Valentino

I agree a lot with this. I feel like Lana is really staying in an artistic "safe zone" and that's part of the reason why she won't perform on TV or anything. We know she hustled back when she went under Lizzy Grant, performing everywhere, and I think she's said that she sees herself as a singer. But... singers sing. It's disappointing that she seems unwilling to perform or promote a lot of her new material. Lyrically, she continues to write awkward lyrics that circle around similar themes. I wrote once that Honeymoon feels like a parody of an LDR song, and while I have since warmed greatly to the song, the lyrics still feel like someone went through a checklist of Lana references. Being misunderstood? Unusual sexual metaphor? Ill-advised mention of violence? Loving a bad boy? It's like those "Lana Del Rey song title generators" that were popular in the year following Born To Die's release. While I think Lana revisiting certain themes makes her stand out among her contemporaries (we wouldn't have Lanalysis if she didn't have such revered items as diet mountain dew, the chateau marmont, or pink flamingos), it's really easy for it to feel like a retread as opposed to a thread tying her world together. Musically, she continues to show a knack for great melodies. But production-wise, she gets a little monotonous. I like Honeymoon, but I tend to skip the songs after a certain point. When 24 actually starts sounding like the Bond theme it was meant to be, it's great, but the build-up to that part of the song is excruciatingly slow. I literally forget Religion is on the tracklist every time I listen to the album. Similarly, I don't remember how the verses of Art Deco go. God Knows I Tried is a beautiful song, but someone should have told her "okay, stop here." Having the equivalent of a musical editor isn't "compromising your vision." Art doesn't have to be a one-man process. On a positive note, the bridge of TLY is probably one of my favorite musical+lyrical moments in her entire discography, and the best one on Honeymoon. I get chills listening to it every single time. Visually, I haven't really cared for her official music videos much in general. I like her homemade videos because they're so innocent and direct. It's the closest you can get to having a visual representation of what Lana pictured when she made that song. I wish she would bring that lo-fi but intimate quality back. I mean, she's rich, she can probably afford to clear the rights for her clips and have better quality shots of her, so it doesn't need to be some 240p artifact-ridden mess. It was so unique; none of her contemporaries have done anything like that, to my knowledge. Honestly, if I'm frustrated with Lana, it's because I feel she could be doing so much better. We know from her unreleased catalog that she's an incredibly flexible artist. Her voice sounds unique no matter what her range is. Yet I feel like with all her released bodies of work, there's something holding them back. Too self-indulgent at times? Some poor song choices? Lazy lyrics weighing down otherwise beautiful songs? I have a hard time explaining what it is. But I just really want Lana to deliver that album that's going to be (almost) universally recognized as an enduring body of work. Her "Dark Side of the Moon," if you will (no, that's not my favorite Floyd album, but it's a solid one and that's undeniable). If sales are anything to go by, BTD is the closest she's come to that - it's the album that refuses to die. I love Lana so much, I want the best for her artistically and commercially (and any word that ends with a -ly) but I feel like she's holding herself back and I don't know why. Is she afraid of her potential? Afraid of success? Afraid of being the object of the internet's scorn again? I'm certain that everyone else here who has expressed disappointment at Lana's artistic/commercial choices feels the same way I do - we feel Lana isn't doing her best or not getting the recognition she deserves; we just all have different ideas on what the ideal is or how to achieve it. I'm gonna go listen to Honeymoon now because for all the flaws I've listed, it's still one of my favorite albums of 2015.

Maybe someone who's really bored can colorize the video according to the few promo shots we have

Someone leak this gorgeous video in color please The scene where the neon sign lights up took my breath away, I'm a sucker for neon. I liked it (a lot ), I just wish it had more color besides just girls flopping around underwater.

I ask people not to quote me because I have an almost pathological need to respond to people who quote me, and I'm just not feeling having a debate. I'm okay with people discussing the contents of my post. I just don't want to feel pulled into a back and forth discussion. I could, of course, ignore the quote, but it's so tempting, which is why I ask people not to use the quote function. It's a courtesy "don't feed my compulsion to respond to posts" thing.

If you'll notice, the word "racist" was not used once in my post. This was intentional on my part. It's a loaded word and when you throw it at someone's fave, people become more concerned with protecting their fave than thinking "well, is what she did really racist, and if so, how can we stop it from happening again?" It stops discourse, and I think talking about these things calmly is important. Unfortunately a stan forum is probably the worst place to do this, but whatcha gonna do. Intent can only carry you so far. There's a reason people apologize if they accidentally elbow you in the face - despite not intending to hurt you, they nevertheless hurt you. And once they finish their apology, they usually say they'll be more careful from now on not to accidentally elbow you in the face (this has happened to me, so it's not some weird hypothetical). The same should apply to these actions. I would bet you she used it because she thought it looked pretty. She's all about ~aesthetic~. And also because there was a trend of hipster white girls wearing headdresses (see: Coachella). Even Marina and the Diamonds was guilty of this. They probably thought "this looks nice, let me wear it", but didn't realize the value it had to the culture and, moreover, the devaluation of it they were causing by wearing it in such a frivolous manner. For those of you who think this is hoopla over nothing and no tribes were harmed in the making of this video, look up 'the daily nebraska lana del rey war bonnet.' A member of one of the tribes that uses war bonnets (because remember - not all of them do) talks about the significance of it and why it's not okay. She also talks about some other pop artists. Obviously, one member of a group doesn't represent the group. Still, there is such a thing as majority opinion, and most everything I've read from members of war bonnet using tribes say "this item is not acceptable to wear outside its intended purpose." I'm not going to post any further because discussions about this topic tend to turn ugly, so please don't quote this post. I'll just end this by saying that if Art Deco is about AB (which I'm pretty sure it's not, wtf Lipsters), calling her 'ghetto' is tacky, at best. Plus, 'ghetto' is definitely a racialized descriptor, let's be real. When you call someone ghetto, you're not saying "you look like a Jew from the segregated part of town!" You're saying "you look like you come from a poor black neighborhood and you're trashy." "The ghetto" refers to poor black neighborhoods specifically. I've never heard anyone talk about an Asian ghetto or a white ghetto (and the trailer park isn't really equivalent). I don't think this song is racist and I don't think Ghetto Baby is racist either, but let's not pretend that 'ghetto' has nothing to do with poor black neighborhoods.

The real problem with cultural appropriation isn't that some white girl uses a bindi or twerks. Those are actually separate issues about how some traditionally "ethnic" things are considered okay if done by white people but trashy or gross if done by the people who created it. This doesn't really have a name, and it is something that should be discussed, but people call it cultural appropriation and it's not the best use of the term. The issue with cultural appropriation is taking something from its cultural context, especially without permission. That's why war bonnets are a touchy symbol. They're the equivalent of earning a medal in a war. By wearing it to look "cute" or because you "feel free", you degrade it from an actual symbol of heroic bravery into a hipster trash accessory on par with flower crowns. The symbol stops meaning anything significant, and that's part of the culture that eroded away. Intention doesn't really mean anything when it comes to this. All that matters is that you're using something that has special meaning, especially something sacred, and using it outside that intended context, and that by itself causes the object to become associated with the mundane as opposed to the sacred. Even if that wasn't your intention, that is the end result, and it's still harmful to the cultures in question. It's a shame the discussion about cultural appropriation has degenerated into BS like "can white people use things from non-white cultures?" because that just encourages cultural segregation while missing the core of what makes appropriation harmful. Sharing is great. But sharing requires someone to offer you something. Sacred symbols are never offered to other cultures (precisely because they are sacred). There are plenty of Native American decorative items one can choose to use that are sold by Natives and have no special value. Use those. There's no need to go for the one that has an important meaning. I normally try to stay away from political discussions here, but I can't stand to see discussion about appropriation be turned to "twerking! bindis!" because all that does is make people reject the concept wholesale. It is an issue. But not for the reasons most people think. Lana did appropriate the culture by using a war bonnet outside of its intended context. She probably had no intention of doing so. But actions have consequences beyond their intentions (also the 60s and 70s were full of cultural appropriation of sacred things by hippies, so don't be surprised).

Yeah. She's trying to "transmit" to him in space by turning on the lights and the TV (radio waves). Also increasing her energy usage to create a more intense signal. That's why she asks "can you hear me? Ground control to Major Tom, can you hear me all night long?" But like in Space Oddity, Major Tom has slipped away, and she cannot reach him now. She lost him in "space."

The digital booklet? I finally bought the album. Unfortunately it's the jewel case (I wanted the storybook, but I hesitated too long), but it doesn't matter. I have the digital booklet so I can make my own if I feel like it. It's so cute

Maybe we can ask her for the full video. Or more things she remembers from it. I agree this article seems more a way for the author to validate her own life choices than anything particularly revealing about Lana. I would have liked to know more about "the scene." And it seems even more likely now that Stefani and Lizzy may have met. Very interesting. I kind of want to resurrect my music just because this author spent so much time complaining about theirs.

This one isn't that bad, though. It's much better than the Pretty Much Amazing review. The Pretty Much Amazing review is ironclad proof a benevolent deity doesn't exist, because music reviewers do. What an insufferable review. Only 3 paragraphs actually devoted to the album. Most of it dedicated to attempting to find cool and edgy rebuttals to slip into parentheticals. And that tired old "so anti-feminist" critique. Did they even try for this review? It's as cliche as they claim Lana is.

People like to say Lana's dad bought her career, but nobody pays attention to Taylor's rich-ass parents, who are so rich they moved across the country when Taylor was 14 so she could pursue her dream of being a country music singer. And yet people try to label her an "underdog:" Her parents even wanted to groom her for business. Truly a reverse Warholian expedition. Let's top it off with this quote: Too bad your music is neither.

"Cet album va paraître plus similaire au premier. La production est luxuriante, colorée. Tout le monde me dit que ma musique est nostalgique, mais je crois que ça sonne comme ça parce que mes vidéos sont tournées sur pellicule, j'enregistre ma musique sur des cassettes avec un vieil enregistreur. Je suis aujourd'hui à l'aise avec le fait de ne pas être à la mode", a confié la chanteuse à RTL. This album is gonna be more like my first one. The production is luxurious, colorful. Everyone tells me my music is nostalgic, but I think it sounds like that because my videos are recorded on film (?) , I record my songs with an old recorder. Nowadays I'm confortable with not being trendy. "Je crois que la moitié de l'écriture, c'est de l'observation. Je sui contemplative, réfléchie avec tout ce que je fais. J'intériorise tout, c'est bien pour l'écriture, pas trop pour vivre librement sans avoir de peur. Je ne cherche pas la solitude, mais c'est plus facile d'être dans un endroit ou personne ne vous connaît", révèle la chanteuse. I think the soul (? ) of writing is observation. I'm contemplative, reflecting on all I've done. I internalize everything, it's good for writing, not so much for living freely without fear. I don't look for solitude, but it's easier to be in a place where nobody knows you. Very quick translation of the text.

Ground control to Major Tom, people who dislike TLY are wrong.

I've been low-key promoing this album to classmates since Lana clearly won't do it herself But I haven't been able to find other Lana fans :giveup: The Honeymoon hotline is so cute when it WORKS.

Is anyone else completely and totally slayed by the bridge of Terrence Loves You? What an incredible moment in that song. It makes listening to the rest of it so worth it. If the singles are the worst songs, I'm just not ready for everything that's about to come.

I just want news about LiB, that song seemed like it was gonna get an official release but then it disappeared into nowhere. I think she might have an actual answer for this, as opposed to some other stuff she might not be "allowed" to talk about or whatever. To those of you who do get to meet her, congratulations! She seems really sweet with her fans, so I hope you have a good experience.

I hope it doesn't leak because that means Lana's team finally has their act together on something. I haven't even heard the LQ leaks anyway because I want to be absolutely slayed when I listen to the CD. Your descriptions have gotten me all hyped up Also someone ask her about LiB at that signing thing please

Why do I feel like this was filmed on some office worker's break? *dancing in the file room* "Hot like the tropics, hot like the tropics" "Ms. Elizabeth, where are those memos I asked you to distribute?" "Oh right here sir, I was just stretching to get them." Emilie Autumn has a song called Shalott based on the poem. Collab confirmed.

Lana needs to re-release LDR on CD and vinyl and include Trash Magic as a bonus track while she's at it. Please, Lana. What do you need, a petition? The instrumental version of BBW is fantastically creepy. Too bad she had to put that awful song on top of it.

Got this from a thread in LB. It seemed to be just unreleased songs, so I tried to add some released ones but undoubtedly I'm missing a lot. Boarding School : "let's do drugs" ; "I do them drugs" ; "if you wanna get high with me" ; "doing crack" Daytona Meth Hawaiian Tropic: "on that crystal meth" Paradise "dope" Scarface: "Do I look high to you?" St. Tropez "Drunk and high" You & Me: "No longer high" ; "make me higher"; "gettin' blazed" Yayo Methamphetamines American: "dope" Beautiful Player : "Valium" Born to Die : "let's go get high" Carmen: "getting high for free" Carmen (demo) "cocaine heart" Disco "heroin" Driving in Cars with Boys "crazy like a drug" Get Drunk "using again" ; "Robitussin" Gods & Monsters "Dope" Heavy Hitter: "overdose" Making Out: "taking drugs" Never Let Me Go "you can push your drugs" National Anthem "overdosing"; "on our drugs" Off To The Races "cocaine heart" Puppy Love "overdose" Junkie Pride Spotlight De-lite "dope" Try Tonight "to not get high" Us Against the World "get high for" Velvet Crowbar "crack" Jump "mixture of cocaine and heroin" ; "junkie" Breaking My Heart "yayo" Florida Kilos "white lines"; "baking powder on the stove"; "turning diamonds into snow"; "you snort it like a champ" Cruel World "and all of your heroin" Brooklyn Baby "I get high on hydroponic weed" Pretty When I Cry "next to all your drugs" Sad Girl "peepin' around while he gets high" Is This Happiness "takin'/crushin' violet pills" Hollywood "shootin' heroin and speedballs" High By The Beach "all I wanna do is get high by the beach" Betty Boop Boop "crystal methamphetamine"

Does the admin ever post here? I'm pretty sure it's possible to have more than one admin on a board, but you'd obviously need the admin's permission and I don't think I've ever seen him/her on here.

Maybe the IKYWT video with Mandler? But yeah, at the time there wasn't anything to go on. Plus Swift doesn't really match the description.

I actually have something like this, but in text format. This is beautiful. I just wish it were more easily usable. I love that there are other people out there into Lana mythology.

I understand some people don't like Lorde, but there's no need to call her a "media whore" or even an imitation of Lana. She started out online and people found her songs and liked them, and Royals became popular. Just as Lana started out online and became popular with Video Games. The only difference is Lorde had label backing when she was putting her stuff online and when she dropped Royals as a single. What did she imitate? Singing in a low register? Lana didn't invent that. Hip-hop beats? Lana certainly didn't invent that. Her fashion style is very different, so it can't be that. Concretely, what is "every single thing" about Lana that she copied? Lorde doesn't even sing about the same topics as Lana. BTD was mostly love songs while Pure Heroine was about a fear of growing up and disillusioned youth. She didn't "name drop" Lana, she mentioned one time that she (along with Drake and Nicki Minaj) sang about inaccessible topics, such as having a Bugatti Veyron, and also mentioned she didn't like the "I'm nothing without you" theme that permeates Lana's music because of how submissive it is. I don't agree with her in those cases (and I don't really like her that much), but some of these accusations of "copying" Lana are groundless. As for why the media didn't tear her apart, it's pretty simple. One, Lorde was 16 back then, and people adore "child prodigies" as well as having reservations about destroying teenagers. Two, Lorde hadn't tried out other aliases before. Unfortunately, the media took Lana's withdrawing of AKA as an attempt to hide a failed project and not an attempt to get rid of a project that had been delayed and she no longer cared about. She had a different style back then too. Her father being rich (and he is rich) was the cherry on top of the sundae: rich girl Lizzy Grant changes name to Lana Del Rey and vamps it up to hide failed past album. Lorde didn't have that kind of media ammo in her past (probably because, once again, she was 16). It's unfortunate that Lana was torn apart, and I, too, was pressed when Lorde was getting the acclaim I felt Lana deserved, but this isn't some conspiracy or Lorde "playing into" the game. Sometimes things don't work out. Ultimately, Lana is still here, she's making music, and she's got a solid audience, and we should focus on that instead of whinging about how unfairly the media treated her. We can't change that. But we can change the future. (of course, this won't happen if she cancels half her promo like she did in the last days of UV, but details, details!) You don't have to tear down other artists to build Lana up. Fans of Lana already have a reputation as being whiny and prone to finding any remotely similar thing and shouting "obvious Lana inspiration!!1!" All it does is make us look insecure. This is the only thing she's ever said about who FMWUTTT was based off: "It’s about a singer who first sneered about my allegedly not authentic style but later she stole and copied it. And now she’s acting like I am the art project and she the true super artist. My God and people actually believe her, she’s successful! I shouldn’t continue ranting, it doesn’t get anywhere." I honestly can't think of a major pop star who publicly "sneered" at Lana and then started saying she was an artist. When I read this, the "true super artist" thing immediately reminded me of Gaga. They started out in the same scene, and clearly Lana did not like her (though we don't know what Gaga thought of her). A year before UV was released, Gaga released ARTPOP and mentioned putting art in pop all the time in her interviews. However, I don't think Gaga has ever so much as mentioned Lana publicly, and I don't think you can say Gaga "copied" Lana unless you think Lana also owns brown hair. It doesn't sound like Lorde because there's clear cause and effect here - first she sneered about Lana's inauthentic style, later she stole and copied it. By the time Lorde was getting public attention and mentioned Lana, she already had her sound developed. So who the heck, in 2014, was Lana talking about? Who knows with her.

Ultraviolence: I used to be a member of an underground sect which was reigned by a guru. He surrounded himself with young girls and he had this insane charisma I couldn’t resist as well. So I was in this, I’ll call it sect, because I was longing for love and security. But then I found out that this guru wasn’t a good but a bad person. He thought that he had to break people first before he could build them up again. At the end I left the sect. No, “Ultraviolence” look back on my time in New York. I was for a while part of a sloping underground scene, which was dominated by a guru. He believed in the concept, finished close people first and then rebuild. I fell for him because that time I longed for security. The lyrics also mention a “cult leader,” and Ms. Del Rey said the song looked back to a time soon after she moved to New York City, when she considered following a guru who “believed in breaking you down to build you back up again.” “It sounds kind of weird,” she added, “but that is what it’s about, and having romantic feelings entwined with the idea of being led and letting go and surrendering. That’s always a concept to me, like I’m wavering between independence and falling into lifestyles and being led.” There are so many things, really. I guess one of them is a personal experience I had with a person who believed in breaking you down to build you back up again. And although that mindset didn’t really agree with me, there was something freeing in letting go, for me, [with] this particular sort of guru-esque character. It’s a little bit about being in love with the act of surrendering, about being confused whether that’s a good idea. I think searching for guidance is a constant theme in my life. I knew relatively early on who I was. But I did not know exactly what I wanted to do. And I was always looking for people who are like me. So, I went at the age of 18 to New York. I was looking for this cool artist group, but I didn't find it. But I found someone who was like me. It was very interesting for me, we had a special relationship. He had built up a group that followed him. In the end, it wasn't right for me. The lyrics to UV make sense in this context. We have a guru (the "cult leader") who believes in breaking you down to build you back up again. Lana was in love with the idea of surrendering, and so him breaking her down felt like an act of kindness, especially since she felt lost at this time: "He hit me and it felt like a kiss." After the break down comes the reconstruction: "Jim raised me up, he hurt me but it felt like true love." However, Lana ultimately knew this wasn't right for her. "Jim taught me that loving him was never enough." The song seems to be a reminiscence, since Lana says this song is about her time when she was 18 in New York and the bridge says "we could go back to New York." She adds that "loving you was really hard." She says he "used to" call her DN and poison ivy, so she's singing in the present. The "I was filled with poison but blessed with beauty and rage/Jim taught me that" line seems very cultlike. One of the things cult leaders do is make you believe that there's some incredible thing waiting to be unlocked but that normally you can't access it. Of course, the cult leader can access it and that's why you should follow him and trust him. Jim "taught her" that she was "filled with poison" and he called her "poison." Not very positive things to say. The nature of this relationship is unclear. She says it was a "sect-like" thing and refers to him as "guru-esque," so she doesn't think it was a straight up cult. She calls their relationship a "special relationship," but that can mean anything. One of her comments was about "having romantic feelings entwined with the idea of being led and letting go and surrendering." I'm not sure if "romantic feelings" refers to the guru or to the idea of surrendering. This whole thing would have happened in 2003, before she would have recorded Sirens! It's before any boyfriends we know of, too. With this in mind, I wonder if Cruel World is also about this guru. "Shared my body and my mind with you" would be very appropriate for a cult leader. Cruel World is very unspecific. All we know about this guy is he had a lot of women, a bible and a gun, and he used heroin.