slang

LDR took pains to mention Harry Winston, a famous diamond merchant, in the MTV interview (i.e. like a Harvey but also like a Harry). Harry Winston's name is used in a famous song, "Diamonds are a girl's best friend" from Gentleman Prefer Blondes, which Marilyn Monroe sang in the film. That song, like Cola, is a complicated song. DIAMONDS ARE A GIRL'S BEST FRIEND (from genius lyrics) The French are glad to die for love They delight in fighting duels But I prefer a man who lives And gives expensive jewels A kiss on the hand May be quite continental But diamonds are a girl's best friend A kiss may be grand But it won't pay the rental On your humble flat Or help you at the automat Men grow cold As girls grow old And we all lose our charms in the end But square-cut or pear-shaped These rocks don't loose their shape Diamonds are a girl's best friend Tiffany's! Cartier! Black, Starr, Frost Gorham! Talk to me Harry Winston Tell me all about it! There may come a time When a lass needs a lawyer But diamonds are a girl's best friend There may come a time When a hard-boiled employer Thinks you're awful nice But get that ice or else no dice He's your guy When stocks are high But beware when they start to descend It's then that those louses Go back to their spouses Diamonds are a girl's best friend I've heard of affairs That are strictly platonic But diamonds are a girl's best friend And I think affairs That you must keep liaisonic Are better bets If little pets get big baguettes Time rolls on And youth is gone And you can't straighten up when you bend But stiff back Or stiff knees You stand straight at Tiffany's Diamonds! Diamonds! I don't mean rhinestones! But diamonds are a girl's best friend

This is big news for me. Having her participate in a Leonard Cohen tribute and putting her in the company of Elvis Costello, K. D. Lang, Sting, Philip Glass, and others is very good press, imo. I hope she has a new Cohen cover (or six) in store for us. Also this from the article seems promising: "Additionally, the tribute will be filmed by director Jack Bender (“Game of Thrones,” “The Sopranos”) for an upcoming special." Given she nuked her instagram and twitter, I'd say the project is a goner too, but I'm praying she doesn't want to be pegged as completely (and depressingly) predictable, so that she'll actually go through with the project just to surprise me (and countless others).

I have no problems with her being strong in the video. However, if the missile launch is nuclear, she should not be too surprised at people viewing the video as primarily solemn and gloomy. A nuclear reference is enough to overshadow (or outblast) every other characteristic of the video. Just saying. She also uses nuclear blast imagery in concert for Change (for instance, on the video screens; Liverpool 8/22; I think she also did in Santa Barbara, although I don't know if she does it consistently in (the rest of) Europe, where she may be more sensitive about the issue). Anyway, what I said about the meaning of the WM video (which is just how I like to view it--if given a choice--so I hope she stops explaining things too clearly about WM): http://lanaboards.com/index.php?/topic/9280-next-music-video-white-mustang-out-now/?p=554716

An interesting benchmark with which to view anything is nothing. So I can comfortably say the video is better than nothing as it still has some beauty and languor to it. Another interesting benchmark is to compare it to somebody else's video which might have a similar theme. I would nominate Green Light (Lorde). So yeah, Lorde performs the actual song rather nicely, but still nothing really happens. I really think it's the (honesty?) issue about BAR that makes people think it's her worst video, not the execution, per se. And about that, this reviewer makes an interesting point (but doesn't bring up the BAR hypothesis): http://jalopnik.com/lana-del-rey-must-think-were-idiots-1809952213 As for the meaning of the video, while the "record drop" line of the song seems relevant, given the song also says she didn't phone him (and the song is about regretting that?), I tend to an interpretation where the video's events just occurred inside her head to show her what would have happened if she had. The missile/space launch and Get Free reference ("never got to fly at night because they were caught up in the dance") aren't clear; however, the "Taking roads less traveled" comment on her 2nd WM teaser on her instagram makes me think (aka, imo) the video is intended as feminism-related. As others do, I wish the Mariachi-like trumpeting music at the end were better attributed. It would be cool if that were part of a future song that we know nothing about. There may also be a pasodoble reference (though admittedly weak, so I'm stretching here), where the song ends and then the trumpeting begins --pasodoble is a kind of martial dancing patterned after a bullfight, and often used to signify a kind of war of sexes (at least according to a show I used to watch on TV).

This concert (enjoy it while it lasts). She was definitely very good. One significant thing for me was she seemed to be having her dancing girls sing a little on OTTR in parts, as if testing the waters (e.g., 1:11:30 and some beyond that). If so, she really needs to continue that and maybe even have the males sing (if they can). Live is going to be imperfect, but at least if you're imperfect with all live backing you become a better, more spontaneous musician, imo.

He does occasionally make points that I can agree with. BTW, he gave Katy Perry's Witness a 6. Oh, and if you're not listening to him at x2 normal speed you are wasting half your time.

As usual with her songs there are multiple interpretations. Mine is that GBAAATBWII is actually Oh Say Can You See from the AKA album -- version 2.0. "Oh Say Can You See" Oh, say can you see my stars The night time is almost ours To wander through alleys and look at the bars Night time is almost ours The headlights from passing cars They illuminate my face then leave me the dark The voice of Nirvana says, "Come as you are" And I will The night time is almost ours The sway of the hips and arms Will cradle you from afar They swing till you're tired and send you to Mars Night time is almost ours Both songs are about women wanting to be unafraid at night and wanting to "come as they are", although GBA might also add to OSCYS the idea of women wanting to be unafraid in the daytime too, because of the political climate.

Don't have an interpretation for TNC yet, but the song I associate with Barrie on L4L is Heroin on the basis of airflight references, which could just as easily refer to Barrie uprooting himself to go to LA, as much as LDR going to the UK. He didn't leave Kassidy for LDR, but because of artistic difference (other members of the band now forming a power funk group "White"). Barrie "dropped a record" called Cold Coffee between HM and L4L (although I don't think he ever drove a White Mustang) . That album, is undoubtedly a break-up record (albeit a tasteful, non-dissful one, concentrating on his feelings). A song called "Angel Tears" on his album also has a reference to flying to the moon (in common with Heroin). I still scratch my head about the Manson references in Heroin, although Barrie does follow his song "I see her smiling", which you mention, with "murder murder" on his album. Both artists have expressed respect, and/or long-distance affection, for each other (either in interviews or tweets) after the breakup.

In view of the Pitchfork interview and in looking at songs like Heroin (lyrically), L4L, the song, seems like a Trojan song. It is uplifting on the surface and meant to get you feeling that way, but the extensive quote from Invictus in it invites you to read the rest of that short poem, which I would describe as very bleak but defiant. This sets the stage for a much darker interior for the album, which does seem to be darker than expected (from what I'm reading), though I haven't listened to the album yet (less than a day away). Bought my copy on Amazon, which has an autorip feature; also I'm sure she'll have it on spotify at midnite, as this artist wants her music to be heard, for sure. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/51642/invictus

Well if the reaction was that, apparently not. I mean the issue of expletive use is an interesting one for me, but my presentation didn't work. I'll try to rein it in a bit

Having heard Kesha's Woman and St. Vincent's New York, I'm thinking there needs to be a new Grammy Award category: best use of EXPLETIVES in a song. Maybe they can nickname it the High-By-the-Beach Award, just because, you know ... you could use the word motherfucker in a song, but that don't make you a song. But seriously, it's such a big part of the culture, the Grammys should acknowledge it. As for Kesha: I like her; I like her song (she sings fine, dope horns, but it's something I could only experience privately, alas). If I had to guess why she could be nominated in this new award category, it might be her strategic use/non-use of expletives against Dr. Luke. So "Praying" can be played on the radio, but it's embarassing to Dr. Luke to do so (so she doesn't care if he makes money off of it); whereas "Woman" cannot played. But I don't even know if you make money by playing your song on the radio; this is just conjecture on my part.

The worst thing about CWIMM being on the album is not the quality of the song but her backing off of wanting to release stuff as singletons without an album attached to it. CWIMM could fit in well, if LFL is going to be genre diverse (like AKA was). However, I was very excited by the singleton possibility (if she was ever really considering it), given a hundred older songs (or future songs) that might be released someday. Sure the leaks are appreciated (and she should know that), but it also sucks not getting that content from *her* (even though it is in some sense, but you know what I mean). Yosemite probably changed names (it is a Native-American word, after all), but it coming later on an "afterthought" EP or as a singleton could also work. And if the song isn't released, she's got some major explaining to do in the next interview, given how much she's hyped it.

With all due respect to @@Eclipse, the fact that LDR DMs him and says it's "Calciatore" but then she doesn't post a clarifying lyric snippet on her facebook or elsewhere is highly suspicious. When someone shows me the latter kind of evidence, I'll be convinced, not before. I mean, couldn't she just be motivated to pull his chain a bit. However, I have a theory that she wouldn't necessarily be lying to @@Eclipse, based on this evidence: I typed "cacciatore calciatore" into google search and immediately found this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabrizio_Cacciatore (along with a recent picture of him in the sidebar). So my interpretation of the song is she sings cacciatore to mean hunter and the footballer, Cacciatore, and wants everybody to believe that she's really singing a food reference. So everybody's right in a sense, and it's a triple (?) entendre of sorts.

There some interesting definitions of "Yosemite" on google if you ask it to define it. Maybe she thought it wouldn't be a good title or maybe the national park had an issue. Yohhe'meti (Southern Miwok) or Yos.s.e'meti (Central Miwok) originally referred to the Indian tribe that lived in Yosemite Valley. Yosemite means literally “those who kill” (Yos, “to kill,” the modifier e, “one who,” and the plural suffix -meti).

Heroin: If it's the Lou Reed song that she's going to cover, it will be hard, because, to my ears, LR has a negotiable sense of vocal melody on many songs (including Heroin). It's like the tonality in the vocal, if we could think of it as colors, were bleached, or like he raps the lyrics some. This allows LDR to invent a new vocal melody and/or collaborate with LR posthumously. Don't know if she's gonna do that (or if it's even the LR song) but we'll see. A lot of people have covered Heroin, the most notable, I think, is Billy Idol, and he definitely invented new vocal melodies for it (and musical arrangements and moved verses around). BTW, the Iggy Pop song Lust for Life is about beating heroin addiction (at least some have said, and I recommend people listening to it and reviewing the lyrics). The irony of this makes the tracklist seem both more real and more faked at the same time. I'd say real wins, given her smiling cover art, but idk.

Summer Bummer ought to be interesting if in fact there are two rappers on it doing their thing; I'm interested in how much she keeps them under control (if she does). Multiple rappers on a track seems like something only the male singers do (Frank Ocean). Do we know of a lot of female singers with 2 rappers featured on a track?

I don't think Melodrama sucks, but it's metacritic score (as of this writing 91, with 22 reviews) sure surprises the heck out of me. It's like the critics are trying to manipulate me. I'd give it about a 75 (i.e., if I had listened to it a couple of times without seeing any reviews, which of course I didn't do, I would guess/estimate, I'd have given it a 75). If I had to guess why so high a metascore, I would say the lyrics. Related to the lyrics is the social engineering aspect of the record, whereby critics usually mention Lorde being authentic, and/or more real in some sense than most pop stars (and therefore a good influence?). So the reviews are displaying halo effects of seeing the singing and music as actually better than they are, even if I think the singing and the music are pretty decent and/or distinctive (just not 90). I might see giving it an 80-85 (as a critic I mean), if I understood and *valued* the social engineering aspects of the album, but I don't. I went to Lorde's twitter to try to find out how she was receiving the overwhelmingly positive criticism, the answer is surprisingly subdued, but she did identify one blog writer (or is she a famous music journalist, idk, her articles seem broad and interesting). She did a remarkably good job at explaining why a stan might give this album a 10/10. I still don't get it, but I get why she gets it. https://twitter.com/lorde/status/876877561975914497 Anyway, these are interesting times for LDR to be dropping an album in (she also has halo effect, but often of the negative kind). Melodrama is a tough act to follow as far as exceeding Lorde metacritically. I kind of wished (no, I actually definitely wished it) LDR could have re-released AKA contemporaneously with Melodrama just to troll Lorde (Taylor-style) a bit. I also think it's possible Lorde's stanning (or is this taunting?) LDR a bit (regardless of which, I think she get's LDR's penchant for ambiguity). What do people make of this (pinned June 15th!) tweet? https://twitter.com/lorde/status/875545025794519040 #MoreLordeCriticalRamblings While there was a lot of good production to M, it has a kind of "paint by the numbers" feel for me. Sober and Homemade Dynamite seem reasonable continuations of PH style. Louvre, Liability, and Supercuts seem creditable extensions in style. I especially like Hard Feelings/Loveless for it's experimental influences. One review I saw mentioned a Phil Collins drum sample in it (which I recognized) before a Paul Simon vocalization (which I didn't), but I also hear Peter-Gabriel-like textures in it (i.e., from his scarey/freaky middle period). And finally (my tongue is clearly in cheek, but maybe not), there's possibly an LDR song-reference to Lolita in the spelling out of the word "loveless" (i.e., an anti-Lolita reference). However, that song (Loveless) suffers from a fade-out or a die-out tactic used in other songs on Melodrama, which, on an album of short length, I can dock it for a little. Writer in the Dark was also interesting, though being compared to Kate Bush in 7 reviews (5 times for that song specifically) was irksome to me. While I might accept a Regina Spektor comparison (but more for Liability), a comparison of Writer in the Dark to one of Lady Gaga's slow burners would have made more sense to me based on music and singing style (Million Reasons, and especially Dope, say hello). Just saying.

Well maybe I'm wrong but I'm interpreting the photo as of Chuck and Lana as children (taken by Rob?).

lanadelrey"Posting some of my favorite Chuck photos." admittedly it's ambiguous, but I'm taking "Chuck photos" to mean "photos of Chuck" [and she's hugging LDR as a child in the photo]. The second picture I'm taking to be LDR late teens (and I'm guessing you're not disagreeing with that). The only evidence for the two-models interpretation I can see is a comment asking who the other model is, which I'm taking to be a joke. Is there any other evidence you can point to?

The optimist in me wants to believe she's using it to play a Theremin.

The contrast (btw song HM and HBTB) was probably intentional on her part, so she wants you to believe there's a coherence between them. I'll suggest that both songs reflect adopting aesthetics from prior song periods. One is a torch/noir song a la Ella Fitzgerald or a sad Frank Sinatra (perhaps); the other has been described as Andrew Sisters meets Ludacris. http://flavorwire.com/532216/lana-del-rey-shares-andrews-sisters-meets-ludacris-track-high-by-the-beach So they cohere, at least conceptually, on that basis. Sonic-ally, I don't think they're that bad together as you got songs like Art Deco and Freak in the mix too. Historically, she's had pretty diverse songs on the same album while still cohering decently (Pawn Shop Blues and Smarty, being my favorite example).

My 2 cents on this is that a critic should at least have broad enough taste to address the review to people who might actually like the work. They should also have broad enough taste to identify other artists (past and present) that are similar in spirit to the reviewed work, so that if you happen to like those other artists you might like (or dislike) the considered work/artist. A critic should not focus on subjective reactions as this is profoundly uninteresting/uninformative (and critics that do so often rely on humor to attempt to disguise this tactic in a review). Critics can also have an hypothesis of the artist's intent and try to make some kind of "objective" evaluation as to whether the intent is realized well in the work. While this still ends up being subjective, at least it's interesting subjective, because it can explain why one critic loves and another hates the work (i.e., different hypotheses).

actually, you can hear the songs in that rose garden referenced in Burnt Norton.

I believe the article you reference is this: http://www.talkhouse.com/mish-way-white-lung-talks-lana-del-reys-ultraviolence/ While I certainly agree that it could have been better and also felt somewhat uncomfortable at the initial hearing of this performance, having listened to it some more as well as the other female and female-fronted acts (Pale Waves, London Grammar, Zara Larrson, Emeli Sande, Anne-Marie, Katie Perry, Lorde), I think LDR did respectably (i.e., competently) at representing a style of singing different from the rest. The closest comparable for me was London Grammar (a voice sort of midway between Florence and Marina), but even there, the virtuosity (considerable though it was) seemed different. LDR's also singing pretty virtuosically in the last 3 songs, at least at times. The "key dyslexia" I didn't really hear, but if it was in Cruel World, that was the highpoint for me in terms of naturalness of singing. It's her power levels, which seem anemic relative to others, that seems to put people off, and I'd love to know what the first 2 songs would have been like with voice mixed at twice the instruments.

I have mixed feelings about the song too. However, that dissipated with time. I don't think it's one of her best songs in terms of melody or singing, but I don't think it's a sellout either, and lyrically it's very powerful, imo. Starting with the title, I think it's an intentional reference to Joni Mitchell's song Woodstock, where Joni (famously) only had Woodstock in her mind, but nevertheless wrote a quintessentially good Joni song about feeling bad about missing it, while expressing at the same time what Woodstock meant to her. I recommend hearing the 1970 live performance on youtube with its spoken prologue of how she came to write that song. LDR famously misses Woodstock too, because she was born too late (and Coachella is her Woodstock by default). She's also possibly writing herself into the role of the famous Zeppelin song (as that song is very meaning negotiable). Continuing with the production; it's jarring and uneasy for her, yet still in the vein of HBTB. I sort of got a PJ Harvey vibe (as in Hope Six Demolition Project), and also a John Lennon vibe, from CWIMM. I think the choice was wise for LDR not to compete with Joni by creating a song with Joni's aesthetics in melody and lyrics, though there are some message overlaps in the two songs (and maybe a bit of Joni reference at the end of the song with the beautiful outro).