Vertimus

Right. It's a matter of crispness and especially clarity, not a issue of volume or loudness.

Live or Die, original version.

Personal favorites, rough order: 1) The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - 1969; Maggie Smith wins Oscar for Best Actress 2) Blow-Up - 1966 3) I Walked With a Zombie - 1943; Francis Dee; rough reworking of 'Jane Eyre' set in the Caribbean 4) Plenty - 1985 - Meryl Streep, Charles Dance, Sting, Tracy Ullman 5) Blue Velvet - 1986 6) Arturo's Island - 1962, Italian 7) Manhattan - 1979 8) Annie Hall - 1977 9) Pandora's Box - 1929; German; Silent; Louise Brooks 10) The Women - 1939; Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Paulette Goddard, Joan Fontaine 11) The Trouble With Harry - 1955; Hitchcock Comedy; Shirley MacLaine, John Forsythe, Jerry Mathers, Ed Gwen 12) On the Waterfront - 1954; Brando at his best 13) Meet Me in St. Louis - 1944; ensemble Cast 14) The Creature from the Black Lagoon - 1954; He needs no introductions 15) Mr. Deeds Goes to Town - 1936; Gary Cooper 16) Sirens - 1994; Hugh Grant; mysticism in the Australian outback 17) Curse of the Demon / Night of the Demon - 1957; British; Dana Andrews, Peggy Cummins 18) Carnival of Souls - 1962; independent Horror film [Lana quotes from in the '13 Beaches' intro] 19) All About Eve - 1950; Bette Davis, Marilyn Monroe in cameo 20) Metropolis - 1927; German; Silent For me, one of the greatest scenes in all of film is when the bratty little girl in 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof' carelessly drops her ice cream on the Elizabeth Taylor character's elegant shoe, and ET picks the ice cream up and smashes it into the girl's face. Wouldn't we all like to do something like that once in life.

I don't think it's her worst album, but I have an intuition that it is sort of an end in a way, or the end of a cycle, or of another cycle. If she is indeed engaged and will marry soon (I'm not 100% convinced of this, due to the fairly large number of men she's been involved with over the last 11 years), I think she will shortly want one or more children, and then inevitably her life will change, including her creative life. If so, then once she has a child, it may be a perfect time to release some sort of career retrospective of some kind, large or small, with a certain amount of unreleased material, or the 'American Standards' album if that was ever completed, or the next poetry record.

THE GREAT KENNETH ANGER. 'Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome' is a fantastic short film, and I'm so glad to have a copy of the original. It's amazing that he's still alive, at 96. He influenced so many people well before more public, multimedia art figures like Andy Warhol emerged.

Here comes my Tori Amos reference for the week: Shortly after she released one of her masterpieces, 'Scarlet's Walk' in 2002, Tori released a live DVD called 'Welcome to Sunny Florida,' which also included a "bonus" DC called 'Scarlet's Hidden Treasures," which contained 6 outtakes from 'Scarlet's Walk.' And that's what everyone wanted, not the live DVD , which was tepid. Some of Amos's best songs are on 'SHT' (excuse the acronym), so maybe Lana could do something like that. Curating the album would take some real thought and decisiveness, and perhaps that's not something she'd feel up to now, as it seems she responds more to her own whims rather than anything planned or preconceived. Imagine a 20-track album of both leaked songs and outtakes that were completed but never used and about which we knew nothing, like 'Dragon Slayer.' If 10 of the songs were 'new' and unleaked, I think her stans would really get excited. She could simply call it 'Lana Del Rey: Outtakes' or 'LDR: Unreleased' and the critics could get the idea through a short press release. Her label could have low expectations for it reaching the general public and generating sales; it would really just be a project for her stans. But who knows, in these days of TikTok? 'Hollywood' deserves an official release. For me, with 'Cola,' it's one of the fundamental Lana songs, sort of a blueprint for so many songs and themes in that era. It has such glamor, such verve, and so much carefree assertiveness. "One day, I'll drive in a gold Mercedes Benz, singing opera on Bel Air Road, hair to my ass will be flying in the wind." That's one of the Lanas I love.

Not at this point--it seems the moment for that has passed. It also raised the question of whether she would release the originals or rerecord them--rerecording seems to defeat the purpose--but after Lana releasing the low quality copies of the leaked songs on BB, would we get more of the same? No thanks. When and if she releases a career retrospective, hopefully that will be the time she'll release high res copies of 'Fine China,' 'Serene Queen,' 'Live or Die,' 'Angels Forever,' 'Hollywood,' 'Dragon Slayer,' etc., as well as a lot of other unreleased, but never-leaked tracks, we still know nothing about.

I'd rather listen to UFB than anything on OC.

And I love LFL for the most part: '13 Beaches,' 'WTWWAWWKOD,' 'White Mustang,' 'Heroin,' 'BPBP,' 'Tomorrow Never Came,' 'God Bless America,' 'Summer Bummer,' 'IMF,' and 'Cherry,' and I've warmed to 'Love' well enough. The rest I don't care for (though I loved the piano-driver original demo version of 'LFL'), but I was more than happy with it then and remain so.

I think that expresses it well.

Did the original member mean, by "converted," the word in the strict sense, people who previously didn't like Lana or had previously written her off as an artist? I can see a lot of reasons why this might happen, some of which have nothing to do with the musical content of OC per se. There's no doubt that some see something risqué in 'A&W,' the same way 'Dealer' caught the attention of so many on Tik Tok for a few weeks. That is, there's a kind of temporary novelty value to a particular track, and the transition and the 'Jimmy Jimmy Coco Puffs' part would certainly help that along. Also, 'OC' has so much Stan energy behind it, and overall positive critical reaction, that a generalized internet buzz might very likely influence a lot of people across the world, a combination of word-of-mouth and trendiness. We've seen how so many here have responded to the title track, so it's likely that millions of others, of 'outsiders' or 'newbies' have as well, have related to it. And for some, who haven't listened to a Lana album since LFL or even BTD/P, its soundscape might not mesh with their negative expectations at all, and so they're responding to it as something new in her catalog.

I've had the same reaction. I like it, but I don't crave it, and for me, that's partly because it doesn't have the crisp, direct, immediate sound I like with her music, regardless of the song structure. I remember with a former album, I literally walked around Manhattan and Brooklyn for half a year listening to it and never tired of it, because it energized and held my attention all that time. And I still love that album.

Very likely, since it had that effect on most of us. and she refers to it on BBS and VFR. Yes-- that's why I mentioned it in the first place, that Lana knows she is a critical target and would prefer to be criticized for evolving than for staying the same.

Right. Well said. There was nothing on UV that I hadn't heard before, though it was startling to hear Lana performing it, as it so up-ended her BTD/P sound. Also, as I've said before, I still find 'Gods & Monsters' a lot more convincing--and heretical--than the 'bad girl' pose she adopted on so much of UV, which I do find convincing on the title track, but do not on 'MPG' and 'FMYUTTT.' I like 'Sad Girl,' but I found 'I'm a sad girl, I'm a bad girl, I'm a mad girl' a little underwhelming. I still find the guitar solo on 'Shades of Cool' a little silly. And 'PWYC' is just not my cup of tea in a million ways, and, to me, also not convincing. Those are my subjective responses to UV, and haven't changed much since its release.

No 'word salad' found there for me. When I was your age, I was doing the same thing, as so many 'arty' kids and young people do in all generations post-1965, when the old WASP hierarchy and its culture collapsed, and American and British pop culture took over the world. Turner Classic Movies (TCM) keeps those 'old stars long forgotten' relevant and thankfully, promotes them to current generations. When I was growing up, people knew who Gregory Peck, Joan Crawford, and Humphrey Bogart were, at least by name...now many young people don't know who Sean Connery or Al Pacino are, unless Pacino via Scarface. But that's what life is for, learning and exploring, and today, younger generations have almost the whole of 20th century culture to mine as they see fit, available at their fingertips.

Yes, that's true, and we've discussed it here many times. Like so many musical artists that began their careers and found their success while young or youngish, she's matured. She hasn't remained static by choice and or circumstance. She's in early middle age, let's face it. Priorities change, and if she marries and has a child soon--one or more--we're very likely going to hear a lot more songs like 'Sweet Carolina' and 'Grandfather' and a lot less like 'Ultraviolence,' 'Honeymoon,' and '13 Beaches.' Lana said long ago that she "sort of grew up in a Carly Simon household,' and I said here a few years ago that that Carly Simon influence is coming through, whether she realizes or intends it or not. Songs like 'Arcadia,' 'COCC,' and 'VFR' are very Carly Simon-like, as are even 'Hope' and the 'NFR!' title track, and Simon made an entire career of singing about her famous husband (James Taylor) and lovers (too numerous to list here), her privileged upbringing, her paralyzing shyness, her siblings, and her children Ben and Sally. Lana and Carly are both Cancers, by the way--family talk and obsession comes naturally to them. Being older than some here, I wasn't nearly as thrilled by the 'UV' production or sound, especially on 'Cruel World,' as I'd heard many songs like that before. But I realized then that, for many, 'Cruel World' was something like their introduction to that sort of a sound.

I agree. It's not cluttered up or padded with several forgettable songs like 'BTD' is, and, to me, UV is just too broad, and unlike the Lana we knew earlier. On UV, I think you can tell there was a lot of indecision and at least one major change of course, so that the album seems spotty (most artists produce albums like this at some point, where you can tell they aren't quite sure of what they wanted. Of course, with Lana, this also happened with LFL, and perhaps others). She should never have taken 'Black Beauty' off the regular album, despite the leak, and adding 'Is This Happiness' to the regular album would have helped, in my opinion. 'Old Money' is paddling around largely in a sea of anger, rage, and sociopathy like a fish out of water.

I love 'Paradise,' I think it's vastly overlooked in her catalog. 'Cola,' 'Ride,' 'Yayo,' 'Gods & Monsters,' and 'Belair' are moody Lana classics, and 'America' is so under-appreciated for being a pure, happy little song.

We know for a fact that Lana has said, multiple times, and in multiple ways, "But some of that [BTD] production! UUgghhh." I do think she would have stayed somewhat on that course, as she did with 'Paradise' and songs like 'Cola,' but about that time she had her public feud with Lorde and said that Lorde criticized her but then stolen her 'sound,' so I think she was happy with the general 'Paradise' production and only took a sharp swerve from it with 'UV' because she felt Lorde had stolen her sound. At the time, I remember thinking this was a huge boner move on Lana's part, that she should have 100% stood her ground. She would have ended up wiping the floor with Lorde.

I think it's this: she used to be writing from her own experience but in a manner that was for a public, an audience, of some kind. In other words, she extrapolated her personal experience into something many or most could relate to, made it 'universal,' and that was part of her genius in that era. But since NFR! she's been 'inward gazing' a lot more and 'outward looking' a lot less. So I get the sense that she's now writing 100% what she wants to write, produce, and release, free of any feeling that she has to write for an audience of any kind. Actually, this might have started with 'Honeymoon,' which she said she more-or-less created to please herself, and then taken a reversal with the more-fan-and-radio friendly LFL. But then she went full-tilt back into creating whatever she wants, free of any thoughts about her public, or a public, period. So we hear a lot more about walking to the mall, watching television, meeting for coffee, and doing the laundry--not exactly the stuff of of tense risk-taking, passion, and romance. Sometimes, as artists mature, they do leave the 'general public' behind--look at Joni Mitchell--she not only left the 'general public' behind after 'Court & Spark,' she left most of her diehard fans behind too, starting with 'The Hissing of Summer Lawns.' In a Rolling Stone interview, she said, 'I'm going to be criticized regardless, and I'd rather be criticized for changing and doing what I want rather than for staying the same."

I assume it can only have been by Lana's choice, as we're told endlessly that every choice in the studio is hers, none are Rick's, Emile's, Jack's, etc., except perhaps on BTD, where some of the production was apparently forced upon her as a new sign to the label. I like crisp, clear, direct production, especially on the vocals--that is, to me, where a great deal of her power comes from, especially as Lana is essentially a studio artist, a studio vocalist. I also said that last night in the BB thread.

Glad to hear. It's one of my Top Five all-time favorite Lana songs. I'm not saying it's objectively one of the Five Best Lana songs ever. But I never tire of it.

That’s well said.

And full of piss and vinegar.

It’s lol that’s bad.