Lana Del Rey

i loved "milk"! yeah that is a good comparison, sound-wise if not nec the rest. "milk" was a real anomaly in garbage's discography though, whereas i feel the flaw of LDR's album is trying to stretch her shtick out to an unsustainable point

It's good. Very goofy and OTT in an early-P4k way but it suits his theme.

I think Harvilla gets closest to my own response in that I find even the crassest cliche overloads kind of endearing. Like National Anthem obviously isn't subtle social satire but the bluntness, the chintziness, the secondhand language, all serves to make its point brilliantly nonetheless.

accusing her of trolling is pretty accurate too

harvilla's review is good except for the part where he tries to force you to admit that this particular collection of cliches can't help but be appealing.

Tbf, I think if a band came out that had a male who gave himself lip injections we'd hear the same kind of stuff.

yeah, but we don't put the same social pressure on male pop stars to look surgically perfect. blaming female artists for subjecting themselves to what so many fans (male and female) demand strikes me as incredibly cruel.

harvilla piece is great

blaming female artists for subjecting themselves

esp when "blaming" = protracted convulsions of collective slut-shaming

someone please point out where it is argued that Lana Del Rey got lip injections because of fan demand...?

also have you seen Pete Burns lately?

But they were using aeolian cadences and it might be interesting to talk about them.

For sure; there's a lot more to say about The Beatles or whoever using this or that compositional device than just identifying it with a funky name and explaining it in dry music theory terms; e.g. who else has used the same device, how have they used it, does this particular usage satisfy or confound our expectations, etc. It's about making connections and highlighting those subtle bits of artfulness which an untrained listener might miss but could appreciate with a little guidance, the same as any kind of analysis. Discussions of quote music theory unquote may be off-putting because the terms sound really arcane and academic, but it's just music, it exists wherever music exists.

this is because I found the musical arrangement of "Video Games" so limp and off-putting, particularly when combined with such a blank vocal performance, that I felt no connection to the song and no desire to investigate her any further.

There's definitely something kind of alienating in the canned orchestation on the track; I think it's to do with the fact that on first blush they sound enough like real strings, and they're deployed in a stylistically-consistent way that references other music that would have used real strings, but they're synthesized. And then you wonder, am I meant to be convinced that these are real instruments? Or is the first-blush resemblance to real instruments, followed by the discovery on closer inspection of their fakeness, the whole point?

I remember cocking an eyebrow when I came across someone praising the song's "string arrangement." I mean I guess setting your keyboard to a string sound is a string arrangement. But I think it's kind of a microcosm of the question about to what extent the track, and LDR's persona, is meant to be an ironic performance. I've seen videos of the song being performed live with actual string players and it felt like there was a little less ambiguity to it, a little less room for irony or double meaning. Which is why I think the track is cool with a more straight-up video-gamey sound to it.

I seem to remember mocking the hyper hygiene of n'sync at one point in my life

don't even want to dwell on what sort of treatments those boys went through

"clutching at borrowed pearls" is a great turn of a turn of phrase

someone please point out where it is argued that Lana Del Rey got lip injections because of fan demand...?

lol. point is that there's distinct pressure for women to conform to unrealistic sexual ideals. for female performing artists, this pressure seems to be all the more severe. that's the sort of "demand" i was talking about. sincerely hate the tendency of so many observers, male and female, to blame women for getting the balance wrong, overstepping the limit, looking "fake" (megan fox for ex), gaining weight or w/e.

for female performing artists

= for young and "sexy" female performing artists of the sort that pop audiences demand

i actually agree w/ contenderizer than adam bruneau's post was stupid

upthread there's a wide swath of ILX digging "video games", people with some pretty disparate tastes who tried to break down why the song is effective. it's weird to read your detailed breakdowns of what's wrong with music criticism when your repeated analysis of "video games" consists of "it's so boring!"

well, i was kind of kidding. winky face and all that. i would love to read a sensitive analysis of the song, even though naturally it wouldn't interest me as much as an analysis of a song that actually interests me on its own.

btw thank you folks SO MUCH for sharing all those links to examples of music criticism that is a bit (or more than a bit) invested in formal analysis. can't say i have time to read them today but i have bookmarked them and will read soon.

to follow up on previous post, i'd read in a heartbeat an essay that simply described and analyze how the different melodies and counter-melodies in "cry me a river" (the j.t./timbaland record) thread through the record, and how they provide patterns of sameness and difference, convergence and divergence, etc.

You remember this Alex Ross bit, right?:

"Cry Me a River" has no apparent relation to the 1955 standard made famous by Julie London, although a future analysis of internal structural ratios may show otherwise. The vocals are plaintive to the point of whining, but the inner voices have a cool, contrapuntal flow, creating the sort of muscular melancholy so characteristic of postwar rhythm and blues. There are at least seven layers of simultaneous activity in the song: it's as if Timbaland wanted to see how much he could pile on without creating atonality. First there is an arpeggiated keyboard figure, followed by male voices singing a bit of Gregorian-style chant. Next comes a steady, sombre pattern that sounds a little like the minor-key vamp in Ellington's "East St. Louis Toodle-Oo." Below it are four bass notes, recurring in chacona style. Now the angelic Timberlake enters, together with a more nasty-minded rhythm section, a vaguely Indian-sounding synthesized string orchestra, and, finally, sped-up versions of all the above.

In sum, "Cry Me a River" may be the most polyphonically complex teenybopper ballad in history.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sexPTYJ4fbo

after hearing the other cover version I was thinking you could plop the "video games" chorus into an 80s synthpop number and it would work perfectly, ^ proves it I guess

That one was neat. I cannot support, however, the three-syllable pronunciation of the word "only."

Radio (easily the best track on the album imo) is currently sat at number 1 on the Hype Machine chart.

i think we already know that lana del rey is popular

Maybe wait for the first week sales before deciding that. A few US critics were making predictions on Twitter and the range was huge - nobody knows. UK's different - wouldn't be surprised by a first week #1 and I reckon releasing Radio and National Anthem as singles could keep the momentum going for months.

ew, "national anthem" is one of the awful ones though. that and "off to the races" make me cringe (as opposed to eg "dark paradise" which is just a bit boring, and "carmen" which is where LDR's love of clichés tips into utter pointlessness).

the album made me realise that i do actually love "born to die" (the melody is so generous) and "blue jeans" - the other ones i'm going back to are "summertime sadness", "this is what makes us girls" and "without you". the latter two are maybe the most interesting lyrically?

i think i love LDR best when i can detect an undertone of...resentment, where the division between the narrator and the author is most apparent. when i sing along to eg "blue jeans" and "summertime sadness" i feel my mouth curling into a bit of a sneer - there's something i read recently about the sounds of words being the most honest things of all, and there's something about the particular imagery she uses that conveys this intense dislike of the mould she's making for herself.

are there more than two lines anywhere on this record that sound like a continuous vocal take

'off to the races' sounds weirdly british

Just went to listen to National Anthem again (heard the album for review purposes a while back, haven't downloaded the leak). Not only is not on Spotify but it's been removed from YouTube. They really want those first-week sales.

But anyway that chorus is huge.

I don't hear any sneer in Blue Jeans. I do in Summertime Sadness but I thought she just sounded embarrassed by it. It's such a banal song - the worst on the album imo. Maybe I'll like it more when I hear the album again.

embarrassment might be key! i wouldn't use that word cuz it implies a lack of poise, and at her best on record LDR is very poised, but a definite undercurrent of intense dislike, directed at herself as well as the boy, for performing these roles (while still being fascinated by them) (fascinated enough to do a whole album about them in any case)

i like the line about telephone wires above sizzling like your stare in "summertime sadness"

original discoverer of del rey speaks

http://read.mtvhive.com/2012/01/30/lana-del-rey-first-album-5-points-records-interview

'I was excited. She was very original. I didn’t think she was the same as the other alt-indie girls. She also is a very intelligent and creative person. She would ride around on the subways all night sometimes, writing lyrics and stuff like that.'

lol this whole thing is so condescending and horrible

when i sing along to eg "blue jeans" and "summertime sadness" i feel my mouth curling into a bit of a sneer

I think I deserve recognition for avoiding a very easy joke here

Kind of off-topic here, but I thought was interesting with regards to how the "general public" feels about LDR. My wife, who rarely gets excited about new music, is really anxious to hear her new album and has been questioning me about her all week. I played her "Video Games" last year and she liked it, she also saw the SNL performances and in her words, "yeah, it was bad, but everyone sucks on SNL", but she remains really excited for the full-length.

Anyway, I thought it was really interesting to see LDR be the one new artist she's really interested in right now.

My wife too. She also has a general sense that the backlash is bullying which makes her double down on her LDR love. Helped by the fact that my 5-year-old daughter loves singing Video Games around the house.

i watched like 30 seconds of the snl video games and was so embarrassed i had to turn it off

Yeah, I think thats part of it from my wife as well, we talked a little bit about all the "authenticity" arguments last night and her bottom line was basically, "that's such bullshit, just because she's an attractive female?".

(xpost)

"that's such bullshit, just because she's an attractive female?" also has a lot to do w/ why she was on snl despite having a career that spanned all of two songs

Oh yeah, totally! I don't disagree with that in the least.

Do they usually restrict their guest artists to those who have had a long and productive career?

she was on the JRoss show over here, the performance was dull/lacklustre (I thought the SNL one was alright), but as my wife says "they always have awful sound on there"..

.. and they tend to limit their guest artists to "whoever has a single out that sort of fits in with the show style / remit"

I don't think they've ever had anyone on who didn't even have an album yet

there mustve been someone w/a hit single and debut album abt to drop on before

iirc, Jessie J was on SNL before he album came out in the U.S. Plus they are putting Karmin on in a few weeks.

putting us all on

LDR's had a album out, innit?

I'm guessing the season finale will be Pomplamoose.

Her album comes out today in the U.S. Mark G, she was on SNL a couple weeks ago.

LDR's had a album out, innit?

― Mark G, Tuesday, January 31, 2012 10:31 AM (25 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

eh kinda

my wife too!

Lana Del Rey, popular with ILM spouses since 2012!

yeah, maria really digs LDR. she even sent away for a picture disc single.

she hasn't been this excited about someone since death grips.