mid july

yuck

yuck

yuck

i have come to say one thing and one thing only that recently i have noticed... cinnamon aged awfully
 
 
but excited for the new mv 

yuck

The closer it is to Christmas the more relevant HTD becomes

The woman can't even be bothered learning the words to her own songs and you expect ... a Grammys campaign?
 

How To Disappear had so much potential  

i like NFR, i did and i do.  it's good, it's cute, it's accessible, it has brief glimpses of meaning and lucidity regarding an extremely disorienting modern world.  it is Lana, for sure.  no one else could have made this album.  to be fair tho, to me, it's very clear that Lana lacked inspiration going into this album - something she freely admitted.  Lana herself talked about having writer's block, being inspired by Jacking Off's chord progressions and writing melodies, etc etc.  That is something that I think definitely comes through in NFR.  Being so invested in her earlier work which was so imbued with potency and necessity, like Lana saying "i had to make these albums" - NFR is not that.  it's good, yes.  but it's dull-er than her previous work.  it lacks the umph of her first three albums.  it doesnt have that je ne sais quoi that Lana's early work had heavy in spades.
 
so can we be honest... is this really her best work?  i see all the people claiming this as her "magnum opus" or "masterpiece" which is like... did you not listen to Honeymoon?  Ultraviolence?  NFR doesn't even make sense without the context of Lana's past work.  If NFR was her first album, it would've gotten panned af.  the only reason people are paying so much attention to it is because we know what Lana has done and is capable of.  NFR is her most basic album.  and i'm not even saying that as a bad thing, i just really think it is.  and that's a whole vibe or whatever.  it feels like she's dumbing herself down for a broader audience.  it feels like she's trying to assimilate into celeb culture and whatever.  which is fine.  it's her art, it's her life.  and i like it.  i still listen occasionally.  but masterpiece?  i think that time is past.
 
maybe i am being too subjective, but idk.  With her first three albums, i felt something so strong.  a sense of urgency, desperation, stifled power, hopelessness as art, hopelessness as the essence of freedom, truth, iconography, apathy as self-protection, caring as a personal failure that was yet so necessary and unavoidable, SOMETHING powerful and mysterious and important that couldn't be fully described.  NFR feels like taking all that and stripping of it of substance and regurgitating it as pure aesthetic bc she knows that's what worked for her in the past.
 
when Lana was Lizzy, she wasn't successful or known.  She didn't have accolades or a huge following or worldwide fame and recognition.  but she had spirit and drive, she KNEW what she was doing was good and meaningful and mattered.  and we can all hear and feel that in her unreleased music.  i remember listening to her unreleased stuff after Born to Die came out and being like "damn this bitch is a for real star and a musical genius, she has such potency and magic, she is so much more for believing in herself without any recognition."  it was a whole thing.
 
NFR is like, when you get everything you ever wanted and lose what made you get it in the first place.  that's what it feels like to me.  which is a whole vibe.  it might be her most depressing album because of that, which is powerful in its own way.  it feels like Lana losing herself.  being burnt out.  i appreciate NFR, i really do.  and i think there's meaning in seeing how it fits into her body of work.  but i think it only packs a kick because of its relation to her past work, because we see the growth and change Lana has gone through.  and that, to me, means it cant possibly be her best, most potent, "masterpiece" or "magnum opus".  i love her art, and i love her as an artist.  but not as much anymore.  i think she lost something, and i think NFR is proof of that.  i think the accolades and critical raving about NFR is proof of that.  she's not an underground underdog rock star heroine enigma.  she's a pop star.  a regular person.  good for her, if that's what she wants.  but she doesnt have the power i felt in her first three albums.  the experiences she went through before she was a bonafide star are more potent than whatever's happening now.  maybe that's proof of what i always saw as her original point ----- you may get everything you want, and it'll still be hollow because what the world sees as success is bullshit, what society idolizes is trash, and what really matters gets ignored and forgotten.

dude i think you're wayyy overestimating how much anyone actually cares

i really really really hope so, but sadly also doubt it

Congratulations Lana! AOTY and SOTY?! Wow. And for Norman Fucking Rockwell!2? Anything is possible.
 
I'm just over here thinking that she should've been nominated and win song of the year in 2015 for West Coast, if there's really a song in her catalog that deserves to be revered as revolutionary and on which she pushed her sound forward, that is West Coast.
 
Anyway, good luck Lana you're up against pretty strong contenders (and I really mean popular) in your categories.

aren’t teddy bears supposed to be cuddly and comforting??? idk how anyone could snuggle up to that knowing what it is and not feel sick or at the very least extremely guilty

bare minimum queen!!

justice for ARTPOP.... haven’t been interested in her music since

Whoever made her sign their enema bottle.........electric chair

imagine being that twink & thinking you did something cute by having Charli sign your enema... truly disgusting

i can't stand these faggots thinking being a bottom is a quirky personality trait

I’m really happy to see the majority of the fanbase calling out that nasty behavior. We need to collectively do better by making these shitty fans accountable for their actions. That’s seriously how you turn a generous star like Charli into one of those pop stars that doesn’t even do M&Gs anymore. Let’s respect her a little more, please. /sigh

If you're a casual fan you're probably not listening closely. Critics are hardly going to be listening to Lana's album on repeat at every part of the day at full volume. The reason we hear it is because we're rabid fans who obsess over these details (as I hope we should - we're fans on LANAboards). I had a quick skip through and these are some of the things I heard (some with timestamps so you can find them quickly)
 
Norman Fucking Rockwell
This is so sloppy the whole thing might be style choice. Throughout the opening you can hear things moving, lips smacking etc.
0:18 – 0:22: Lips moving
 
Mariners + Venice Bitch + Happiness is a Butterfly
Good!
 
Fuck It I Love You
I mean, arguably you all hate the CD alt version so you tell me.
 
Cinnamon Girl
0:28: This is very obviously a different take with clearer vocals.
1:41 – After “Kerosine” you can hear a case or something shift in the background
 
Doin’ Time –
Perfect because it has totally different production. 
 
Love Song 
0:27: Instrumental loop drops in volume and then restarts noticeably.
1:04 – On ‘Oh, be my once in a lifetime’, the mic placement is closer to her, which causes the vocal line to be louder. This doesn’t happen in the second chorus, but the bass is boosted higher.
 
How to Disappear
0:07 onwwards: The instruments are crackling and peaking slightly on the bass. Maybe it’s a . . . choice.
0:51: The microphone peaks and her voice whistles (from no hi pass filter) on the word ‘to’
2:37: The mixing is bad. The vocals are too quiet compared to the first portion of the song, now with very loud backing.
 
The Next Best American Record 
0:07 + 0:10 there is a scuff on the guitar where the frets are moved.
Vocals have an ambient hiss behind them (not Jack’s fault, a trademark Rick fuck up)
1:21 “Fame” reverb echo.
 
Bartender
Vocals have the ambient hiss
 
The Greatest 
4:08: in the left speaker you can hear the guitar shifting against pants.
 
California 
Vocals have ambient hiss
 
Hope 
Fine I guess, but would you really consider this as well produced as the rest of the album. You can hear lip smacks and the mouth opening and there’s hiss but they proudly did this in one take . . .
 
At the end of the day, you can clearly hear these nitpicks. They're nitpicks, but they're there, and you look like a fool for saying that they don't exist simply because they do. I love love LOVE NFR! but it's undeniable that 
 
HOWEVER, if you're not an audiophile or you're not consistently listening to it with high quality headphones, you would never pick up on these. This shit happens all the time across every genre - at the end of Florence + The Machine's 'What the Water Gave Me' you can hear someone moving their drumsticks, you can hear someone cough in the back of Madonna's 'Don't Cry for Me Argentina', on The Little Mermaid legacy collection random instrumental fades come up here and there.
 
It's disappointing when simple mistakes like this happen since to me, it sounds like someone hasn't given it a proper listen with the same care that's been put into making it. Maybe it's a stylistic choice, and a result of the album being made quickly, but frankly I'm not interested in having this lack of attention again on White Hot Forever simple because I like cleaner sounding records. Jack is a talented musician and will go down as a modern legend, and NFR! deserves the praise buttt
 
Yes, here here. How can anyone claim that NFR is more cohesive than HM when its music was produced by at least three different people! TNBAR has the same textual and sonic patches as Heroin and 13 Beaches. Bartender is beautiful but fuckin' random. Doin' Time is super hot but from like, literally another planet. Ultraviolence is more cohesive but sonically HM has it going on from start to end.

Ultraviolence and Honeymoon are still her best albums and probably always will be

NFR is def not her most cohesive record..

I think Melodrama cover art is gorgeous.

Antonoff stans are the würst