Lana Del Rey

how else does one spell missy elliott

I have a much easier time w/ this sequencing:

God Knows I Tried
Music to Watch Boys To
High By the Beach
Terrence Loves You
24
(Interlude)
Salvatore
Freak
The Blackest Day
Honeymoon

also that way it opens w/ "Sometimes I wake up in the morning" and ends w/ "dreaming away your life" and I'm a sucker for shit like that

xxp people leave off the second T

how else does one spell missy elliott

eliot/elliot most common misspelling for me, it's obvious at all imo

What are people's favourite songs on this? I hear a mood I like but I don't hear any standouts.

― impossible raver (Re-Make/Re-Model), Thursday, September 24, 2015 7:46 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"the blackest day" is the strung-out epic that everything seems to build towards, and actually works

"music to watch boys to", "god knows i tried", "high by the beach" and "salvatore" otherwise

the criticism that it all blurs together was actually my initial issue with ultraviolence but imo the more it blurs together into this sad, inward-fixating, monomaniacal mood, the better LDR is. yeah it's almost oppressive in its refusal to deviate from that mood but her albums stand or fall on whether she breaks the spell - "art deco" comes closest, a lil too on the nose, but not as bad as some of the tracks on born to die (the sparser arrangements really help in this) (oh and obv her "don't let me be misunderstood" cover is unnecessary and slightly embarrassing but i just pretend it's a bonus track)

"God Knows I Tried" is the big standout for me, but that's probably because it sounds the most like a song from Ultraviolence, which I still like better.

Yesterday I put all three albums (I don't have Paradise and need to get it) on shuffle and realized how many small, subtle shifts there are to her performances, not just from song to song but from line to line. She's really not a monotonous singer in the way of, say, Nico. Within her overall sleepwalking style there's a tremendous amount of activity beneath the surface.

yeah for sure, and she's doing some really effective things in her upper range on this album

Any numbers on this yet? I hope it sells a kajillion copies.

Not many standouts for me, which is just another way Lana is weird - she's a pop artist who makes albums rather than singles. It's an album you play from start to finish, preferably on a decent sound system (I was amazed at how much I liked Salvatore on my stereo considering I wrote the whole thing off after streaming it). I'm not sure if I love it yet but I really enjoy the sound, it's like it transforms my whole apartment, like a new colour on the walls. The Simone cover is really not good though, and if it's an attempt at commentary it goes over my head.

The fact that all of the album blurs together and nothing really stands out is actually a positive for this album. I've already listened to this a bunch of times. I might actually like this as much as Ultraviolence.

the song lengths add to the whole 'stuck in the same loop' vibe; 3 songs are 4:55, 2 are 4:51, another 2 are 4:41 etc

Aside from the lovely and unexpected counter melody that arrives about two thirds of the way thru the title track, the few listens to this didn't hit the spot the way her best stuff does for me.

Normally I'm a big fan of artists finding their voice and rejecting the conventions the industry is pushing them to stick with. But as a bit of a late-comer to LDR, I find her stuff works best when her smoky/spooky/goofball aesthetic is allowed to ooze around within more formal strictures – genre exercises, more traditional verses & choruses and strong, clear melodies.

When the form itself becomes as hazy as her voice—as has been the case on a lot of the last two records—the whole thing, yeah, just kind of fades into the ether. But the real trouble is, you begin to lose what a good melodicist she can be as a songwriter – which, in turn, kind of buries her (really great) sense of humor.

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

relistening to born to die and it is so striking how much more accomplished she's become in terms of sound design. the early stuff sounds SO clunky in comparison

I like her Daniel Johnston cover

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/hear-lana-del-reys-aching-daniel-johnston-cover-20151110

feel like this album kind of came out and just flatlined.

if you mean commercially it's pretty obviously not a "big hit singles" kind of album

Still can't get into it. It's half the record Ultraviolence was. A shame - I thought she was going to get better and better but she's just becalmed. Bad idea to get Rick Nowels to produce as well as write.

I think I actually prefer it to Ultraviolence now - didn't see that coming

Listening to it on speakers for the first time right now since I'm home from work—thanks, veterans!—and it really does need to be allowed to fill the room. "God Knows I Tried" has been my favorite song all along, but through speakers it's pretty overwhelming.

This album is pretty close to perfection. Especially with wine and an empty apartment.

I have given this album several goes and I cannot get into it for the life of me. The only tracks I could sing bits of from memory are Salvatore and High By The Beach. Maybe three years from now I'll sit crying after a breakup I did not instigate and put it on and finally get it.

Honeymoon the track is really striking and beautiful imo, esp once I clipped the first like 2 mins of it off

that & freak (has become prob 1 of her fav tracks of mine ever) & blackest day are the only tracks I listen to

http://m.tmz.com/#article/2015/12/02/lana-del-rey-fan-arrested/

Shades of Cool still sounds soooooo boss to me

actually the whole Ultraviolence album is \m/ \m/ imo

"Ultraviolence" is her best album.

New song

http://pitchfork.com/news/71155-lana-del-rey-returns-with-new-song-young-and-in-love/

new song is great, but the video is...odd? her smiling creeps me out. maybe it's meant to.

yea the song is good

it's good but it's more directly pop than usual for her

ultraviolence is easily her best yeah, i'm still hoping she'll do something similar to that with some jazzy ambience someday

Love this song and video, gorgeous

I like this. My favorite thing by a long shot on Ultraviolence is "Fucked My Way to the Top."

Is the original video for "Video Games" still on the internet anywhere?

(Or maybe the one online is the original? Thought I'd read her edit got pulled)

She's bored me for years, and I like the new song a great deal.

This statement, from a BBC interview, fills me with dread.

I started out thinking that the whole record was gonna have a ’50s/’60s feeling, like some kind of Shangri-Las, early Joan Baez influences. But as the climate kept on getting more heated politically, I found lyrically everything was just directed towards that. So because of that, the sound just got really updated, and I felt like it was more wanting to talk to the younger side of the audience that I have. I guess it’s just a little more socially aware. It’s kind of a global feeling.

eep

yea thats not good

tbf though she has always been terrible at describing her own music iirc

album will probably sound exactly like the last two

although, 'younger' sound was exactly what the Born to Die had (and the last two didn't) and I know a lot of people who really love that about that album.

i have a hard time imagining her doing anything explicitly political, although it would be amusing if she put out a fugazi album or something. her videos have often had a kind of running commentary on american culture anyway.

http://pitchfork.com/news/71868-yes-lana-del-rey-is-promoting-an-anti-trump-witchcraft-ritual/

of course she is

I was a bit underwhelmed with this song at first, but the video has made me fall in love with it. It is very odd to see her smiling so much. I guess she's not really done a lot of that in her videos before.

I have a hard time deciding between her albums. They're all pretty equal for me. Honeymoon was a massive grower.

Also, I've just realised that Love has a hint of Joy Division's Atmosphere about it.

The new song (which is excellent BTW) prompted me to spend the last several days digging into the expanded version of her debut (that is, Born to Die: The Paradise Edition). I've always had a bit of a thing for artists before their "find their voice" -- i.e., when they are trying out personas and styles to see how they fit. Obviously, the hit/miss ratio is going to be greater. But I also think they tend to take greater risks.

BTD alone has several songs that I count among her best -- yes, "Video Games," "Blue Jeans" and "Summertime Sadness," but also "National Anthem" and "Radio" (*huge* earworm). I'm also fond of "Dark Paradise" (which is, uh, dark), the title track and "Off to the Races." As for the EP, "Ride" is generally excellent -- but its bridge is positively thrilling. "Cola" is a complete fave of mine -- kind of "Blue Jeans Part II" musically. Johnny Fever's comment upthread that it was "absurd and terrible and great" was spot on. It's kind of LDR in a nutshell.

Now, are there clunkers? Absolutely -- sometimes within these songs as has been pointed out. I'm still not sure why a line like "Take this party downtown" shows up in multiple songs -- it's almost as if LDR has a McCartney-esque thing for placeholder lyrics that she never swaps out. And the production is, perhaps, a bit glossy in places -- the beats in general sound kind of overly polished.

But on the last few records, it's all sluggish tempos and quaaludes. I get why she did them -- records like Ultraviolence and Honeymoon have helped her mature a bit and, yes, find her voice. They've also positioned her less as a big pop star than as an artist on the fringes, which is where I think she derives a lot of her inspiration. And in general, I love the panoramic sound of these records -- Ultraviolence in particular has a great "Scott Walker as filtered through a Space Echo" sound to it.

Still, on most of her recent material, I've missed the tunes ("Young and Beautiful" excepted), the diversity and even the slight hip hop touches that made her kind of exciting to me. I'm hoping "Love" is a sign that she's moving back in that direction.

good writeup, agree w a lot of it - yea the chaff in born to die is kindof striking considering its peaks

Yeah, you make some good points there. You've pretty much picked my favourite songs from Born To Die. I'm surprised that Radio was never released as a single. I thought it was the obvious hit as soon as I heard the album. Nice to see you mention Dark Paradise which was always the most underrated song on the album. I'd add Without You from the deluxe edition as another highlight. One of her best vocals. Diet Mtn Dew and Million Dollar Man are the only songs I'd say sound like filler to me. Neither of them are terrible songs, they just seem a bit flat. As for Paradise, I couldn't get into that beyond Ride which is one of her best songs and Bell Air which is so beautiful. The rest of it leaves me cold.

"Gods and Monsters" is an underrated track from Paradise. I like in the song "Ultraviolence" where the backing vocal sings "Lay me down tonight with your diamonds at pearls" is awesome when repeated later as part of "Fucked My Way To The Top".