Vertimus

But there's so much she does--like attending the Met Gala--that she doesn't have to do but continues to do, and she clearly loves the red carpet and being professionally photographed, so I wouldn't personally say she dislikes present-day fame. Look at the Waffle House thing--what was that, if not an unusual bid for attention? I believe she loves all the attention showered on her by designers and the people who make her concert dresses/costumes, as well as the people who produce the more extravagant aspects of her shows--which she clearly has to green-light in some manner.

I think she cares a great deal about her career, about potentially squandering any sort of buildup she's achieved, about continuing to have access to the stage--which she calls home. That Leo moon doesn't let go easily. Whether some or more Americans under 40 now recognize her name, she probably cares not at all.

Her public profile is so high right now—especially after the acclaimed concerts and the Tough single—some average Americans under 40 years old actually recognize her name now--it would be a waste of all this buildup for her to release nothing until next year.

That's a good way to put it. I don't understand why it's overlooked, even despised by some, the way it is.

I agree about what she meant by the Video Games comment, and while I didn't care much for Arcadia when it was released, it's grown on me more than any other LDR song and I love it now.

And then HIAB as released was such a disappointment to me. I rank it among the worst of her officially-released songs, which is a very short list. I don't see that happening with Henry, if Henry ever sees release.

It was the absolute worst, made worse by the viciousness of some of the routine attacks here. I'm so glad those days are over. I'd rather get no news and no snippets at all than "I really don't know when it's going to come out" from Lana and two singles released a year before the album itself, and then reversals and incorrect information. In the broadest fashion possible, I think she's learned not to over-promise. Is she the most mercurial artist ever when it comes to statements about releases? YES.

SUCH A BEAUTIFUL SONG. Thanks for reminding me.

I agree with everything American Whore said here.

I'm glad I'm reading these latest posts because so much of the OB producing and mixing sounds muddy and awful to my ears. To me, all of the new tracks on Blue Banisters sound 100% better. This is why I have 'problems' with Jack A., though I liked his production on Lorde's Solar Power.

Thanks, everyone. I must have been asleep. I missed so much. How beautiful Lana looks and how nice to see her dueting with Mason Ramsey and Stephen Sanchez. Her connection to artists around her continues.

Thank you, LTLI.

Thanks, Embach. I appreciate it. Maybe I can find a video on YouTube. It sounds like something I'd appreciate.

What intro? Did I miss something? Was it played when she toured?

And during Tori Amos's heyday, there was a wisely-titled website called A Dent in the Tori Universe—a dent because it acknowledged that a dent was really all fans and Stans could make, in fact, in the almost equally-complex world of Amos at the time.

Let's not forget the BB release and the lack of fanfare—though we did get the three singles first. But we also got several title and date changes. Right now Lana appears to be strangely unenthused about Lasso and there has to be one or more [hopefully good] reasons for that, beyond the fact that other non-country artists are also releasing 'country' albums and it might have been finished a year ago or longer. Who knows? We do know she's quite mercurial and if we're honest, we know a lot less about her than we tend to assume we do. She's a real Cancer, hiding her real self under a rock—or "in the ballroom of her mind." There's got to be so much going on in her life at all times—planning meetings with managers, lawyers, and labels (and sometimes detectives due to her stalkers and the theft of her hard drives), songwriting, recording, choosing musicians, live performances and appearances, performance wardrobes and fittings for special events like the Met Gala, upkeep of her several homes, travel arrangements, romance, regular contact with her family and other artists Holly Macve and Tough—being an introvert, all of that would drive me crazy and make me a hermit. If you look at it from that perspective, it's easier to see why we don't know nearly as much as we think we do—and even when she's made official announcements like release dates and projects like the Covers album, they often fall by the wayside for reasons unknown and go unexplained—forever! As I said before, in the late 1980s and 1990s some universities started courses called 'Madonna Studies' due to her international success at the time—I'd like to see a course called 'Lana Studies' at a major university. Lana is a universe all on her own—a rabbit hole as well as a transversible worm hole!

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 Beautiful People, Beautiful Problems 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.