Valentino

I was gonna do this exact thing a long time ago but the EFFORT

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.

Me. I Am Mariah would have been proud...

Re-listened to Honeymoon and the strings are gorgeous, too bad the track has no forward movement except in the bridge. Also the chorus... That's one UV artifact I wish she wouldn't have brought back.

Terrence Loves You is the most hilarious track name ever.

I am so excited for Salvatore, mostly for potential Lanalysis.    I always thought it was because she needed a name in Backfire and it had no significance other than ~mafia boo~, but here it is again.

I get this feeling that HM won't be a good Lanalysis album. Well, she does deserve her privacy.

Love the cover, very Americana. I'm glad it's not just a pretty picture of a pretty face.

No computer now, so I can't search for stuff, but I'm excited for new songs. The thirst is over.

So it is K?

VG is about Josh.

We have no proof K is a real person, unfortunately.

oh, and regarding jimmy, on old post of mine that contradicts jimmy's claims of having met her, like, last year 

http://lanaboards.com/index.php?/topic/5378-jimmy-gnecco-has-spoken/&do=findComment&comment=211753

they may not have dated, but she wasn't just a stalker. we had even surmised that "get drunk" might have been about him and reeve (or her fantasy of that).

Thanks for the photos! Great to have proof that Carney dated her (I wonder if she dated him to get back at Jimmy for ignoring her "How do you like me now" indeed). I love how everyone is finding these photos of Josh on their own, doe, eventually his last name is gonna come out.

Yeah, I kept reading through the thread and realized that the record guy relationship was on and off. The guy was not married. I'll have to re-read it more carefully then to come up with a tentative timeline for Mr. Major. They met in her early twenties, when she was shopping for labels, so it sounds like after Steve Mertens (she was 22 when they broke up, and he produced an early version of LDR that has never leaked afaik). Maybe around the same time as or after she made the No Kung Fu demos (I know it's a fake name but it's useful)? If it started in 2006, then it would have ended in 2013. It also lasted through Arthur, Mike, Josh, and Barrie. You go, girl. 

And if it turns out it was Van Wilson... man, what kind of throwback to early Lanalysis would that be?

As for Gnecco's January 2014 comment, I think he meant that he met up with her at that date and discussed the song UV with her, since he also makes sure to mention he's not the subject of the song UV. I didn't take it to mean that it was the first time he had ever met her.

You've said it yourself in this post. The guy in that early pic IS Josh. That instagram video is undeniable evidence Video Games is about him. And I guess Radio too, relating to that tweet about Lana wanting him back after becoming famous an him saying no (so she settled for barrie  ) and Josh is now covered in tattoos since that early photo so it's very real that songs like Yayo could even be about him?

The only thing about Radio is that Lana says it was about a guy coming back after she became famous. Maybe he reached out to her and she thought it was romantic but it wasn't?

"I mean you know people always said you know people will come out of the woodwork and change their mind about you. They’ll start to like you ‘cause you’re on the radio. And it is true but I don’t mind ‘cause I’d rather people be nice to me.

I don’t really care why people are nice to me I just like it when it’s easier. I just wrote it when this guy that I used to know came back into my life. So now my life is sweet like cinnamon. Cause he came back. "

I'm amused by that picture because it seems someone took a picture of a frame. They couldn't even be bothered to take the picture out of the frame and scan it, lol. Who still keeps framed pictures of their ex-girlfriends? Maybe they were just friends when that pic was taken. Which would make sense. She was dating other guys from like 2007 to 2010 and I hope she didn't cheat on them with him ("I am sleeping with your best friend" !????). In 2010/11 she starts dating him, even though she knew about him before. The VG interview says 10 months ago, in November 2010, which was when Mizrahi got married. Maybe he was always trying to get with her and she finally gave him a chance? I don't know her hairstyle chronology so other than saying "this pic looks old" I can't pinpoint a year.

The more recent Josh pics are hard to match with that early pic because he's grown facial hair. He does have a bump on his nose which this guy has, but I'm not certain about the rest of his face. The tattoos definitely look new. Maybe Lana liked him after he got tattoos.   A childhood friend becomes a lover? Who ends up playing WoW instead. His instagram has a pic of another gf and someone said something like "is a year of dating you like a year's subscription to WoW?" which shows that even in more recent relationships, he hasn't quit the MMORPGing.

I still think Yayo is about Jimmy, if only because he has a blue dragon ("snake... ink blue") tattoo and she posted it on his FB page. Or maybe she's taunting him? She posted the pic March 2009, potentially after she started dating Mizrahi. Gnecco is still a mystery. Here's a post from @@trashtrashtrash (and I think someone else) from this thread:

I've been hesitant to post this for a while because if it is true then it destroys a lot of theories, but I spoke to someone who dates Jimmy's son and she told me that Jimmy and Lana never dated. I asked her to tell me that story and this is what she said:

 

'Lana always was like obsessed with jimmy. She would always go to his shows and try to get him interested in her but jimmy would always turn her down because he wasn't interested. Since he was kinda off and on with his girlfriend and what not. And so her obsession just drove her to make a song about him. And it's really funny cause jimmy barely knows her and he found the song amusing actually. It's like this whole big joke. Especially since his son (my ex/friend whatever) has the same name. Just an overall amusing topic especially when I would see people thinking they actually dated. I finally broke though cause I felt bad with no one knowin the truth so there ya have it haha'

 

I don't know if anyone will believe me, but that's what she said to me. I spoke to her on twitter btw. I don't see any reason why she'd make this up, and it seems very possible. Yayo could still be about Jimmy, but maybe it's more a fantasy lana had... trust me I was really disappointed to read this haha 

..

ok I asked her if she would be willing to give me a photo to post here and she said she didnt really feel comfortable, which is what i expected, because it is weird hahah 

but if any of you want proof she said you can follow her on instagram and theres photos of them on there @sydneylarsenn but shes going on holidays for a few days or something so it might take a few days to accept you 

 

I saw the photo and he looks like jimmy's son, she's telling the truth sorry guys  

but yeah as trash said they definitely had encounters and she had a massive crush on him and went to heaps of his shows and talked to him and tried to get him interested in her if that's any consolation 

BUT Jimmy wrote a song called "Fall into my hands" that seems to be dedicated to Lana. He said, after the UV stuff, that the song was not about him (it was about ~alcohol~) and that he never dated Lana. Their relationship remains ambiguous.

Is there any non-song proof that she dated Reeve Carney?

EDIT: Just noticed this similarity:

From you're gonna love me: "there's nothing from you that I wanna take/I just wanna be like you"

From Catch and Release: "I didn't want a thing from you/just to be like you"

Another interview: "I once had a boyfriend who talked about all the reasons why he loved flags, Rock-and-Roll, and America. I didn't know much about all of that, but I did love him and I wanted to be just like him."

EDIT 2: Re-reading Lanalysis is so useful. Found this quote from Spacecamp, a band Steve Mertens used to play in:

"Well, we were her back up band once cuz her and Steven used to make-out sometimes, for like a year"

So Steve isn't our 7 year record executive. The search continues. Let's assume Lana broke up with the 7 year record executive and immediately got with Mertens. So she would have been 14 when she started dating him. Interestingly, she says she always felt like a change of routine for him, not like the main dish: "I had a long-term relationship for seven years with someone who was the head of a label and I felt like I was that change of routine. I was always waiting to become the person who his kids came home to, and it never happened. Obviously I had to seek other relationships, and I felt like that became a pattern."

EDIT 3: From the interview about the BTD trilogy:

He doesn’t know (that BTD, VG, and BJ are about him). His mother knows. We’re in touch. (XFM interview 2012)

She's friends with Josh on her old FB. But Josh totally knows (or at least thinks) VG is about him...

Mystery Record Executive: 1999-2006

Mertens: 2006(?)-07  (surf punk musician from LA)

Lynn: 2007-08/09(?)  (guitarist for Lizzy from Jersey with ties to Greenwich/loves DMD)

Mizrahi: 2009-10(?)  (filmmaker from NY(?), Jewish)

Josh: ???-2011 (he plays WoW a lot)

Barrie: 2011(?)-14 (musician, depressed)

So here's another Mr. Campbell dilemma. The following post mentions real but non-famous people. I don't know if I should name them or not. The problem is they've willingly put out all the information themselves, and it's not hard to find. I want to see what the ethics committee (i.e. you guys) has to say about this situation.
 
Okay, so this song, Joshy and I.
 
It leaked August 2015.
This was posted in June 2015:

So this guy says his cousin dated Lana, and that his cousin posted an instagram video backstage from a Lana concert. If you look at the instagram video, you'll see it's made by somebody called Josh. The caption: "Sometimes this happens when you ignore your gf to play World of Warcraft." Now this is a bit odd. This guy claims to be the reason Lana wrote Video Games. However, we had received "insider info"~ from the ldr.fm days (alas, I wasn't there) that the song was written about Mike Mizrahi. If you take into account that Lana said BTD, BJ, and VG are all about one guy, it gets even murkier. Here are some interviews where Lana mentions why she wrote the song (emphasis mine).[/size]
 

Lana: Video Games was a song that came after I abandoned all ambition of becoming anyone noteworthy in music. It was only ten months ago. I just wrote it when I felt love again. It was about a time when it was nice to focus on a relationship and simple things; watching your boyfriend play videogames. It sounds sad, but it was sort of happy. I’d let go of the idea of being a singer because things had gone so terribly for so long. So it depends on the song, but usually I start when a situation just strikes me in a certain way, or somebody that you think is amazing looks at you in a certain way. (SEP 23 2011)
 
 
LDR: A boy. I think we came together because we were both outsiders. It was perfect. But I think with that contentment also comes sadness. There was something heavenly about that life – we'd go to work and he'd play his video games - but also it was maybe too regular. At the time I was becoming disillusioned with being a singer and was very happy to settle with a boyfriend who I loved, but in the end we both lost sight of our dreams. Maybe there's something not-so-special about domestic life. (OCT 4 2011)
 
“The verse was about the way things were with one person, and the chorus was the way that I wished things had [/size]really been with another person, who I thought about for a long time[/size],” she says, breaking into an acapella of the song. “‘Swinging in the backyard, pull up in your fast car, whistling my name’. That was what happened, you know? He’d come home and I’d see him. But then the chorus, ‘Heaven is a place on earth with you, tell me all the things you wanna do’ wasn’t like that. That was the way that I wished it was – the melody sounds so compelling and heavenly because I wanted it to be that way. The verse is more matter-of-fact because that’s how it was. It’s a mix of memories and the way I wished it could have been. Just because things happened a certain way doesn’t mean that that’s the way that they are. It really is what you choose to think about. Bad things happen every day but you’re not going to be any happier thinking about them. So I don’t think about them. I don’t have that luxury any more. Some people say that ‘Video Games’ stops them in their tracks; it’s that kind of song. It’s just really sad.” (Dazed 2011)[/size]

 
The date the song "Joshy and I" leaked with was 2011, the same year Video Games started blowing up.
 
Moreover, she said she picked the model for the BTD video based on his resemblance to a former boyfriend. Once again, hesitant to give links, but Josh's instagram shows that he is heavily tattooed.
 
So here's a crazy theory - could Josh be a guy Lana dated after Mizrahi?
 
We have a date for when Mizrahi first met Lana (January 2009 iirc) but we don't have any solid indicators of when they broke up that I know of.
 
Before Joshy and I leaked, there's a guy who says his cousin, Josh, dated Lana Del Rey (before she "became Lana"). We didn't have any clue that a Josh would be someone in the Lanaverse, so it's hard to say this is some guy BSing who happened to come up with the right name. Josh fits the description of the BTD model, who is said to be based on an ex. Could the Mizrahi relationship have ended before 2011, and could Lana have started dating Josh in 2011 (ultimately breaking up with him and then getting together with Barrie, can anyone find the earliest known reference to Lana and Barrie dating?).
 
I can't find the original tweet for the second image up there, so if anyone would like to help, that'd be swell.
EDIT: Found it. It was posted October 25, 2014. And it was directed at Josh's cousin. So this isn't every poser with a cousin named Josh coming out of the woodworks after the leak to claim he's the real Josh - this is way before Josh was even a twinkle in our eyes.
 
DOUBLE EDIT: It gets better. Mike Mizrahi got married to someone else November 2010. Obviously he must have broken up with Lana by then. She says in the September 2011 interview that Video Games became a thing because she abandoned all pretenses of being a singer ten months ago. That would be November 2010, after Mizrahi got married. What boy could there be in her life, then? Josh.
 
Revised timeline:
 
Mertens: ???-2007
Lynn: 2007-08/09?
Mizrahi: 2009-10
Josh: ???-2011
Barrie: 2012?-14
 
Collecting hearsay from the thread:
from SitarHero: "I guess my only defense is that I'm only collecting the information others have written about publicly. For instance, everyone called "Afraid" a sister to "Video Games", and I trusted that. Do I have a statement that Mike controlled her? No."
"Just recently, some stalkers insiders made it vaguely apparent that they were positive "Video Games" is about Mike Mizrahi."

from evil: "I also suspect that the Knocks from the Underground review he wrote may have been a friendly or planted interview. (It wouldn't be the first. The Index magazine interview was done by Brea Tremblay, another musician who played at the same Songwriter's Hall of Fame New Writer's Showcase and was also mentored by Bob Leone.) I suspect this based on the fact that they were supposedly together two years (according to a source extremely close to the situation  ) in conjunction with the fact that a video of his marriage to another woman was uploaded to his YouTube account in November 2010 means they had to have been living together at least a couple months prior to the February 2009 Arlene's Grocery show he reviewed, unless their living together overlapped his marriage, which I doubt, or he married the other woman almost immediately after they broke up and the source is exaggerating the two years time frame somewhat. Although, this Facebook post, which predates that show by only a few weeks, sure doesn't sound like they were living together yet.

I don't know. It's all very strange. But if they were living together at the time of that interview, it means she might have had more control over its content. "

 
gameboy (Posted 12 December 2012 - 11:25 PM): "MM is Michael Mizrahi. She lived with him for 2 years in the Village. She got her record deal and left him in a bad way. She tried to come back to him and even tried to get between him and his new GF who he married. He told me "never date a musician!" He gave her those film credits to help her before she was Lana. I googled mike and found this page. I'll let him know, I'm sure he won't care." (this member only has 1 post, which is this. the 2 year timeline doesn't fit the fact that he met her in 2009 and was married in 2010)

This is the boyfriend who Video Games is about

How do you know this? What would his name be? It seems like a really early picture.

EDIT: Wait, is that Mizrahi? Why does she look so young there?

This is the best post in this thread! So interesting to read. Arthur Lynn basically crafted Lana Del Rey 

and I think any relationship with "Jim" is just fictional. 

 You are too kind, but I really appreciate it.

I was going to mention this earlier, but I think @@Valentino is spot on with his observations about Arthur Lynn and his influence on her (or possibly their mutual influence on each other). Because I'd seen all that stuff before and noticed all the same connections he outlined. But while I also think Steven Mertens is obviously quite significant, I'm skeptical that he's good for the record executive guy she claims she had a 7 year relationship with, as @@Valentino suggests.

Do you have any ideas who the record executive guy could be? 7 years is just such a long time. If it was Mertens, it means they would have started dating when she was 15 ("we were just teenagers"?). If it wasn't Mertens, then her relationship with Mertens (which ended in 2008) would have been really short or her relationship with this other guy started before she was 15. Mertens wasn't really a "record executive," so that definitely throws him into doubt.

Another Lynn thing I wanted to mention but forgot: his Flickr account (angiespeaks iirc, same as his blog) has pictures of American flags on the early pages. I feel pretty confident that Lynn is the boyfriend who loved America.

10th August is the birthday of her ex-boyfriend Mike and she released High By the Beach the same day. Is it possible that this song but also Little Girls is about him?

"Lights, Camera, Accion, you know I can't make it on my own" VS "Lights, Camera, Accion, I'll do it on my own"

She wrote LG before she met Mike.

We need to update the OP because it doesn't have anything about Steve Mertens and it gives Jimmy Gnecco way more weight than Arthur Lynn. It's also off in some places - the BTD VG BJ trilogy is about one guy, at least according to one interview that mentions it. I don't want to knock it because it's a fantastic post, it's just a bit out of date and it results in fans still thinking that Lana was secretly engaged to a drug dealing Jimmy Gnecco when more recent information sort of changes that.

@@Valentino 

 

Yeah the main problem with 'Demo' is everyone has a different world in which they use it, for example I only really use it for versions of songs released (Like the demo's for born to die songs / AKA / Young & Beautiful, etc) which I think is a problem to suit everyone - hence why I was asking for references and links since I guess if something was leaked as xxx -Demo- then it'd be a bit easier to title it.

NO 19 - The song leaked as 'Born Bad Baby' so that's what I had it as but me and Alex had it down different, as do a lot of people. Some people have 'Diet Mountain Dew -Born Bad Baby Demo-' or Diet Mountain Dew (Born Bad Baby Version), etc 

So needed some clarification on what it should really be

 

NO 51 - I'd agree there, just need a bunch of people to confirm what me and you think before I delete, I definitely think it should just be deleted from unreleased records.

 

NO 77, Awesome, thank you! Let me know if you find the post

 

NO 129 - I'm fairly sure it leaked as Prom Song (Gone Wrong) as the actual title, not that (Gone Wrong) was an alternative title, just that for some reason that part was in brackets. Unlike Damn You (American Dream) did where the brackets are an alternative title. But once again my opinion on that is drawing from what I think it leaked as. 

NO 77:

http://phatfriend.com/2012/01/25/before-lana-del-ray/

"In my initial post, I wrote that Lizzy had picked beats and wrote a bunch of songs to them. She then came to a studio , where she, two engineers/studio musicians, and me planned to make those songs. If you read the earlier post, you know how they turned out in my eyes. But, hey, I’m one man and maybe too involved in it…So , I figured maybe I’d let you judge for yourself…

Here’s the original beat that she choose to write to:

http://limelinx.com/files/d7ef38314ee7626b8fe78aeb24e81e28 [link to Heavy Hitter instrumental]

(sorry, the link is down and I can’t find the original beat)

Now, to be honest, I always though this beat was pretty mediocre. But, it had a certain ruggedness to it that I thought could work well with some singing on it (if not rapping). She picked it, and wrote something cool to it, so we went with it.

Here’s the song that came out of that [youtube link to Heavy Hitter V1]"

Regarding "can we call anything a demo without it being released by Lana." Some people call any version of a song that isn't the final one a demo. Others might call them alternate versions. I, personally, prefer to use demo for early, unpolished versions of songs. So the two Hit & Run and DICWB songs are, imo, not demos, but alternate versions, even though we don't know which of them, if any, would have been used for release - they aren't rough and unpolished and incomplete. However, I consider Making Out a demo because of the heavy use of autotune on Lana's vocals. I don't think there are any known final versions of her songs with autotune, and it seems common for artists to be heavily autotuned when making demo versions of their songs (Lady Gaga did the same thing on some songs that ended up not being obviously autotuned in the final version), so I came to the conclusion that this is Lana "trying out" the song. A bit of conjecture on my part, I admit. I think as long as we have a consistent definition for demo, it should be fine. Of course, getting people to agree on this is a problem (remember the "outtake" dispute).

As such, I think NO 11, Behind Closed Doors, is commonly considered to be a demo because the second verse is a repeat of the first, showing she hadn't written the whole song yet, and the bridge has no lyrics. The instrumental is also clearly a rudimentary version of the one used in the final. It's common for producers to send songwriters instrumentals to write on top of, and I think Lana has done this before (Noir, Daytona Meth are laptop demos on top of instrumentals, and as far as we know she's never made instrumentals beyond her basic guitar playing). A similar example would be Charli XCX's "You (Ha Ha Ha)", where she's also singing over an instrumental. In the demo, you can hear that the bridge has no lyrics, although it does in the final version.

"Leaked as born bad baby, but is it Diet Mountain Dew -Born Bad Baby Demo-, is it standalone?"

I don't understand this question regarding NO 19.

NO 51: Doijroij is some weird fake crap. Someone with the instrumental to Playground used it to filter out the rap and then paste it over some stuff. I think @@evilentity is the one who came to this conclusion.

NO 77: That is the instrumental to V1 of Heavy Hitter, yes. I'll see if I can find the post from the guy who made the instrumental.

NO 129: I got the impression that Prom Song (Gone Wrong) was the entire title, not that Gone Wrong was an alternate title. There are songs that do this, e.g. Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight) doesn't have the alternate title A Man After Midnight, but you can refer to the song as just Gimme Gimme Gimme if you don't feel like using the whole title. @@evilentity found this song on a Soundcloud page, I think, so he should know.

Lana is not a good lyricist... yet. She has moments where she comes up with beautiful lyrics, but off the top of my head I can't come up with that many songs where I like the lyrics as a whole. Raise Me Up, Yayo? Thankfully, I'm here for the music, not the lyrics. Although if she can sustain her moments of genius during entire songs, that would take her to another level.

HBTB may be vapid, but at least it doesn't take itself too seriously, unlike Honeymoon. HM feels like someone else trying to make a Lana song, going through a checklist - slow, melancholy, sung mostly in low register, domestic violence reference, unusual sexual metaphor. I will say her voice is lovely on it, and the harmonies on "dark blue" are very nice. Unfortunately, I don't like the song as a whole.

I actually love HBTB because it's a break from Lana being pretentious (I can never forgive "all of our friends are dead and we never even met them"), plus she's being sassy and moving away from someone's bull, which is a welcome change from "we're in a destructive relationship, but we can never leave". She truly keeps us on our feet. "You want BTD beats? Soundtrack-like song. More ballads? Muddy trap break-up anthem."

I know I complain about Lana a lot, but I genuinely love her. She's one of my most listened artists and also an influence on my own music. She da bestest.

I think/pray so. I do believe that (s)he has a lot more unleaked tracks and I don't think that they'll be going away any time soon.

They said the songs they leaked were "bottom of the barrel," implying there's better ones out there.

I need OTTR demo, I'll be so happy with that. And we'll finally have all BTD demos, which is awesome.

This is awful and petty of me, but seeing fans who expected Lana to continue releasing slow, sad songs forever get mad and accuse her of trying to get commercial success makes me a tiny bit happy. It's Lana taking over us, throwing us a curve ball. She's reminding us she does what she wants.

I was so right in talking about the BTD demos because feel-wise this fits. But it's not rehashed either, because I can't think of a song in her catalog that sounds like this. The lyrics aren't impressive, but neither were Honeymoon's and at least these have bite to them.

Can every person saying it's about Barrie back that up though? Like why him and not some other ex, or an imaginary ex?

Why does everyone think this is dedicated to Barrie? He's not my idea of a "bad motherfucker."

Why does everyone think this is dedicated to Barrie? He's not my idea of a "bad motherfucker."

Nooooooooo

We were doing so well, too.

Okay so can someone analyze the similarities between Ray and the other assumed ex boyfriends? Then it would be a lot easier to find out who Ray/K/etc is.

There are 3 songs that mention a Ray. Kill Kill, Raise Me Up, and Joshy and I. Not much to go on.

K might not be real or a boyfriend.

Plus, they don't fit into the timelines. Which is odd.

Fake. At least hopefully. It's a clichéd mess. Seems like the "writer" has taken the most overdone lana associations: "sultry soul," "midnight," "cruising down the coast," "red lips," "cherry balm" etc. and vomited them up into a poor imitation of lana. Don't even get me started on the random mow the lawn for money line.

Mow the lawn for money is from BTTB.

And the Lana Ray thing from Trash Magic.

This is like something from an LDR lyrics generator.

Lana cares more about making high-quality music than selling as well as BTD, and I'm completely fine with that. BTD was more accessible to the public and it was a bit of an anomaly.

 

That said, homegirl needs to finish what she starts. She apparently forgot about the IG account.

More accessible, an anomaly? Compared to what? Paradise, UV, AKA? Her unreleased stuff? Her May Jailer era? And more importantly, in what way is it "more accessible" than your point of reference?

Not trying to be confrontational, just don't really understand this point of view.

It even runs on Windows 3.1, for that ~*~retro vintage aesthetic~*~

Calling it now. Honeymoon will be vaporwave inspired. She's already got the tracky tropical part down, after all 

Inb4 Serial Killer is the only "muddy trap" bop on the record and the rest are "late-night Miles Davis drives" inspired songs.

I don't get why Lana keeps trying to invoke these jazz musicians. I'm not a Davis fan, but I've heard some of his stuff and I can't imagine Lana doing anything that sounds remotely like him. Then again, she did say inspired. She could say "I wrote a song inspired by Iron Maiden" and then release a slow UV-like ballad because "I really liked the juxtaposition of like, iron, which is hard, and maidens, which are soft, and like, maybe she's sad because her heart is iron, you know?"

Honeymoon's a nice song, but it certainly doesn't seem like a step forward or "huge evolution" for Lana. It seems like more of the same persona she's actively cultivated since BTD - slow songs, lyrics about a bad boy, "cinematic." Sometimes I wish VG weren't the song that made Lana famous because it really locked her into that image. Most of the BTD demos weren't slow - just compare the incredible DP demo to the toned down final version. Unfortunately, I get the feeling that that's all Lana's gonna do from now on. It's gotten to the point where fans hoping for more upbeat songs are told off because Lana's "a sad person" and her music is "always gonna be slow." Brite Lites? Raise Me Up? Smarty? Queen of the Gas Station? Most of the BTD demos? Lana excels at doing upbeat music. The original VG demo was faster than the final version - Robopop were the ones who slowed it down to "a dirge" (their words). Lana's slow songs aren't more "authentic" or "her" - they're just what've made her popular. She has great uptempo and midtempo songs too, and wanting more of those doesn't make you a bad fan.

I also feel like a lot of people confuse the appearance of depth with the actual thing. Like Lana is a deeper artist because she writes slow songs and because she talks about metaphysics in her interviews. But if you listen to the lyrics... she's not writing about metaphysics. She's writing about love, bad boys, America, nostalgia, daddy, awkward drug references, sex, little red party dresses, the pale moonlight. That's not to say I think her lyrics are trash, because she manages to write about the same topic over and over and still make it pleasant to listen to. But I don't think she's more "intellectual" than her mainstream peers. She could go in that direction if she really wanted to, I think - Pawn Shop Blues is the song that really gives me that impression - but she seems pretty content where she is.

Big Bad Wolf isn't that bad. I mean, it's bad, but it's not worse than Delicious.

@ Her May Jailer stuff is so important because it's her before she tried to cultivate any sort of image, before she had any sort of fame, international or local. Lyrically and musically it's very distinct from the rest of her stuff. I think it's very honest stuff. She's not singing low to be "taken more seriously", she's not yet started writing about America and cocaine, and her production isn't overwhelming her. It's her and her guitar (and I think it is her playing on that record - she makes a mistake on one of the songs and she stops singing to catch up with it, which would be harder to do with a backup guitarist), without having to worry about being judged by the world.