slang

She's more about her feelings about problems than actual problem-solving analysis of problems, and that's ok as it's not her job to solve things. I think she explicitly says this in her song "Change", which I take to be her most political-like song: Lately I've been thinking it's just someone else's job to careWho am I to sympathize when no one gave a damn? I've been thinking it's just someone else's job to care 'Cause who am I to wanna try but... As for being forced in some way, I agree about that for songs like "Looking for America", but the point of that song is that she is literally being forced (at gunpoint) to write it. You can compare it to other clearer songs, e.g., Serj Tankian's "Goddamn Trigger". Just as forced, but a different approach (both approaches valid).

Doctors get sued for malpractice, and it's definitely got to be other doctors on the witness stand when that happens. This is like a grand-Mal-practice in policing; the fact that there were multiple cops on the scene -- that did nothing while something looking like a full-blown hate crime was happening -- is extremely disturbing. SL is a cop-commentator and a cop (I've never seen his show), but if he popularizes/explains the roles of cops in society and ends up saying nothing about this, his creditability goes to zero and so does his show ratings (at least in a rational US, but I may be in the wrong universe for that). So if Sean has said nothing I'd be really really suprised. Anybody following him? I'm generally in agreement with people that Lana should post something, but really really brief and not connected to her previous posts, or just re-tweet Taylor. If she doesn't do that, I'll still forgive her, though.

​So is Sean Larkin is silent about this? I mean he has more of a moral obligation to say something than LDR, given the nature of his two jobs (the 2nd one especially). On the upside, him not commenting (about how 4 cops were incapable of arresting one unarmed POC, suspected of a non-violent crime, without killing him), should make him much less appealing to her.

She's a bit of a pragmatist in the sense that the George Floyd imagery is on the news every night, so she might feel her saying she's traumatized too by it is a little extraneous, and she'd be rightly pissed off for anybody inferring she's anything other than traumatized, just because she doesn't comment. She's in a bit of a double bind about it, as people won't not be able to relate what she says to her chronologically previous posts (which are not related to the Floyd tragedy). It also makes me wonder if the chronology of events were reversed, and Floyd was a week before her first post, if we'd have ever seen her first post. If I were her, I'd tweet something like "I'm shocked and agree with Mayor Frey" and just leave it at that.

There's a thread for him, and it's always great when you bump an artist's thread that you like, as it's shoots up in the queue. Maybe one of those mythical "mods" (sounds like gods, lol) can move this thread there. Here's a link to the 1st post. http://lanaboards.com/index.php?/topic/3709-nightmare-boy-barrie-james-oneill/?p=134928 He's had a couple of band names and seems to go by just Barrie James now (I wish he would have stuck with Nightmare Boy as that's "iconic"?). Magic Me also appears in Scumbag, his big performance music video, I think, so it's an older song, along with Art of Horror (which is also on PS, and also on Scumbag?). PS is a very solid album, imo, but I wish (selfishly) he were more prolific.

If you just consider the rock/jazz/pop era as another "classical" era (like the baroque/classical/romantic/modern), then the proportion of male/female memorable composers/performers is (much) closer to 50/50 than it has ever been. So feminists should take note of that in terms of a progress indicator. The only criteria for something being classical music is being remembered 100+ years down the road (lets say, e.g., the last Star Trek movie has a joke about that, but yeah, that really is the only criterion you can have). There is also the sticky issue about whether people in the future will be able to / willing to perform popular music "on original instruments" and be able to recapture idiosyncratic vocal styles, or will they just rely on recordings, which is relatively new to music. But enough about that. I've always considered LDR to be more androgynous than people give her credit for. She also has that song, MAC, where she sings "I'm your man". I know it's a tribute to Leonard, but she's convincing to me.

I had a more thoughtful post about a parallel universe*, where she dropped different names in her initial "cultural question" post, but that post ultimately got scrapped and devolved to this one: Loving her is hard; keeping up with this thread is harder. Fuck it, I love her. *in the parallel universe (where my post was posted, not where she used the names), the names were: Alice Cooper, Chris Isaak, and Frank Sinatra

There is a reason they say "brevity is the soul of wit", and we've just witnessed it. 1) Yeah, names were (completely) unnecessary. I guess her post shows us that she has no confidants to filter her before she posts things (or that such confidants are not very "good"). As was brought up above, there have been plenty of song eras (including the current one) that deal with obsessive (a term I prefer to abusive/submissive) love affairs, etc. She only has to assert that her songwriting is well within the norms of such (as it really is, imo), and let people do the work of finding exemplars. I mean the critics are supposed to be able to do that easily, by definition of being knowledgable (although most may not be). And while it was true that she was ridiculed irrationally in the BTD era, she did in fact win that war (BTD sold the most of her records and is considered a classic of sorts). Why can't she just let go? 2) In the imaginary discussions I have had with her (with my imaginary friend James Franco recording), she say's after saying "I'm not a feminist": "I'm a humanist". Ah well....insert face-palm here. 3) Yes, it's ok to revisit older song modes. Give us that 25 song unreleased album! Call it "The Worst of Lana Del Rey" and take home that AOTY.

Eeeh gaaad, the rating thing again. Y'all know this is just my opinion (and that I'm not Fantano), right? top tier: NFR, VB, TNBAR, FIILY (masterpieces) mid tier: HTD, HIADT, BT, C, MAC (near masterpieces) lower tier: CG, HIAB, DT, LS, TG (just plain good) For those commenting on the lack of bridges, the TNBAR lack of enthusiasm is strange. It has a classic LDR bridge and I think the lyrics are generally superior to the demo. E.g., the "Topanga's hot ..." lyric especially gives me the feels. If she were going for a folk-album-like vibe, there could be fewer bridges for that reason, but when I went looking for evidence that folk music employs bridges less often than other genres, the only thing I could find is: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/eugene_chadbourne_307768 which at least supports the idea that there is a negative correlation.

So Barrie's back (going by the artist name "Barrie-James" these days?). Psychedelic Soup is on spotify (and on sale in the usual places). While I can't say he's better than ever, he's still (much) more interesting than most. I would call it lo-fi jazz/grunge/funk in his characteristic downbeat, funky, morbid, and still-hung-up-on-the-past style (I have no problem with that; it's understandable and topically common in singer-songwriter pop). My biggest complaint is not being able to make out a lot of the lyrics, and he has an excellent Frank Sinatra cover (with the Dan Fontaine Orchestra, also on spotify), so I know he can sing clearly. I hope he posts the lyrics at some point (as he did with Float on youtube). A secondary complaint is the chopped up (as in shorter songs) nature of the tracklist, which I realize is a commercial benefit in terms of stream revenue and "radiobility". However, the interludes might have been glommed onto their following songs to make for longer (more complex/unpredictable) tracks, and some sequences do seem part of a larger multi-movemented work (e.g. funky, float, and free like a bird, might have been a prog masterpiece if they were stitched together properly). I think Cold Coffee did this more rationally (i.e. glomming interludes/outros onto songs). I'd also like to see more prolonged instrumental work from Barrie in the future, as some of his interludes were interesting (e.g. Moonroom sounds kind of like U.K., the prog-Brit band, in the beginning).

Capitalization in song titles? To ask for uniformity in them generally or from her might just be a case of dropping too much LSB (or is it lsb, Lsb?; btw--LSB==Lana spelled backward). Nevertheless, I can make up reasons for her cap usages (which are replicated across Amazon and iTunes). NfR obviously wants to reinforce the idea that "fucking" is not part of NR's real name (unlike William F. Buckley and Billy F. Graham, who really have those middle initials!). Mariners Apartment Complex is the name of a place (as is calif). Fiily, Ls, Htd, Hiab are just sentence case (which is always a reasonable option for a song). VB CG TNBAR, and B as title-case affects (or is it effects?) grandiosity/coolness about the song topics. "The greatest [loss of all]", by contrast, is sentence case to *not* promote coolness (I would have made it all lower case, it's a morbid song). hiadt... is an interesting case. She knows it's a sentence (and knows you know it's a sentence), so I suspect she just didn't want to write it in the sky with a jet plane and left it all in lower-case (i.e., Lana affecting (or is it effecting?) a cute peversion).

Fiona's back and she's better than ever. Jazz grunge?, but the piano playing on the first track just slays me. Nice inventive use of subtle percussion and standup jazz bass throughout, and of course her voice is still her voice. I'm probably gonna catch shit for this, but .... there is possibly a Kate Bush reference in the title track (the shoe-filling/ running-up-that-hill lines), so an interesting question for me is whether there are any other references to musical artists she may like. So in "Newspaper" does this imagery remind anyone of anybody: And you're wearing time, like a flowery crown Sitting that, sitting that big cat down And I'm alone on the summit now Trying not to let my light go out On a more serious note, the song seems to be about a commonality between Fiona and this other female protoganist in the song, whoever she may be, vis a vis being addicted to an abusive/exploitive relationship with a male (someone she wants to be proud of her). The title of the song also suggests public critical relationships with the male gender. It is interesting that Fiona's last album was at about the time of BTD's release and that she was aware of LDR's situation. https://muumuse.com/2012/06/fiona-apple-talks-new-album-lana-del-rey-to-interview-magazine-and-releases-new-song-werewolf.html/

one of my favorite lines:"inside of my stomach the cosmos are baking", is currently left out of the text transcription (after "something like aching"). This is a nice poem. It's either very deep or very shallow (kind of an LDR modus-operandi thing). Also I suppose "crying crustaceon", as being LDR, is now pretty comprehensible, given her recent astrological sign-change from gemini to cancer.

Both Adele and LDR have cited Amy Winehouse as a really important precursor/inspiration for their craft. Priscilla Presley I don't think had a music career per se, but LDR might have based some of her look on her. I guess what I'm trying to say in my post above is that her influence is unbounded until we know the end of her career. I mean if LDR were to unsuppress the AKA album and have a couple of unreleased/leaked volumes (just because of the quality of the material there) and THEN went on to produce more new albums as diverse and good as what she's already released, that kind of diversity/prolificness/quality is very rare. I mean Fiona Apple and Kate Bush might be (at least) as good as her artistically for what they did, but not on the prolificness dimension. Joni Mitchell had more diversity and prolificness, but her career is now over (last release 2007). If you're going to hope for an "influence" for somebody you stan for, you might as well hope big.

If by "garbage" you mean "average" I can agree with that. There seems to be an expectation that LDR take a more active/potent role addressing "the problem of evil" just by virtue of her profession and fame. She obviously defers to govts. and religions for that problem, and while it's fair to criticize her a bit for that, just how much for each incident is always subject for discussion (e.g., the "colonize" one is still iffy in my mind).

^^ her vocal stylings, her lyrics, her aesthetic, echoed and repurposed in ever corner of music. [she has an AOTY grammy nomination], because she just kept making art. -- Taylor Swift So I take it people mostly disagree with the first part of what Taylor says (although Taylor might be referring to music videos, both hers and Lanas, a bit), but agree with the second part. In terms of what kind of influence LDR is supposed to have had: something like -- talented female artist unjustly beaten down by a male and misogynistic critics' community, who nevertheless later rose up by virtue of her art to squash that community -- that's fine. However, for me I'd (somewhat selfishly) rather her eventual influence be more like The Beatles' (or Bowie's) influence, because that's the kind of music artist I miss the most.

Does anybody know if the horizontal line with the downward arrow perpendicularly traversing it (seen on the page and in between what many people are taking to be two stanzas of the same "poem") actually has a meaning. I was hoping it would be something like "stop this idea here; start a new idea below". I mean idk, that's why I'm asking, but it does seem relevant to ask, if part of the criticism of the "poem" is she's using a really horrendous problem reference to compare to a really frivolous interpersonal one.

I don't think she's ever postured herself as "woke" or "political", I mean unless expressing anxieties about world events is "political" (i.e., I'm not sure how people use the term). I'll also observe the one song I can think of where she would seem to be talking about wokeness and responsibility (Change): Lately, I've been thinkin' it's just someone else's job to careWho am I to sympathize when no one gave a damn? I've been thinkin' it's just someone else's job to care Who am I to wanna try? But These are very odd thoughts for any political song, so I don't consider the song political as such. I mean you might think that after the "But" she's going to run for office or something, but that's not the way the lyrics evolve, imo. I'm not trying to denigrate the song; it's just an honest expression of something that people will either like or not.

I'm not a poet or anything, but I don't want to give up the ability to use words flexibly (e.g. "leak holocaust" does that sound familiar to anyone?). That's just what words do. I think what she's trying to do in her post is talk about how depression "invades" her well being and what her counters for that are; hence, the first thing I did with my exploratory post about it was bring up Marina's thank you from L + F (as Marina talked about her depression a lot between Froot and L+F). So she's expressing a "life hack" for depression, not a politically, historically, and/or ethnically correct point, so I'm cutting her some slack. But I do appreciate the explanations for why the word triggers people as I'm insensitive (too), but now I'm a little more sensitive. However, I don't think she wants to compare her suffering to the general suffering humanity inflicts upon itself, and therefore I don't interpret her words, or her, as doing that. Also I don't think it's a response about her current boyfriend (not that I'd mind). It seems more about her relationship with fame in general.

I guess you're talking about indigenous people being pushed out by an "occupying" (what they call colonialism now?) culture, so your point is a good one. She is however using the word in a negative way (e.g., a context to resist), so her use, at least, is not that insensitive. I haven't read any criticism either here or elsewhere too; I just saw a youtube hit "Lana Del Rey Attends Church After Canceling European Tour Due To Illness" in a 24-hour Lana Del Rey google scan and figured she'd seen it too.

Well Marina did thank LDR in her L + F album notes:"Lana for your inspiring views on life. I appreciate our friendship so much." So this would appear to be some of that (i.e., an inspiring view). It is possibly an oblique response to people who are miffed at her attending church, even though she has cancelled some concerts. As to the writing's substance: the use of the word "colonize" as well as the use of the word "soul" kind of remind me of "Invictus" (the poem) because colonizing is a thing of the past (or a thing of the future if you're into scifi) and "soul" is kind of the protagonist of that poem (some would even say it's relevant to why she goes to church; don't know, I don't go to church). BTW, I went to project Gutenberg and downloaded Peter Pan and searched for "awfully big". She has not quoted PP exactly but has alluded to it (unless the html script at Gutenberg is in error). The scene is they're on a rock (Peter and Wendy) and water is rising. There's a way out for one of them, and Peter elects to save Wendy. The allusion is at the end. << extended quote >>“I can't help you, Wendy. Hook wounded me. I can neither fly nor swim.” “Do you mean we shall both be drowned?” “Look how the water is rising.” They put their hands over their eyes to shut out the sight. They thought they would soon be no more. As they sat thus something brushed against Peter as light as a kiss, and stayed there, as if saying timidly, “Can I be of any use?” It was the tail of a kite, which Michael had made some days before. It had torn itself out of his hand and floated away. “Michael's kite,” Peter said without interest, but next moment he had seized the tail, and was pulling the kite toward him. “It lifted Michael off the ground,” he cried; “why should it not carry you?” “Both of us!” “It can't lift two; Michael and Curly tried.” “Let us draw lots,” Wendy said bravely. “And you a lady; never.” Already he had tied the tail round her. She clung to him; she refused to go without him; but with a “Good-bye, Wendy,” he pushed her from the rock; and in a few minutes she was borne out of his sight. Peter was alone on the lagoon. The rock was very small now; soon it would be submerged. Pale rays of light tiptoed across the waters; and by and by there was to be heard a sound at once the most musical and the most melancholy in the world: the mermaids calling to the moon. Peter was not quite like other boys; but he was afraid at last. A tremour ran through him, like a shudder passing over the sea; but on the sea one shudder follows another till there are hundreds of them, and Peter felt just the one. Next moment he was standing erect on the rock again, with that smile on his face and a drum beating within him. It was saying, “To die will be an awfully big adventure.” <<endquote>> https://www.gutenberg.org/files/16/16-h/16-h.htm

Some interesting metacritic data on whether some fans (i.e. not just critics) prefer NFR to older LDR. https://www.metacritic.com/person/lana-del-rey User scores are pretty flat from BTD thru HM, but there is a discontinuity between LFL and her previous work (noticeably lower, but not by a lot) and a discontinuity between NFR and her earlier work (noticeably higher and by a more substantial-looking amount). Not that I know exactly what the user scores mean, but it's consistent with some fans, or some alternate fanbase, preferring NFR over older work (i.e. user scores of NFR 9.1 (8000+ ratings) as vs. 8.3 (about 1700 ratings) for BTD), and some fans not preferring LFL over the same (which I guess is less unexpected). I'm not really in either group. With respect to NFR "production" that people have been divided on of late, the actual production is defined best by Jack in an Atlantic Interview he gave where he described NFR as a "bizarre folk album" and among other things describes how he and Lana searched for a specific sound. Once they found that sound they locked down the equipment: "That album was made in one specific room, with one specific piano, a very specific 12-string guitar, very specific drum kit, very specific patch on the Mellotron that went through a very specific tape echo. We landed on a couple sounds that really sounded like this thing we had thought of, and then we put a helmet on all of them: Nobody touch this drum kit. Nobody move the mic from the piano." https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2019/12/jack-antonoff-taylor-swift-lana-del-rey-and-more/603517/ In my opinion, if you are in the delusional minority that is put off by NFR (as opposed to the delusional majority that loves it), I don't think it's only the production throwing some of the long-time Lana stans off. It might possibly be the "orational" rather than emotional (torch) singing. The former is more like a folk stance. Not that she sings bad on NFR (or non-emotionally, as HIADT and FIILY are still emotional songs), but just that she sings differently and more in line with Cohen, Dylan, Reed. Or maybe we should be comparing her to Dido or Regina Spektor, production-wise (and singing-wise)?

Well, I guess I shouldn't be too surprised about how things turned out. If they really wanted people to believe a voting population actually decided the winners, they should publish anonymous statistics about how many voted for each award and frequencies of the categories voting (e.g. producers, primary performers, studio musicians?, record execs?, actually it would be interesting just knowing what the hell the categories are). I think Billie won fair and square, but I still think it's crazy to reward a new artist that much on a first outing. And Finneas getting POTY on the basis of producing just one album? (even if it is AOTY) seems a tad ridiculous. To look on the bright side, I'll note that winning AOTY didn't do Beck's career any *artistic* good, imo. I'm also glad Tyler got one, even if I haven't gotten into Igor as much as his others. Finally, I'm glad Esperanza Spalding got Best Jazz Vocal Album for 12 little Spells, an award she's won before.

I don't want to suggest people can't discuss LDR's love life at an LDR forum, but I'd just like to warn against making the fandom look bad, because I don't think that does any good (especially wrt to LDR making an objective, as opposed to sympathetic, judgment of the guy). For example, making a response to someone, who personally attacks you on *your* instagram, doesn't seem cringeworthy. His response cited above, seems pretty strategic, imo, given no-response can often be construed as a "response", and given I don't know what other comments he doesn't respond to (or did respond to). Also the response to Sean's answer was, indeed, cringeworthy. I mean, independent of the ignorance about his job(s), LDR's serious dating interests had or have jobs (I don't know of any that haven't), so I get the notion of a bad stereotype of a mother from it.

Maybe "slut-shaming" is too triggering, but my comment still pertains to being overly criticized for topics that are neither as provocative nor as fixated as some critics/fans make out. But to reiterate my OP: so a GROWN MAN who talks about a 13-year-old female sexuality (or was it closer to 15) in the 3rd-Person-Male perspective gets a pass on tastelessness? Well obviously Nabokov did in some complex way, by a lot of the literary critics and writers (and I did read the book to try to figure out why), although it was also a "banned book". Also, I thought I was arguing LDR wasn't fixated predominantly on a Lolita-style view of female sexuality but a more complex style (at least as I understand the diversity of her early songs on the topic of female sexuality). Finally, my comments that were related to a Lolita-style were specifically about PMIAM from AKA. I suppose you could argue that's a tasteless song, but I just see it as an artistic statement (of lesser magnitude than Lolita, the novel, to be sure, but an artistic statement nevertheless). It's just about a provocative subject.