Vertimus

My taste is not typical of this fanbase, generally speaking. And I'm not a great fan of any of the OB album. If limited to 22, I would choose: Video Games Summertime Sadness (the album original) Ride Yayo Bel Air Gods & Monsters Cola Wait For Life West Coast Sad Girl Old Money Terrence Loves You Swan Song 13 Beaches Heroin The Greatest Venice Bitch Yosemite If You Lie Down With Me Arcadia Wildflower Wildfire Let the Light In And if I could select some additional tracks, they would be: National Anthem Radio American Brooklyn Baby Is This Happiness Music To Watch Boys To Salvatore When the World Was At War White Mustang Mariners Apartment Complex Hope Chemtrails Over the Country Club White Dress Violets For Roses, and Fishtail AND if I could include unreleased songs, I'd add: Live or Die (original) Last Girl on Earth Dragon Slayer Unidentified Flying Bill Fine China I Talk to Jesus If I Die Young Serene Queen

Full agree, Dita. I'd like the world to have the chance to really hear Lana's very best, not just the ones the general public knows or sort of knows, which I don't think are reflective of her catalog for the most part.

I don't think a 'Best Of' or 'Greatest Hits' album will show the world (or reflect) the real Lana by any means. I'd prefer a 'Best of' between the two because then at least someone--preferably Lana herself--who knows the scope and depth of her music can make educated choices. I wouldn't think much of a Greatest Hits album that contains Video Games, Off To the Races, the Cedric Gervais Summertime Sadness remix, Young & Beautiful, Ride, and then a smattering of tracks released as singles like Love, Lust For Life, Venice Bitch, A&W, the OB title track and one of her poems. I'd prefer Lana wait and release a career retrospective that is truly representative of her body of work, like Tori Amos did in 2006 with A Piano.

There's actually 3—my mistake--and yes, NFR! is one. I never expect more than 2-3 songs I like on any current album, by any current artist and that's going back some years. Taco Truck 'worked out' without the VB half would have been the highlight of the album for me.

As I said, I think Lana, in her disappointment, may just drop Lasso without fanfare, the way she dropped Blue Banisters. We all know how she often loses enthusiasm for a project--which is understandable once something is recorded and finished and won't see release for another eight months to a year-- or gets in a muddle and compromises or radically changes the initial conception. She's already onto to the next project.

We think alike! Maybe we're fraternal twins. I also vastly preferred the original Thunder. Sometimes I think it is Blue Banisters the song that turns people off--as it does me due to all the Nikki Lane namedropping stuff--and so people just turn away from the album altogether. Fishtail and Taco Truck are two of my favorites from OB, though there is no single track on OB that I can say I love wholeheartedly for one (good) reason or another. For me, there are too many badly-produced retreads (The Grants, Sweet, Grandfather) and A&W seems to me more like an attempt to sound 'edgy,' naughty, current, and relevant more than anything else. OB is my least favorite of all her albums, and for me, that's saying a lot, because there are two others I'm not very fond of.

I hope it will see release, and this year. As I've said here before, country music is the oldest American genre short of fife and drum music, so why she would be bothered to be a part of a trend, or be seen to be a part of one, I can't understand. For almost any artist in any genre, making a country album could hardly be seen as original.

Thank you, GLF. I'm looking at Lasso the opposite way due to her interview remarks 6 or 8 weeks back and nothing since---that perhaps it will be released with a minimum of fanfare, radio spots, videos, promotion, etc. due to her feeling that she's been beaten to the gate by other artists.

Yeah, maybe she's written it off the way she almost completely downplayed the release of Blue Banisters.

For me, that's true many times over.

I would nominate HIAB, which I consider her worst released track; the 'happiness is a butterfly' part is beautiful and then all that rabbit in the alley **** and 'youhoo' stuff comes in and ruins the song completely. It sounds like two different songs badly mashed together, the second being a bomb.

I've been saying this here about OB--the album--since its release; I'm glad you hear it the same way. Some or most members find its sound immaculate. Let The Light In is almost ruined by the muffled sound, and it's my favorite on the album which, admittedly, I don't care for much.

Full agree— The Greatest is up there with Yayo, Cola, Ride, Video Games, Old Money, 13 Beaches, Heroin, Yosemite, and If You Lie Down With Me in my book—among the best of her [released] songs to my ear. It would have made a perfect album closer, just as 13 Beaches should have opened LFL.

A brave thread indeed.

It's amazing how much we think alike. I don't understand the love for OB--the album and the single. It's badly produced and engineered to my ear, two songs seem like rewrites of earlier songs (not including Taco Truck), her vocals aren't great (especially on Grandfather) and the second half of Margaret is a mess. I place OB at the bottom of my listing of her albums. I don't care for the graphics either. As I said in the Tough thread, for me, trip-hop Lana is one of the best Lanas, and I remain more a fan of her earlier work than her latter, though I've been able to find 3-4 songs I like well enough on most of her post-LFL records, OB being the exception and BB, the album, working best for me with such stunning moments as If You Lie Down With Me, even if it was originally written for or about the time of UV, and WFWF. I don't care for the BB title track or the silly bridge, but I like everything else.

Me too.

Great song, great choice.

Violets For Roses. One of my Top 5 Lana songs too.

Perhaps…these are a precursor?

Trip hop Lana is one of the best Lanas.

Tori Amos too.

I mean in terms of the production, mastering, and clarity. Not the song itself.

100 times better than most of OB, sound-wise.

I've been following this case since it surfaced in the late 90s. That he got away with it for decades is amazing; there have been numerous programs about it, often two-or-three-parters, on Oxygen and I.D. Discovery, as well as network news shows. But they've got him now. It was wonderful of Lana to write this tribute/memorial to the victims. Now we just need a HQ version.

I believe that's correct. Noon EST. Will it leak today?