Vertimus

I've been saying that here for years, but a lot of people seem to think it spoils the game. They'd rather bitch and moan. I think SYTH is finding success because it's accessible to the general public and has been super cleaned-up, making it both accessible, streamlined, and relatable insofar as the refrain is about love and easy to grasp. There's a huge segment of the general public that wants simple, catchy pop songs, and aren't particularly interested in 'art,' if at all.

It sounds as if Lana will be singing on two tracks--not just humming in the background--"Lana lends her voice and lyrics, smokey and full, to the songs 'Lost at Sea' and 'Hollywood Bowl.' We'll know shortly. I am looking forward to them; I like several of the (non-vocal) tracks already released. Thank you, Elle.

Same with me. This version of SYTH is simply too streamlined for my taste, period, that's all. My taste.

Enjoy it. You'll be happier and that will make the world a brighter place. I like SYTH, the original or earlier version with the accordion or concertina or whatever it was, and I have all the leaked versions. I was referring to the General Public, the non-Stan, the non-fan, who may happen onto the song or find it in the 'new releases' section and give it a stream. That's all. Calm down. Thank you.

I'm agreeing with you, and asking if what you stated was actual and factual. That's all. How does that bother you?

Thank you. So SYTH is out streaming it?

Is that a fact, TWB? It wouldn't surprise me; the general public has no taste, and a simple song that is unchallenging and in a traditional format would probably win hands down over something that requires real listening and may require some intelligence and effort. The Dog and the Scent Bottle - Charles Baudelaire Come here, my dear, good, beautiful doggie, and smell this excellent perfume which comes from the best perfumer of Paris. And the dog, wagging his tail, which, I believe, is that poor creature's way of laughing and smiling, came up and put his curious nose on the uncorked bottle. Then, suddenly, he backed away in terror, barking at me reproachfully. "Ah miserable dog, if i had offered you a package of excrement you would have sniffed at it with delight and perhaps gobbled it up. In this you resemble the public, which should never be offered delicate perfumes that infuriate them, but only carefully selected garbage."

I don't see it either, either on my Mac or iPhone.

Yeah, it’s very ho-hum.

Thanks--sounds great. Definitely an album highlight for me.

I think there's a definite touch of classic-era Rita Hayworth too, as in her famous 'Put the Blame on Mame' number from 'Gilda.'

Barrie! Such a great voice.

Okay. If you're making an association between the contents of the album, especially CN, the title track, and A&W, I'm not approaching the album in terms of the Black Dahlia at all, before or after I learned about the making of the CN video. As I see it, there is no correlation between the Black Dahlia murder and the lyrics to 'Candy Necklace.' My guess is that, after writing 'Candy Necklace,' and perhaps favoring it (which would explain why she replaced 'Purify' with it) and thinking in terms of a music video, she or she and her team thought of doing a video around the theme of the Black Dahlia. We don't know when Lana first learned about the Dahlia murder, but I think anyone who has seriously looked into the case and seen the most gruesome photos can attest that it is a extremely haunting case, full of lost hope, innocence, and promise, tragedy, and yes, torture and the most extreme kind of violence. So perhaps the case is relatively new to Lana. So making a kind of low-key 'tribute' to the case seems reasonable to me; Lana doesn't exploit the case, in my opinion, as she might have. And obviously, Marilyn Monroe is highlighted too, and she had her own sad story and demise.

You mean the bloody trunk? As I just said above, to my knowledge, there was never a large bloody trunk, or a trunk of any kind, associated with the murder of the BD. Her severed corpse was first come upon by a mother and a little boy; the body was just off the sidewalk in a field. How it got there is still part of the mystery. No one believes she was actually murdered in the field. There's at least a dozen books about the case, check them out, some quite gruesome, but all full of speculation and guess work. It's a case similar to the Jack the Ripper murders, in which everyone and their mothers have been put forth as candidates for the killing. CORRECTION: It was a little girl and her mother, not a boy.

For me, a body seen severed in two in the distance by an approaching little boy and the boy's mother, just off a sidewalk in a field, would have been pushing it far, or any visual, blurry or clear, of the horrible things the killer did to the BD's face. Since the BD herself was never a star or starlet, never rode around Hollywood in limousines (or the equivalent), was never met by paparazzi when she exited a vehicle, and never attended an Hollywood opening in such style, the woman portrayed could be any 40s star or starlet, and there was also, to the best of my knowledge, no association of the BD with a bloody trunk.

Absolutely, though George Hodel was never officially charged as the BD murderer and said murderer has never been 100% identified--like Jack the Ripper. There's numerous candidates, including famous persons like Woody Guthrie, Orson Welles, and May Ray; most or all have been ruled out, though Man Ray was an associate of George Hodel. I'm glad Lana didn't push the Black Dahlia stuff very far at all--maybe she realized it was a mistake and bad karma to go too far down that road.

Great video, one of her best. And Lana rises like a phoenix at the end.

Agreed. What can we take from 'Peppers' except that it's a bop or an attempt at one? Personally, I think it succeeds. 'Taco Truck' has the 'cynical cool' of "pass me my vape, I'm feeling sick, I need to take a puff, imagine if we actually gave a fuck, wouldn't that be something to talk about for us?" and "blood on my feet on the street." I love it but doesn't fit in with the kintsugi theme even when it moves into 'VB.' Since Leonard Cohen came up with the 'there's a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in' lyrics on his album 'The Future' in 1992, though the concept of kintsugi no doubt predated that by centuries, well, I assume Lana embraced the concept, and her partial use of his lyrics might be another 'classic album/song tribute' like her references to 'Hotel California,' 'Lay, Lady, Lay,' and Cohen's own 'I'm Your Man.'

Full agree. Thanks. Also, I still notice an ominous silence here around the meaning and/or interpretations of 'A&W.'

LTLI, I've been listening to it a lot and what strikes me is how much it jumps around stylistically; 'Candy Necklace,' 'Margaret,' 'Peppers,' 'Paris, Tx,' and 'LTLI' don't sound to me as if they come from the same album, which, as I said, is okay with me. Nor do I get any sort of 'overall message' or mood from the album, also no problem. I'm listening to it as a collection of single songs or favorite songs among the track list. OB, I'd like to have the experience of being able to see it that way, hear it that way.

A lot of members here talk a lot about 'album cohesion' and its importance to them, so I'm wondering how they feel about 'album cohesion' on OC. Some of the songs fit together musically and/or thematically (especially the 'sweet' songs,' which I call the 'sweet suite'), while others only fit together thematically (like 'A&W' and 'Candy Necklace'). 'Fingertips' and 'Kintsugi' go well together because they have similar structures. Taken as a whole, though, I can't mesh 'LTLI' with 'A&W' in terms of mood, theme, or music, and certainly 'Margaret,' one of the sweet songs, and 'A&W' don't mesh, nor do 'Margaret' and 'Peppers.' 'Paris, Texas,' perhaps suitably, is out there in the wilderness on its own. Since 'cohesion' or 'cohesiveness' are not important to me, I'm not personally bothered. How does everyone else feel?

"When I look back Tracing fingertips over plastic bags." That's pretty bad.

It's great fun! Thanks for chiming in. But it's still great. I wouldn't mind an entire new album of Making Outs and MMITPM.

Let's not forget Making Out. To me, that's pure early Lana. It makes a good step-sister to Meet Me in the Pale Moonlight.

Full agree. I don't need the VB parts at all, but I accept them because they're there and VB is a good song in itself.