maysparkle

the whole selfie incident at the met gala is kind of iconic 

The horror album we all deserve

So... last night I had a dream about the LDR6: the album was really similar to honeymoon, but with a "lighter" mood, it had some pop beats, but they're really soft, I don't know. The whole album was like Pink lace (#ffddf4), and her lyrics were way more complex. She talked about politics, but in a more mature way. Her aesthetics were really LDR aka Lizzy Grant, with a lot of cute flowers and stuff. I mean, it was a cute, cohesive and good album. But the critics weren't so good (here metascore was 69). I remember that the song that I loved the most was the last one, it had a real trip hop feel, it was great. Oh, and instead of a photoshoot inside those "little books" (sorry i don't remember the name of those things that come with the cd), there's a lot of videos with Lana in a vintage swimsuit talking about politics, her personal life, art and science. A$AP Rock, Fionna Apple, Marina and Joan Baez did the interviews

@@effr But were any of them their teachers? (And I disagree that it's appropriate for 20-somethings to date 15-year-olds.) 
Yeah, I had originally assumed he was older too, but what information I've been able to find certainly fits with her accounts in interviews that he'd only recently finished his undergrad when he was her teacher:

It looks like he taught at her boarding school through the end of the 2004-2005 academic year and was listed as having only a B.A. from Georgetown on their faculty listing pages. It appears he has been working at a D.C.-based all boys Christian school since the 2005-2006 academic year and is now listed as having a M.A. from a Vermont college (interestingly much closer to Lake Placid than Kent) that he presumably completed while teaching in Connecticut. 
But I disagree completely disagree that just because the age difference between Lana and her teacher isn't as far apart as Lolita and Humbert's or because there's no evidence that their relationship was ever physical that it wasn't Lolita-esque and inappropriate. I think it's hard to read her lyrics and comments about this in interviews and not come to the conclusion that she viewed it through that lens, at least not without being in extreme denial. It may just be her spin on things, but the activities she describes sound extremely inappropriate for a teacher to be doing alone with a teenage student of the opposite sex, unsupervised:

(Also, note how defensive she is about this, taking pains to say she wasn't that young and that he wasn't that old. Another time she lied about it being a male teacher. What's that about?) 
And I mean, fuck, he was the very teacher that introduced her to Nabokov and Lolita specifically:

I'm usually an advocate of teaching challenging material and opposed to classroom censorship, but a male teacher has absolutely no business teaching Lolita to high school aged girls or younger. The likelihood of a lovesick female student projecting it onto her relationship with her teacher is just too great, to say nothing of the teacher's propensity. Ignore former teacher Sting's warning in "Don't Stand So Close to Me" and you'll be answering to more than just the musical Police. (And let's not forget the case of Lana stan Megan Stammers and her teacher who found a little too much inspiration in Lana's lyrics.) 
 
 
On another subject:

I'm not necessarily endorsing the "cult=AG" theory, but this doesn't undercut it at all. The theory still makes sense if you assume she became disillusioned with AG at some point post-BTD. I haven't seen any AG shoutouts recently.

Naw, i wouldn’t go that far and say that i corrected you. We’re just talking and exchanging ideas here. You stated your opinion, i disagreed with it and i explained why. Your opinion is no less valid or correct than mine or anyone else’s. And no need to apologize for your post, haa.
 
Continuing on this subject though, because i think there's a lot of good stuff to talk about here, something i love so much about Lana Del Rey is how much of a ‘90s/early 2000s kid she is. Nirvana, Britney Spears, Guns N' Roses, Biggie Smalls, but with that very crucial component of having one foot planted firmly in the past, and all the inspirations and obsessions that come along with that--Elvis, Americana, old Hollywood, etc. She’s a little too old to have grown up with the internet and YouTube, but she’s still very much a product of it. That is just so apparent in all her homemade videos. And part of that is the whole webcam aesthetic: kids sitting in their poorly-lit room in front of the computer, un-self-consciously hamming up the camera, knowing you’re alone in your room, that no one is looking, you’ve got your ridiculous wigs on and you’re dancing like a fool. There are no pretenses there about the “right” lighting and camera angles and even picture quality. Forget that, leave that to the people who already shot the footage that she’s stealing and splicing into her videos. And i even love the fact that rather than, say, scouring for old VHS videos at the library and thrift stores, she just gets the footage directly off of YouTube, including the atrocious quality and compression artifacts. It’s like she’s wearing it on her sleeve and reminding us that she’s of her generation and time. It’s great, i don’t think she’s trying to fool anyone or pretend as if she transcends her era or anything. And i think this is where a lot of the magic in her whole persona, artistry, and aesthetic comes in--that highly idiosyncratic conflation of influences, styles, and ethos that form something without precedent. She is neither here nor there, but at the same time, as i mentioned before, she’s totally right here in the present, sort of holding a mirror up to the past--albeit a highly romanticized one. She could not have materialized as the artist we have come to know as Lana Del Rey any other way or time but the here and now.
 
Oh, and what you said about how she pushes your buttons...that, too, is why i’m here right now. She’s flawed and a lot of her choices are rather questionable. But that’s exciting. I don't want some perfect package that is always doing the right and artistically-sound thing. I want the hiccups, missteps, the warts and all. The Brite Lites video, a little embarrassing? Sure. And like you yourself said, awkward. But that’s a real person sitting in their home without any pretenses, and that sort of clumsy, incongruous pairing of music style and imagery is refreshingly baffling and inviting. At least i think so.

I still want a Wicked Game cover..

Every new start to an era reminds me of the buildup to ULTRA. When young and beautiful was still in the air, summertime remix still bopping in the radios, everyone on edge to see what she's gonna come up with. The teasing, the coechella performances, the flopped letterman live, the issues with her interviews and all that shiet. WEST COAST was that bitch. She's the one that steals your man, your  girl, your friends and your edges. I need another bussy popping, slow synths, heavy drums and LESS FUCKING FILTERS on her voice kinda production. Or else, west coast will continue to suck my manz dick, and i ain't mad.
 
y'all pray for me, pray for Lana
 
xoxo 

im curious at this album because she keeps sending mixed signals. we all know she said her attitude on tour coincides with the persona of the next album , what she wears on tour and how she acts gives me a more "ive discovered my bad bitch, sexy, funny side" from the constant mini skirts and her thigh high boots and her occasional smoking with making jokes at fans during the show. it doesnt seem like shes just SWALLOWED in this fantasy world of "rainbow, sparkly happiness" its more of a "ive become happy with myself" to where shes expressing all risque, cool, and funny sides to her . i feel like this next album WILL have some sort of cool, laid back guitar string vibes because at her best Lana is just laid back and she will give us a record to vibe and chill to on a summer day.

Producers she should collab with :
1.David Khane
2.David Khane
3.David Khane

I fucking love this. Yk I waited three years to become a Lana stan and I was SOOOOO surprised when I did because before I thought Lana was the most shallow woman in the universe but actually, she got everything right. I fell in love w her because I never related to anyone this much ever before and I know I never will. She's right on the cusp of being too emotional and not emotional enough, she's alternative and pop and folk and all that jazz, she can't be poinpointed and that's what makes her beautiful. She tells you what you were trying to avoid and you hate to love it. If she was ugly that would be different but she has a face carved by God itself so

I'm really scared that Happiness is a Butterfly is an indication of what the album will sound like. It just sounds so boring, forced, overly cheesy and cloying, but I guess it fits the whole self-change theme she's apparently going for. Can someone please lock Lana in a studio with Jonathan Wilson, a bottle of whiskey (I'm just kidding, I don't actually want Lana to start drinking again) and an Anne Sexton poetry collection?

i think Lana truly likes Chuck's photos and how she captures her. i don't remember in which interview/occasion it was, but Lana did say that she's lucky to have someone who completely understands her vision and is able to translate it into photography unlike any other person she's worked with. Chuck's work is often hit and miss for me too, but i don't think her sticking around has anything to do with guilt or inability to say no on Lana's part. i think Lana trusts her and genuinely likes what she does, and i'm p sure she's also more at ease to say 'i hate this/this is not what i want, let's do it again' a 100x at Chuck than at any other photographer, so in the end she prob gets the exact result she wants with her rather than an approximation with someone else.
 
tl;dr i don't think Lana is a vulnerable little thing at all and always does exactly whatever tf she wants, and that also goes re: Chuck

All I want for the next album is a Dancing In Circles type of song, I mean she can sing it on a fucking funeral march melody and pace if she wants to idc but give me that strong, empowering, unapologetic and sexual Lana, maybe even glamorous if she wants, gimme back the girl that danced on tables and stripped on the pole and got caught by cops in her black bikini top, and gimme the video for it, gimme the wild Lana that she is but is still afraid to show, I know it's a very unpopular opinion but I want Lana to go pop with an UV mindset and visuals, trap beats or not, I want IMF 2.0, I want a John Wayne kinda video but all I can do is dream cuz this will never happen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vU6obul9fMU

Can LDR6 be like that video and her Roadhouse Blues cover

I absolutely love DLMBM, it's the most her underrated song

LDR6 better have UV’s guitars or AKA’s beachy vibes

this is lame?

 

Tbh UV had the best visuals and we didn't even get half of them. The album trailer alone left me scalped so idk if I would've survived another UV era video tbh.

I don't care what anyone says, we deserve another Ride/National Anthem-esque music video with a monologue

There are reasons Ride, Tropico & National Anthem are cinematic masterpieces & the monologues are one of them!

It IS, we followed Lana because her entire Anti-Mediocrity sound and image and just everything about her.
It screamed fresh and was very against being anything that was a part of the general public's taste.

I really want songs lyrically like Fordham Road and A Star For Nick on this album. >_< (finally, the right thread.)

Lana has always been an album artist rather than a singles artist which I personally think is amazing. She can make whatever music she feels like making and the album will do quite well because she has the type of fanbase that will buy every variant of her album without even thinking. All of her albums have peaked at either #1 or #2 on the Billboard 200 charts which is insane as she never promotes her music or even seems to care about it as soon as it's released.
 
Basically what I'm saying is that I don't think she has any reason to try to get a massive single tbh. Her management would be dumb to try and make her a singles artist because she is already such a strong album seller when she makes the music she wants to make

That's the problem with Lust for Life though... there is no particular mood for it. 13 Beaches wouldn't be the perfect opener, Love wouldn't be the perfect opener, nothing will be the perfect opener for the collection of songs on the record because it doesn't hold a particular sound. It's just a messy album.