Valentino

Candy Art wasn't real - it was one of the fake titles added to her BMI along with CRWTH and Cold-Hearted Bitch, which she confirmed were fake (and indeed, they're not on her BMI anymore). Strangely, Maren, which was one of the titles from that time period, is still up. It's anyone's guess what that was. TEA was supposedly "EDM metal" but the interview that came from was fake :giveup: and then I realized EDM metal basically describes Skrillex :giveup: so I stan a little less for TEA now. I still wanna hear it, of course. And the new NOBTR version! That song is gold! I need a dramatic signature with the line "I can make you some food" with crazy typography.

It's true there are a lot of people who think feminists are man-hating bra-burning lesbians, which is super ignorant of history. But loving someone madly isn't anti-feminist; at worst, it's kinda stupid. If a man sang the same lyric, nobody would say it was "destroying masculinism." Maybe they'd say he's a pussy (how dare men feel emotion and care for people! men is tough. man is protect. no feel weakness) or clingy, but he wouldn't be speaking for all men against society. It bothers me that when a woman says something that can vaguely be interpreted as anti-feminist, it's a setback for every woman in the world but men can say all sorts of stupid things and nobody says "omg, you guys are misrepresenting yourselves, how do you not care about how men are viewed in society?" It's a ridiculous double-standard that also applies to people of color (black guy says stupid thing: lol, black guys are stupid. white guy says stupid thing: wow, this one dude is stupid). Lorde seems to care a lot about feminism and how women are viewed, so it's kinda hurting me to see that she thinks a woman's personal decision to be a Stage 5 clinger hurts all of womandom. I did the same thing at a younger age and looking back at it now, it was incredibly stupid, awful, and misogynistic. The difference being that thankfully, I didn't have the internet around to record all the stupid garbage I was saying. She's 16 and standing under an international spotlight with a press that's not only scrutinizing her every move but actively pitting her against another, older woman who is much more established. Being that people tend to change radically from when they're 16 to when they're adults, I do believe it may be best for her not to say absolutely everything she feels at this point because when she makes a mistake (don't tell me you don't have that one stupid thing you thought during adolescence!), it's going to come back and she won't even be able to say "oh well, haters gonna hate," it's gonna be "wow I was so stupid how could I say that. and why are you judging me on something i don't believe anymore stop." You know how the press is. I kinda wish the press would stop focusing on pitting her against Lana (remember what Marina said? All women are the same! Marina and Kate Bush are interchangeable because they're both vaginas that play an instrument!) and using feminist rhetoric to hide behind it because it's making me think poorly of her when that's probably not the case and she probably doesn't even spend half her day thinking about Lana. They're trying to make her out to be this girl who's gonna stick the knife in Lana's back the second she turns around and I doubt Lana ranks even a 3 on her scale of important things (10 being the highest). Come on, press. Using Lana and feminism to make me think poorly of her is a cheap shot.

ok so this post is ridiculously long, so sectioned it off into ~two easy to read parts~: 1. my thoughts on Pure Heroine and 2. comparing Lorde to Marina and Lana and my feelings about them when I first heard of them. PART ONE: HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LISTEN TO PURE HEROINE PART TWO: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO: YOU CAN NEVER PREDICT THE FUTURE

Diet Mountain Dew: Hit me and tell me you're mine. Smarty: Beat me and tell me that no one will love me better than you do. Smarty's from AKA which is pre-Bradley (and diet mountain dew seems to have been written in a different writing session than for btd?) so it's hard to tell exactly whom is being referenced with lyrics like these. In any case, it's a damning accusation of domestic abuse.

"papi you fit me better than my favorite sweater" was actually "i grew up on hip hop but you fit me better..." It would have been awkward singing that because papi is what I call my dad (we speak Spanish). I don't mind her singing "daddy" but "papi" is just too far

ok how did nobody notice this though: They think Tropico is her "album" and it's coming out this month. Unless the daily mail knows something we don't...

I'm on page 5 (this is my second time re-reading this monstrous thread!) and I wanted to note something about BTD before the idea got away from me. Note: Really long and will probably get longer! Now for Sirens + AKA. [EDIT: wow that was a formatting fail!!! EDIT 2: Finished BTD and Paradise]

- double post + outdated -

Oh, here's another one... "Hot summer nights, Michelin..."

Wait... that's not it?!? "Like a fucking dream I'm living in" curse you Lana "Granddaughter pray we're feeling alright!" was actually "Grand ole opry, feeling alright." Also from Body Electric: "My posters smell like you." Sometimes "my coasters smell like you." Actually "my clothes still smell like you."

The only place I listen to songs that records the plays is Mediamonkey; usually I listen on my phone and that doesn't record plays. *tears* In addition, it only counts a "play" as listening to the very end of the song and usually I just skip back to the beginning which causes it to not record it as a play. I'll be using mediamonkey's stats, even if they're not exactly accurate (believe me, I've heard Body Electric more than 3 times). Paradise: Body Electric and Ride are tied at 3 plays Born to Die: Million Dollar Man at 28 plays (second highest are BTD and TIWMUG at 8 plays) AKA: I have five songs tied for most played! Kill Kill, Queen of the Gas Station, Oh Say Can You See, Gramma, For K Part 2 at 8 plays. I tried listening to this album a lot of times but usually quit after For K Part 2. I've only liked this album recently, so my faves like Yayo, MM, and Smarty don't get many plays. Sirens: For K at 6 plays. Unreleased: Go Go Dancer at 32 plays. Demos: This Is What Makes Us Girls (demo 2) at 5 plays. Collabs: None; I haven't listened to any of her collabs.

You mean how she's completely off-key and changes timbres in the middle of a line? Million Dollar Man is my fave and I can't ever decide between studio or demo... As for dislikes... I haven't heard enough of her unreleased to judge. But! Gods & Monsters is so disappointing. Like it starts out super ominous and foreboding and then it's like she lost track of where the melody should go. What a waste of my time. Listening to that song makes me actively angry because it could have been great . I used to hate Radio and Without You, but now I can jam to them. Oh Say Can You See is incredibly boring and Brite Lites is embarrassing. What kind of a chorus is that?!

Her perspective on feminism is neither profound nor novel and this can probably be attributed to her being 16, the age during which most people do not spend their whole day reading bell hooks or Gloria Steinem in addition to being an age where one has relatively little personal experience of one's own to add to a global conversation. This doesn't mean one should say "she's 16, so I'll ignore her views," but it does mean one can safely say "her views are not particularly well developed and this can be attributed to her age." I, personally, do not disparage her for being 16 - I see it as a causative factor of the relative superficiality of her views. There are very few people her age who can stand their own in a political conversation; more politically minded peers tend to be better educated on their subject of choice to make up for their inexperience. I know my views at 16 were, in retrospect, quite embarrassing (and in a few years I'll probably find something about my current views to be embarrassed about as well) and lacking nuance.

Feminism as a movement kind of has a dark history when it comes to glossing over women of color, lower class women, and trans women. For a long time it was a movement heralded by upper middle class white women for upper middle class white women, with women not fitting into those qualifications being ignored, thrown under the bus, or used as tokens. I think it's pretty understandable why someone would not want to relate to a movement that historically hasn't had your interests at heart despite claiming to speak for you. Feminism nowadays generally tries to acknowledge its past failings as a movement, but being that "woman" is necessarily a broad category it's hard to have one movement that speaks for all women and addresses the varying levels of oppression (class, race, trans, sexuality, disability, etc). Feminism is as much the movement it is associated with as it is the ideals it espouses. If you want to associate yourself with feminism, you need to acknowledge that yes, there are skeletons in the closet and deal with them. You can also agree with the ideals without adopting the label. Does believing people shouldn't live in equality mean one must identify as a socialist? Does believing people should have a chance to work hard and succeed mean one should call oneself a capitalist? You can't boil down complex political movements to a single-issue, especially not ideologies which purport to explain every facet of society (feminism has expanded a lot to issues most wouldn't associate with gender - environmentalism, distribution of wealth). In addition, feminism is so broad that saying you're a feminist is quite unhelpful. Which subset of feminism are you? A lib fem is going to have different views than a rad fem. Is pornography good for the soul or inherently degrading to women? What is the true nature of the patriarchy? How can women take control of their own lives and do women have a responsibility to other women? These are all questions to which you'll get wildly different responses - all from people who identify as "feminist." That's something that really bothers me about female artists (actually any artist, but lesser known female artists like to talk about feminism a lot) talking about feminism - their analysis is superficial and seems to come from like the Sparknotes version of second-wave feminism. It's a lazy way to make your songs seem like intellectual critiques of society without actually having the content to back it up. Grrl power! Don't ever be dependent on a man, ever! Implying, of course, that the roles traditionally assigned to women are lesser and that women who "play" into them are less intelligent... which sounds a lot like internalized misogyny to me. Marina and the Diamonds's "Girls" is a grade-A example of a "feminist" song that is actually super misogynistic (thankfully she's realized the unfortunate implications of the song). You'll still hear people proclaiming that lyrics like "look like a girl but I think like a guy!" are scathing deconstructions of gender when they actually reinforce this idea that there's a way to look like and think like a guy/girl. Not to mention the entire idea that instead of criticizing the institutions that "fuel a new insecurity" for women, we criticize women for... being influenced by the media. Disclaimer: I don't study politics, women's studies, or gender theory. Most of what I know regarding feminism as a movement today comes from my frequenting self-proclaimed feminist circles which, though harmful in other ways, opened my eyes to the superficial and ultimately harmful nature of my own "brand" of feminism. I think there are a lot of women like me who grow up dissatisfied with gender roles and the way women are treated, but instead take it out on other women who are content with this system and imply that these women are the ones keeping them down, which is not necessarily true and demeans a woman's choice just for fitting into gender-conforming lines. Seeing this attitude being perpetuated reminds me of my old, harmful attitude and it upsets me because a) it reminds me of how terrible my grasp of politics was at a young age (not that it's much better now, but it was worse then) and b) it's actually not really helpful to women and might even be harmful.

"Video Games" star Lana Del Rey admits, "playing Sonic on my boyfriend's Nintendo was the inspiration for that song." PepsiCo suffers bankruptcy, pulls drinks off shelves. Lana deeply hit by crisis, stating "now what am I gonna name my songs after?" Elizabeth Grant admits that's not even her birth name; stole it from dead Scottish songwriter.

He didn't. I don't know why, but I recall reading that he "wasn't allowed" to have copies of the CDs. :/ Despite this, I once heard that "Kisses Are Quarters" was "in someone's circulation." This is from one of the CDs Leone was selling, so it's possible there are other copies out there (in the basements of New York Hipsters). However, the odds of us ever hearing these songs are dismally low.

Not gonna lie; I find the K relationship (I was almost gonna write storyline; I have been reading way too much about video games) songs to be them most interesting (and also the ones I can relate to the most. Not in a "I have a rich gangsta sugar daddy" way; idk I just like 'em). It's so interesting and mysterious and just so Lana! I don't care much for rock-star boyfriends. If all the K stuff were fake I'd probably just plug my ears because I just like it that much.

Ride.

I'm on page 28 of this gargantuan thread. Dear Lord. Yes! A lot of times her lyrics feel like stringing together a bunch of pretty phrases that don't come together to make anything bigger. It reminds me of something that a classical composer once said about "inspiration," and that was something along the lines of too many composers rely on inspiration and make pretty things, but stringing a bunch of these together does not a great piece make. There needs to be development and you have to work on it, etc. Pick a sassy gif of your choice to insert here. Lucky Ones is beautiful. I do agree that once she settles down, she'll probably "put love first" and not really make interesting music, but she's not unique in this way. There is some great songwriting on Sirens but sometimes I can't tell where one songs ends and another begins. A shame.

I like Y&B, but I think Paradise is a huge step down from BTD and I'm not warming up to the leaked demos. I share this worry.

I used to think she was Hispanic and as a Hispanic myself I was like "YES REPRESENT" until I Googled her and found out she was a white girl from New York. I don't think using the headdress in Ride was appropriate or respectful or even accurate. The headdress isn't a symbol of freedom; it's basically a Northern equivalent to a Purple Heart, from what I understand. I really wish she hadn't used it. The Million Dollar Man video with the demo is my favorite LDR video. The studio version of Body Electric is my favorite song off Paradise. I hate the live versions of Body Electric. Her vocals are just cringe-inducing, "emotional" as they may be. The instrumental sounds joyful??? and I like the very dark feeling behind the studio version (the bells in the second verse give me shivers~~~). I haven't seen a single live performance of Lana's that I liked, to be honest. I like "Million Dollar Man" on "L'album de la semaine" because it honestly just dips into that "so bad it's good" range, but that's it. Ride is incredibly boring. I do not see all the hype and it isn't even the best song on Paradise, let alone her entire discography. I think Million Dollar Man and Lolita are criminally underrated. I routinely see these given the worst scores and it makes me so unhappy. MDM has a great jazzy feeling, which is a welcome break from whatever the rest of BTD is, and Lolita has a interesting chord progressions and makes the best use of her artificial little girl voice. Everyone seems to hate these two songs, though. The second line of Blue Jeans is painful. "And you made my eyes BURN." I think her low voice sounds very forced and unnatural. Her voice sounds best on Sirens. I wish she'd play guitar live; I don't think I've seen any performances of her with a guitar? (post Born To Die, not her Lizzy Grant/May Jailer/omgwtfbbq days). I think Paradise was a huge step down from Born To Die. It really bothers me she claims she wrote the song for "The Great Gatsby" when we know she announced the song for Paradise as "Will You Still Love Me When I'm No Longer Young And Beautiful," along with "In The Land Of Gods And Monsters" and "I Sing The Body Electric." I don't mind that it went towards the film at all and I know that they have to say she wrote it for the film to get dem awards, but it still bugs me. I wouldn't mind if she were more popular; at least then I'd have people irl to fangirl over her. I have one friend who likes the idea of Lana Del Rey but only knows Video Games and another who only knows Young and Beautiful. The rest saw her SNL performance and think she's a manufactured fake who can't sing live. The amount of leaks this fandom gets is astonishing. I thought the Gaga fandom got a bunch of stuff! Please note, my first experience as a fan of any artist was with ABBA, and we have a handful of LQ leaked songs, a few HQ snippets we are never going to get full versions of, and countless titles, some of which we don't even know are for. When you're good to Lana, Lana's good to you.