it

no wonder some just wrote about the LDR "phenomenon". i'm not ready to write about this album and i doubt anyone else is, really.

(yeah i know this is what publications demand. sighhhh)

already I wanna apologize for posting her mutilated face

it's kinda weird because I liked "video games" when I first heard it, but didn't listen to it much because I couldn't stand to look at her for any length of time. all this reeses pieces exegesis came after I got the album and could listen to the song without gazing upon forlorn baby fishmouth.

hearing "video games" in the context of the other material influenced what I thought about it, and not only because it stands head and shoulders above everything else on there. she or her management team or her cabal of attorneys have put a lot of thought into constructing this florid + sordid persona, so I'm hearing it partly through that filter.

yeah, uh, pop music to thread?

[..]

and that isn't a negative in my book either.

it's a negative if you can't make the limitation into a strength; if your songs come across as "we did them this way because I can't do anything else", that's not good

if i was interviewing LDR i would ask her what about this vaguely lynchian persona/shtick holds so much appeal for you that you want to go "in character" as it across a whole album.

In a tight, cream-colored dress that looked like what Joan Harris might wear if she went back to Roger Sterling, on “Mad Men,”

Really wish this was true. Joan Harris is the real gangsta Nancy Sinatra.

some of the youtube songs have some of the worst lyrics i've heard in pop music since the heyday of Bush. for real. and i am almost completely beyond caring about pop lyrics in general. but they are glaringly awful. i was gonna post an example, but i don't even want to spread them around. i was thinking earlier - on here and in general - that i would like her stuff more if someone else was singing her stuff, but i'm not even sure that martina topley-bird could save some of her junk.

The point here is that a lot of discourse seems to be around how she's singing the song; in fact, pretty much every ounce of textual analysis going on ITT aside from the sex tape reading is entirely dependent upon a wholly ironic/sarcastic reading of the song's lyrics, which you can't have without the voice adding an interpretive layer. I don't buy the interpretive layer; to me, it just sounds blank.

― I spend a lot of time thinking about apricots (DJP), Friday, January 27, 2012 11:46 AM (4 minutes ago)

well yeah I can get this - a lot of ppl are reacting to the song because they feel an emotional tug when they hear it. if it's leaving you feeling dead inside then you are immune to a layer of meaning it has for others.

if i was interviewing LDR i would ask her what about this vaguely lynchian persona/shtick holds so much appeal for you that you want to go "in character" as it across a whole album.

― first period don't give a fuck, second period gon get cut (lex pretend), vrijdag 27 januari 2012 17:54 (7 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I think her first big Pitchfork interview some months ago showed she can't really put her money where her mouth is in this respect. The divide between the image she wants to uphold and the way she speaks about it (or rather, is unable to speak about it) was way bigger than I could've imagined.

whatever happened to the woman who sang on the first massive attack album? she could probably spin some of LDR's junk into gold.

Martina Topley-Bird is a fantastic example of someone who sings everything almost exactly the same way in a manner that feels more like a stylistic choice than a limitation.

Del Rey has managed, like a slow car in the left lane, to make everyone around her angry and over-invested, despite doing relatively little.

lol

I think her first big Pitchfork interview some months ago showed she can't really put her money where her mouth is in this respect. The divide between the image she wants to uphold and the way she speaks about it (or rather, is unable to speak about it) was way bigger than I could've imagined.

yup. i didn't read that but that's what i'm getting from the album.

Yeah, the album confirms that. She's doing the talk but can't walk the walk. In that light her live appearances give off the impression that she in way over her head.

I think her first big Pitchfork interview some months ago showed she can't really put her money where her mouth is in this respect. The divide between the image she wants to uphold and the way she speaks about it (or rather, is unable to speak about it) was way bigger than I could've imagined.

― future debts collector (Le Bateau Ivre), Friday, January 27, 2012 11:57 AM (2 minutes ago)

the most frustrating thing about the album is there's a vision present that somebody could really mine for gold, she just doesn't have the chops to do it - and when I say chops I don't mean her expressive or vocal range, rather her ability to make aesthetic choices that enhance the vision instead of overselling it. which is another thing that makes "video games" the jewel here, there's some subtlety and mystique at play.

however, I predict this album will be huge for teenagers. dreamo is the new screamo.

xpsssss

otm :)

if i was interviewing LDR i would ask her what about this vaguely lynchian persona/shtick holds so much appeal for you that you want to go "in character" as it across a whole album.

― first period don't give a fuck, second period gon get cut (lex pretend), Friday, January 27, 2012 11:54 AM

first rule of marketing is stay on message, second rule of marketing is repeat the message

the most frustrating thing about the album is there's a vision present that somebody could really mine for gold

didn't julee cruise already mine it for gold?

she needs to hire RiRi as her personal trainer

http://gossiponthis.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/rihanna-smoking-weed-01.jpg

oops no riri. just as well. she's too good for this thread.

dido mined it for gold!

which is why i sound like a broken record. if only someone more talented...etc, etc. cuz it is a good, you know, catchy sound.

that SFJ article is pretty on point about the album, and this is classic

there is nothing like rapping except for a few Dad-like eruptions of vernacular

there's a soridness to del rey, she's trying to work in a gothic trailer trash / nouveau riche angle that I never got from cruise or dido or topley-bird, or maybe I just never listened to the right stuff

it's like she tried to make a big beat version of fox confessor brings the flood, and failed

none of the other trip-hop female singers mentioned ever sang much about money or class, did they? that's one thing abt LDR that's at least potentially interesting (and comes from rap i think)

ppl keep saying 'i can see what she's trying to do she's just not good at it,' idk, that's kind of interesting too imo.

yeah, that's the nouveau riche angle. or the gangster angle. or the gangsta angle. it's all angles but it didn't square.

didn't tUnEyAARrdS have a song called gangsta? or was that someone else? LDR and tunelady should collaborate.

she did, I think it's actually about LDR

i didn't really think there was any more mileage in the wanksta thing but then i watched that stoner office temp show on netflix and laughed my head off. so i was wrong. i mean i was stoned when i watched it but i was still wrong.

i should really just go buy the last rihanna album. why mess with nancy when you can go with the gangsta frank.

things I've learned from this thread:

- Rihanna has a penis

What if Lana del Ray were black? Since the day she was first blogged, people have asked. The answer isn't what you think.

If Lana Del Rey was black, she'd proabably get constantly compared to Janelle Monae, regardless of those comparisons being apt.

Real talk from that SFJ review:

Del Rey is not likely to be good onstage, but this puts her in the company of about fifty per cent of recording artists.

What is Lana del Ray were Joan Harris?

is if

what if she were Cherry Jones? better name!

you should've been an attorney

the mere thought of an LDR/tUnE-yArDs collaboration is cracking me the fuck up, it would be like a collaboration between an ice cube and an acetylene torch

blockhead is a really limited producer but those articles he wrote are pretty incredible

ty kinder

I'm so internet blog paranoid that I suspect blockhead is on the take, that article reads like a checklist of what somebody who loves LDR would like to believe about her

if it's true, well yeah, weird world

dunno, he says that all he's saying is positive about her, but I don't see anything he wrote as positive

the way I see it, he's just like "this is what happened"

"I am in the music business and I didn't know how pop music works, but here's one way it does"

" "

The Blockhead story sounds totally believable to me, and though he praises her a lot, I'm not sure this unvarnished behind the scenes story is exactly the kind of thing that she and her management would want to circulate.

one thing that resonated with me in the blockhead post... even though her plastic lips creep me out, the ersatz glamour is so much a part of her character that I'm like, "of course she'd have a bad lip job, what a commitment to the role" she should have had a song about her lipjob on the album.

Not to mention, I realize her inflated lips are strange. They certainly weren’t around when we met. In fact, she was way hotter without them. But, in a way, I gotta think it was all part of her plan. “Lana Del Ray” was a character and those lips were part of that plan. The thing is, I’ve read a ton of shit about people saying this character was manufactured but that’s bullshit. Sure, it’s not her real name but the idea behind that person was in Lizzy before I even met her. Hell, just how she was dressed coming into the studio was enough for me to know that. She looked like a pinup model straight out of the trailer park. She always seemed to have to idea of this throwback Nancy Sinatra meets “Madmen” meets current white trash thing as her entire theme.

So really she's more like the Juggalo Nancy Sinatra

I don't understand how "she is so authentic" matches up with "she had lip injections to fit a marketing image"?