Vertimus

A wasted opportunity and unworthy of an artist of Lana's stature, and her team—whoever green-lighted the YouTube rips, Lana or otherwise.

Agreed. And the leaked tracks should have been remastered, or sterling copies from the vault should have been used. I would also have liked I Talk to Jesus on it, not for religious reasons, but because it's beautifully produced.

It sure is, not in the objective sense, but as my favorite. Ocean Blvd is at the bottom.

I wouldn't dare post my list.

What a great album, I am still not tired of it.

I agree, and it's about time. It's not as if men don't experience sadness, loneliness, disappointment, rage, etc. They certainly do and getting in touch with those very common feelings rather than attempting to suppress them will do them a world of good. And men can do that with biologically male artists like Jeff Buckley, Anderson East, or Lord Huron too. I'm old enough to remember when men as well as women listened to Carly Simon, Fleetwood Mac, Linda Ronstadt, or Heart and bought their records routinely without thinking of it as women's music. And then for Pat Benatar, Madonna, Sheila E., Sade, Joan Jett, etc. It was towards the end of the 80s and into the early 90s, in the midst of Grunge, that I started hearing rumblings about women's music, which some female artists actually promoted, thus there was Lilith Fair, composed of only female artists. Tori Amos refused to be a part of it on the grounds that she didn't create music for a specific audience or gender. My advice is just open your ears and spirit and listen, without preconceived notions of what you like or don't like.

I think we are seeing change—I'm seeing it here in NYC. If young male athletes can unselfconsciously wear pink shorts or paint their fingernails black on a lark, then young people are thinking in a freer and broader fashion. If some men (or women) can't relate to Lana, so be it. We don't need them to and neither does Lana. Everyone is free to like what they like, and as a result, sometimes we hear things we find stupid, like "Oh, Lana Del Rey? THAT'S Women's Music." The same thing was said for decades about Tori Amos. Anyway, headlining venues like Coachella will help free people of the notion that Lana's music is written for or appeals primarily to women.

I agree her fanbase seems to be predominantly composed of women and "queer men," as you call them. But no one considers Elvis Presely's or Frank Sinatra's music men's music, or Led Zepplin's, Jeff Buckely's, or 21 Pilots' either. There is misogyny involved insofar as some men seem to automatically think of Lorde's or Lana's music as women's music, when I don't think they would say the same thing about, say, Amy Winehouse. Unfortunately, too many people think in a kind of cultural shorthand that actually doesn't involve thinking on their part, just the spontaneous acceptance of outdated cultural stereotypes. Among the young, I'm happy to see heterosexual-leaning male high school athletes unselfconsciously buying and wearing pink shorts, sneakers, or Crocs without even considering "but pink is for girls." I do think, culturally, we're moving in the right direction in that regard, at least among the young—which is where it counts.

I agree—there's nothing wrong with sad songs. Even the classic era of the 1920 through the 1950s produced songs like I'm A Fool To Want You, 'Round Midnight, In The Wee Small Hours of the Morning, Hurt, Last Night When We Were Young, My Funny Valentine, Bewitched, Bothered, & Bewildered, etc. Emotional pain and vulnerability have been with humankind since the get-go. Lana also has a lot of songs like American, Mariner's Apartment Complex, Venice Bitch, Video Games, COCC, Let the Light In, Violets for Roses, Not All Who Wander Are Lost, Margaret, Tomorrow Never Came, If You Lie Down With Me, Wild At Heart, Radio, National Anthem, God Bless America, etc., that are not sad, but happy, hopeful, celebratory, wise, romantic, etc., or bittersweet, like Arcadia. I look for both of these sides from Lana. It's not a Spotify, it's a private iTunes playlist. Otherwise, I'd be glad to share it.

I have a playlist called Darkness Makes it Easy which contains only 'negative' songs, sad songs, angry songs, crazy songs, songs of disappointment, even stalking songs like Bette Midler's terrifying cover of Moon Martin's My Eye On You. There's a lot of Lana Del Rey songs on it. I listen to it a lot when I'm in a bad or sad mood. It helps a lot.

I don't think Lana's fanbase is any more depressed than others today. Lana does not make us depressed with songs like Hope, Yosemite, 13 Beaches, Wildfire Wildflower, or Old Money; these songs free our depression and sadness, frustration, anger, and occasional hopelessness. It's a long tradition going back to the birth of rock n' roll, and, before rock n' roll, blues and folk music. Very few artists from Elvis Presley, Sam Cooke, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Velvet Underground, Marianne Faithfull in her 60s era, Bob Dylan, the Supremes, Smokey Robinson, Tim Buckley, Joaz Baez, Al Green, and Nico to James Taylor, Carole King, Joni Mitchell, classic Elton John, David Bowie, Queen, the Patti Smith Group, Bruce Springsteen, the Dead Boys, Fleetwood Mac, Kate Bush, the Pretenders, the Clash, Elvis Costello, Lene Lovich, Blondie, early Ultravox, the Police, Red Hot Chili Peppers, R.E.M., Sade, Tina Turner, Tori Amos, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Jeff Buckley, Fiona Apple, Natalie Merchant, Lloyd Cole, Amy Winehouse, Kassidy, Anderson East, 21 Pilots, Lord Huron, Rayland Baxter, Father John Misty, Paul Cauthen, the Ruen Brothers, Billie Eilish, etc. have not sang sad songs. Sadness and all that comes with it--alienation, frustration, loneliness, anger, jealousy, envy, etc.--is a big part of life. Thousands of people take their lives because of it every year. Lana's sad songs are meditations on a theme and cathartic and freeing, not the opposite. I don't buy the "Sad Girl Shit" argument, or the "Women's Music" label, which I find incredibly stupid.

Thank you—though I've never seen Nico, Joni Mitchell, Tori Amos, Carly Simon (who rarely if ever tours), or Lana, and probably never will see Lana, though of course I'd love to. I've lived in NYC for a long time and that's made it very easy to see so many fantastic musicians, like J. Buckley when he was almost an unknown playing in the East Village.

Thank you, I've made it a point to see as many artists I admire as possible, and on occasion was just in the right place at the right time (Jeff Buckley and Yma Sumac, for example).

I find that people's expectations of live shows are usually too high. It's the experience that counts, not the vocal and instrumental perfection that makes the event. Being from another generation than most of you, some acts I've seen live, like Jeff Buckley, Leonard Cohen, the Rolling Stones, Yma Sumac, and Midnight Oil, and, in days of yore, The Clash, the Sex Pistols, the Pretenders, the Cars, and Linda Ronstadt were spot-on and perfect without sacrificing energy or originality, while others, like Blondie, Fleetwood Mac, and Marianne Faithfull--whom I've seen more times than any other artist--sounded less than letter-perfect, to put it mildly (though Faithfull's performances varied wildly from excellent to poor). In the cases of Blondie and Fleetwood Mac, sometimes it was almost impossible to identify which song they were playing, so disorganized were the arrangements and weak the vocals. I think we all know by this time that, in terms of sound and vocals, Lana's songs are not going to sound exactly like the studio versions for several reasons, like those stated here, cutting the bridges, skipping verses, or an audio set-up that doesn't quite do her vocals justice. As I've said here before, Lana doesn't have the powerhouse voice of a Whitney Houston, an Anne Wilson, a Mariah Carey, or a Linda Ronstadt, vocalists who could almost break a crystal glass with their voices. So I wouldn't expect that. Just seeing Lana enter on the back of that motorcycle was enough for me.

Lana, not Billie, is the voice of "our generation." So many people, late to the party, are just waking up to that fact, and even to her existence. Despite all the hardships, obstacles, and press attacks, Lana has persevered and had a truly admirable career.