PrettyBaby

They're amazing!!

Hello, I am litewave, of the old forum, which I'm happy to see has been resurrected and growing again. Now that Lana has released Ride and an impressive but controversial video I want to repeat my view that what she tends to represent in her art is not a balanced personality but rather a part of a personality. It is therefore necessarily exaggerated and imbalanced. This part, which I called the soul, has a holistic, open, inclusive, intuitive and ambiguous nature and has been traditionally identified with femininity, because it has been expressed, for both biological and social reasons, more by women than by men. Nevertheless, in all people it is only a part of the personality, and is complementary to the other part, which I called the ego. The ego, for its part, has been identified with masculinity, due to its analytic, focused, selective, separatist, firm and confident nature.

Because of its fragility, the soul has been suppressed and degraded in the Western culture and also in the world in general. In the process, mankind has built amazing structures of economy, science and technology, laying the groundwork for its escape from the forces of nature. But this separation from nature has also separated man from something vital within himself. This imbalance, the domination by the ego, needs to be corrected. The correction does not mean the negation of the ego or its achievements but their consummation in the reunion of the ego and the soul. As Richard Tarnas has observed, this change is already underway:


 

Richard Tarnas: The Passion of the Western Mind (epilogue)

Lana reflects this new social and psychological trend in her art. She embodies the broken soul of America, and of the world, that is now returning.

http://vimeo.com/31309318

(my first post from the old forum can be found on my blog here)

Honestly, I just think it's Team Lana. Not as a proper fan name but just to refer to the fanbase. And I hope it sticks at that, I think it would be cringy to have a fan name.

You are just awesome, TPD! I am amazed at the stuff you dig up. The forum wouldn't be the same without you.

1 Ride
2 National Anthem
3 Born To Die
4 Summertime Sadness
5 Blue Jeans 1
6 Carmen
7 Video Games
8 Blue Jeans 2

I think my reasoning's pretty reasonable!

This has nothing to do with the OP, but as a massive Tool fan, I can't let all this talk of the application of the golden ratio to music, the Melvins, and math rock go without mentioning them. (Aside from influencing, being friends with, and opening for Tool, the Melvins and Tool also collaborated on a song called "Divorced" off the Melvins' album Crybaby.)
 
The time signature changes and number of syllables in each line in the lyrics of the title track off Tool's album "Lateralus" and some of the lyrical content on the album are related to the Fibonacci sequence/Fibonacci spiral and the golden ratio/golden spiral.
 
Now that litewave has joined the forum, if he writes an esoteric explanation of the music of Tool my life will be complete.

Someone tweetd saying @LanaDelRey what was the reasoning behind using the n. american headdress in your video? srsly fucked up cultural appropriation. disappoint
 
Lana followed her, and DM'd her saying:
 

 
 
This confirms that it's Indian Reservations, NOT Neon Reservations!

This is fascinating to me. I've wondered for a long time about the connection between music and math. Not having much formal training in music, I don't really get why I like what I like; I just know I like it. I checked out some math rock once. Bought a Don Caballero CD. Was really excited. I put it in and immediately thought, "Wow, I love this sound!" About halfway through the song, I thought, "Wow, this is boring, I never want to listen to this again!" (And I haven't since.)
 
I love music that is experimental-but-not-too-experimental. That's why I love Lana's music. (And Lizzy's even more.) I don't know if I would have been as captivated by "Blue Jeans" if she wasn't so beautiful to look at, but I do know it was mainly her haunting physical voice and bold-yet-vulnerable stylistic "voice" that reeled me in.
 
I feel so torn about my relationship with beauty. I never felt like I had a lot of physical beauty, so that made it easy for me to go along with my Protestant heritage that tended to regard beauty as shallow at best. But in recent years, hearing other perspectives, notably Catholic ones, has made me re-evaluate my approach to beauty, and now I see it as something to be "stewarded," if that makes any sense. (Christianese for "taken good care of and used well.") So it was within that new framework that I encountered Lana. She's basically the first music artist whose physical beauty I've allowed myself to appreciate as part of the entire experience since I was a (hormone-crazed) teenager. (Went through an extended "it's all about the music" phase. Probably wouldn't recognize a lot of my favorite bands' members if I passed them on the street.)
 
Now I guess I'm on this kick where I try to see "the true, the good, and the beautiful" in everyone. And appreciate the fact that different people place different emphases on different values, but that doesn't make them "wrong" as I used to think. (Charm and beauty can be misused, but so can truth and humanitarian values.) We need people who sort of specialize in these different areas, I think. We need to give each other the freedom to pursue these different values, while we pursue our own favorite (without completely dropping the others).
 
I think Lana "stewards" her physical beauty in good ways. But there's no way it's all she has going for her.

I fall asleep to adult swim every night. I am not proud.
 
(And then I wake up in the middle of the night to something like Superjail #scarredforlife)

Love you guys, really. This is why i asked the question--i really wanted to hear from all of you. Good stuff.
 
 
I like this point a lot. Good stuff, Sitar.
 
 
Ha, this makes me think of what Buzz Osbourne of The Melvins (who was close friends with Kurt Cobain and Nirvana in their very early days) has continually said throughout the years, that he thinks a lot of Nirvana's success was due to how they were pretty boys (albeit in grungy clothing).
 

I'll still love her when she's no longer young and beautiful.
 

I could see her having mild success in her May Jailer sound. That's the closest she's ever come to 'homely', I don't know if she's ever been unattractive. During the ~May era~ she was cute, but not a stunner as she was during Lizzy/Lana. Okay, I know they are all the same person but they're still different to me lol
 

 
Like here I could see her being a country music one hit wonder lol

There is no doubt that Lana's beauty has helped her get to where she is now. In fact in the WLSC video from 2006 (where she sings Pawn Shop Blues), there is a guy at the beginning who says that the surest formula for success in music is to be really beautiful with a great voice and then they show Lizzie. However in her present reincarnation as Lana, there are people who dislike her because they feel that she has taken advantage of her looks to get to where she is now (of course accusations of plastic surgery did not help). As for me, I like that she is good to look at, but I probably would have liked her even if she was plainer (I love Alanis Morisette), given that I love her music.

She is beautiful :imbeingsarcasticbitch2:
 
Of course the world was captivated by her appearance originally, because it was a video that went viral. Even I was struck by her appearance in "Video Games", although i think she looks better when she's less pouty. I like to think that I'd like her as much if wasn't attractive because I'm not really into fanning so hardcore for popstars, where beauty is essential. But I admit, it did catch my interest. But this isn't really about MY opinion. Personally, I think the music would be different if she wasn't this beautiful girl. She wouldn't be singing about being the most exotic flower or the whole world's girl. And that's fine. It's certainly a perspective she has and is used to (although I would never say she's limited to being the hot girl). For instance, I'm not writing about being an exotic flower because I don't have that perspective.
 
I don't know, the backlash would definitely have been much less if she wasn't as pretty. But do I think she would have been as successful? Not really. Her breakthrough came with a vintage video of her looking captivating. Maybe "Video Games" could have made it on its own merit, but remember that it's success was an accident, and ultimately a product of her being beautiful in the video. She's on magazine covers now, but at the beginning that's all it was--an accident. Fueled in no small part by her looks. Generally I have my ugly dude syndrome and would not be rooting for her as much under those circumstances, but Lana has always been a special case to me.

I, too, have a war in my mind. I don’t know how i feel about the video. I feel a little numb, but these feelings, or lack thereof, have little to do with the actual video and Lana as an artist and what she’s created, and more to do with how i feel about life in general lately (i think watching Samsara last night really fucked me up even more than i have already been feeling). I think i like the Ride video? But i should watch it more at a later time when i'm not feeling this way.
 
What i do have concrete thoughts on: Watching this, i realize how American i am and how inescapable it is. I really love things that are truly American. All of the imagery throughout the video is great--so classic, so iconic, so familiar but so vibrant and fresh. You know, if there was ever going to be something that hipsters latched onto and made them finally come around to Lana, it’s this video, as repugnant as that thought may be. I love the actors that were chosen and the authenticity they bring to the video. News flash for some of you: those guys are probably a lot more desirable to some women than you care to think. Man, i would KILL to be unit photographer on this set! The cinematography is great (though, in my opinion, still doesn’t top the BJ cinematography). The whole thing could have been a little rawer, but, still, this feels like real, early ’70s first wave of American independent cinema. My only problem in this regard is how fast the editing is--i HATE what has become the standard pacing of editing.
 
Re: the headdress: I cringed very hard during those shots. Not sure what she’s aiming for there. Why is that there? However, she wouldn’t be Lana Del Rey if there wasn’t something problematic about her, and i like that about her. It's interesting to see the image of a gun being held up to a Native headdress, that's for sure. What’s funny is that for some people (those who just don’t “get it”), it takes blatant mocking of a culture or explicitly stated disdain to consider something offensive/insensitive/careless toward a culture, and these scenes, it seems, would actually fit their narrow view of insensitivity, because they actually do seem to be mocking of Native cultures (acting “crazy” in the desert with alcohol and guns!) However, on the other hand, from my subjective standpoint, i myself as the viewer am also able to take away a completely different interpretation of whatever Native metaphor may be embedded in there, and that is freedom. Which is what the whole video is about, right? Now, that’s obviously not a very common association to draw from Native Americans, but think about pre-Colonial America--is that not absolutely representative of freedom if there ever was such a thing? (i.e. a more fundamental freedom rather than a bogus, empty concept of freedom, i.e. McFreedom). Still, though, this feels fucking uncomfortable. Surprise, surprise, it's Lana Del Rey.
 
Oh, one last thing: i don’t understand why the audio quality in all her videos is so poor. This seriously sounds like it’s 240p. I really hate the internet, it is the great destroyer of everything. Can you imagine after all the time, effort, energy, money, talent, and skill that went into the engineering and production of the song, and the production of the video, that this compressed-to-death video on youtube is what comes out? Oy. Hopeless times for art.

I think the whole point of it was that she found comfort in those greasy guys most people consider 'trash' and she found freedom in that messy lifestyle. It's all romanticized and whatnot, but I find it really inspiring and it just made me think a lot...

a slow sultry santa baby.

In this interview she said that, in 2008, she recorded 13 songs with David Kahne (the AKA) but they only put the EP at first. And well videos of Mermaid Motel, Brite Lites and Put Me In A Movie were uploaded on 2008 too.

Ooops, well then I got something entirely different out of it! I have to rewatch that part.
 
I do think she chose the worst part of the song to wear the headdress, but it was also the most effective part to wear it as well.
 
 
Political correctness? It's not about being politically correct, it's about having respect. I don't know. I just feel very strongly about this. The city I live in has the highest population of Aboriginals in the world. I see the most disgusting racism, I see a proud people that are still suffering from the effects of colonialism, broken promises, residential schools -- and if they live on a reservation, a standard of living comparable to those in third-world countries... I am constantly exposed to it. Native issues are not something that I see once in a while when I'm flipping past a news channel, it's something I see every fucking single day just living in my city. It's just very, very sad to me.

Stone Mary makes the most sense IMO.

Welcome! I took that video, I'm feeling super famous right now.

I felt sad because of the way she's forced to think, especially in light of her fame...I think the monologue basically said she finally felt happiness and freedom after watching all her dreams and expectations of fame turn into something else entirely. A good perspective, but sad that's she's driven to that.
 
I'm glad there wasn't any death. Years from now, when she better still be making music, I want to look back at the deaths in the Born to Die videos and feel fond of the theme--because that was the album, Born to DIE. I don't want it to become a schtick, which it would if she kept doing it. But for the whole era in a grand scheme, it was pretty cool.

Easily her best video to date and the best video of 2012. I am AMAZED by this woman, she is one of a kind.
 
The makeup, the hair, the outfits, the ride scenes, the monologue, everything fit the song and it fit the meaning of the song very well and it really makes you think. It seriously really does, you know what I mean? This is just absolute perfection.
 
And I don't know about any of you but if her album doesn't leak before the release, I won't care because I respect her and love her enough to wait. Because if this was worth the wait, so is the album.

American Dad is seriously the best thing ever, Family Guy is really fucking funny and the Clevland Show isn't my kinda thing. Anyways, did you know that Seth went to the same boarding school as Lana?
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgqRnlOEhoE
GUESS WHO'S WATCHING THE OSCARS