Vertimus

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a kind of cultural shorthand that actually doesn't involve thinking on their part, just the spontaneous acceptance of outdated cultural stereotypes.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.

I think she should just perform whatever songs she wants to from her catalog, which is pretty vast at this point, even excluding unreleased material. I wouldn't want her to sing Video Games or Summertime Sadness because fans expect it. We should want her to be true to herself and what she's feeling in a given moment, even though I'm sure the setlist is established in advance. At this point, she's almost like Tori Amos in regard to the size of her catalog; so if Lana were to sing two or three of your favorites while you're at her show, I think you have to be grateful. Like most artists, she's probably going to do more material from recent or new albums than older ones.

There used to be quite a few members here who had a very superior attitude and made LB a miserable experience. Thank goodness most are gone.

It’s my least favorite.

I love COCC too (though BB remains my favorite---and BB also does not get the love it deserves). The stark Yosemite is a career high point for me. Wild at Heart is pure fun.

Beautifully said. I agree. I find it hilarious that it's thought her worst album by some, though I accept it and it's a fair enough opinion. For me, it's leagues better than Ocean Boulevard, which I find redundant (Sweet, Fishtail, and The Grants especially), maudlin (the title track), badly produced and vocally shrill in parts (Grandfather), and self-sabotaging (Margaret would have been much better without the spoken outro). Taco Truck, to me the most interesting song on the album, seems like a wasted opportunity by merging into VB. BB has to be looked at objectively as an album, not as a record that was released too soon after COCC. I don't care for the BB title track, wish the unreleased tracks had been cleaned up or remastered, prefer the earlier version of Thunder, and the Ennio Morricone track doesn't serve a purpose, but Arcadia, BBS, IFLDWM, WFWF, Textbook, and VFR are fantastic, and certainly more invigorating than Let Me Love You Like A Woman or TJF, for example. Beautiful, to me, is not offensive and something like the milder tracks on NFR! Sweet Carolina is perhaps too personal a song to be wildly appreciated, but I think we can all understand if not directly relate to its lyrics. I realize some find the BLM lyric in TB exploitive, superficial, or in bad taste, but I don't personally. She's writing of her time, just as she refers to the pandemic in BBS and VFR. I'm glad Lana shared what she did on WFWF—it's pretty scathing to me, and, as a piece of songwriting, one of her best. Like Hope, it elevates her as a songwriter, even if, again, not everyone can see themselves in its words (I can). As a revenge album, she certainly does get some revenge on Arcadia, BBS, and WFWF. I expected more revenge too, but I like what I've found. I predominantly look for beauty and melody, and the subtle but pure melodies of IYLDWM and VFR are among her best for me. I'm glad BBS is on the pop side, just as WAH was on COCC. A little levity is a good thing. There's always a lot of sociology going on on Lanaboards, and it's true that members often express love for unreleased tracks until they're officially released and then the knives come out for them. I think BB has a bad rep on Lanaboards because of sociology and mass influence. As I've said before, I would love to learn what members would think about a particular song or album over time if they were unable to access the internet and Lanaboard and had, over a period of weeks or months, to come to their own conclusions about a record. I think we'd see a different outcome, maybe a very different outcome, than "NFR! is hands-down Lana's best!" and a lot of the other opinions we typically see expressed over and over and over. My apologies for accidentally posting it before I had finished.

She looks terrific. As mentioned, she looks like the Lana of a much earlier era.

Got it, thank you.

What is this "jazz Y&B" of which you all speak? The orchestrated version at 3:52? Or the Bryan Ferry Orchestra version sans Lana?

I see, thanks. That's a shame because I think Blue Skies is 100% better than Country Roads, which to my ear sounds like a first-run demo.

At least iTunes has it, which is where I bought a copy. I feel artifice is one of Lana's fortes, so I hope she responded well to the results and might want to move in that direction after Lasso. It's time for a proper LDR jazz or jazz-like record; the genre is vast. An album of uptempo standards in this witty Blue Skies style would be welcomed.

The more I listen to it, the more I love it. It’s very creative. I’d like to see her do a lot more in this vein.

It’s nice she was included and tried to do something different with it. It sounds to me as if the Munchkins are singing the background vocals, and the whole track has a strange sort-of Broadway/Oz vibe. I would much rather she try to do something creative with a classic than the dull read-through she did with CRTMH.

If Lana is thinking about a return to any of her pre-NFR! sound after Lasso, I'm for it. I did appreciate the more uptempo songs on OB--I still feel Taco Truck was a missed opportunity--and BBS from BB. Rick Nowels did some amazing work with her. I prefer his work with her to JA's overall. And if she's feeling up to some pure pop, terrific. There's nothing wrong with lightening up a bit. I was just listening to Making Out yesterday and it's still powerful, fun, and amazing. I love the Hollywood sound too.

Thank you. I love American, so that's a plus for me. I hope we all hear it before too long.