Vertimus

Thanks~~~I’ll seek it out!

is there a Serene Queen demo, not the raved-up version I have?

What does she mean by world building?

I'd like to see her change course, whatever we call the course she's on right now. I'd love to see her go 'full pop' for an album, like Meet Me in the Pale Moonlight, Ride, or Bel Air, not the half-hearted pop of 'Margaret,' with its needless chatter at the end, that only breaks the song up. Sometimes it is better to have a producer making a good deal of the decisions. look at what a great job Rick Rubin did on Ride. I miss the perfection of tracks like Wait for Life—certainly including the production. It's ironic, not iconic, for me that OB has received 3 Grammy nominations when it's such a scattershot effort, with a lot of poor production and though overall album cohesion doesn't matter a great deal to me, I see little on OB. Maybe the academy feels it's a sort of lifetime achievement nomination for Lana; I don't think those are fair. If an artist is considered for such an award, then let it be an outright 'Lifetime Achievement' award. (Look at Joni Mitchell's crappy new 'Live At Newport' receiving a nomination because she's a legend and has had a hard last two decades. She only does what amount to backup vocals on most tracks, while younger singers take the lead.) As far as the dreamy ballads go, it's hard to say, because everything since Honeymoon has been such a mishmash in terms of song styles and/or quality. We don't know if there's actual logic behind her final choices for an album or if it's done more like, "Well right now I feel this way, I just wrote and produced this song and I'm really excited about it." I tend to think the latter is closer to the truth. I don't think she's very objective about the choice of tracks she places on an album. It's a truism that most artists are poor judges of their own work, and I think that applies to Lana to some definite degree. Since Tori Amos has had a long career in some ways similar to Lana's, and Tori was the artist I listened to the most before Lana and 2012, I know Amos constantly left her best material on the cutting room floor and instead placed often-cringy tracks on albums instead. The best material, which she would often discuss in media, al la 'Yosemite,' was either saved and released on a 'career retrospective' or other compilation project, or on the flip side of the release. As a result, these songs haven't entered broad American culture, are known by almost no one outside of the Amos Stan base, and will no doubt be swept away into the dustbin of history. Which is a shame. I think Lana will make a mature album, but certainly not necessarily a commercial one, when she takes her time to make and think an album through, limits her advisors, and sticks to some kind of conception of what she wants the result to be. The general public may not want an album of dreamy ballads, but her Stans do, I think (as opposed to tepid piano ballads). Things do change midway, plans and conceptions change, but maybe if she really takes her time before she starts recording, she can stick to some sort of a schedule or overall conception and the result won't be a compromise. I don't see Lana as an album artist because of the poor choices or compromises she has sometimes made lately. I am thrilled it's been such a big year for her. That she deserves.

After all the hatred the media has shown her since BTD, it's interesting to me that they nominate her for a Grammy for something called American Whore, especially all the other changes that have taken place with Lana since 2012.

VERY poorly articulated. The WTF moment for me was the SNL appearance.

I hope her contribution to the new song is more than she contributed, vocally, to Secret Life.

Very tough to cover that song effectively, Jeff's masterpiece in terms of his own songwriting. Lana's covers are hot or miss with me, mostly miss-. She could put a country twist on it, but obviously, it's not inherently country or Americana.

Thanks, BCTs. Holly did a great job; it's very Lana-like, a sort of twin to 'Fine China.'

I really like it now—it gelled for me yesterday. Did Lana have any part in the writing? The melody is beautiful perfect for autumn. I'd also like a solo version.

It is mine. I never tire of it.

Oy. I'd much prefer a LDR 'Americana' or country album of new material all on her own. I love COCC but hated Breaking Up Slowly. I didn't care for The Prettiest Girl in Country Music either. That's just me. Still, it might be great, who knows?

Full agree. The rework is a total mess. The original is perfect, pristine, powerful.

I think the lyrics, the apparent pride of being American as expressed, rile up a lot of folks on the Left and were partially responsible for the wave of aggression she received from the Left in the first years of her career, and which she still does in certain quarters. It seems to me they're much more comfortable with Lana writing songs like "American Whore,' where there's an element of self-debasement.

Totally. For me, it's the most underrated of all her released songs. Top 10 LDR for me. I was listening to Summetime Sadness yesterday and thought the same thing: the vocal creativity she had in that era was amazing and seemed like such a trademark—I thought we'd hear that voice going forward. Most of the material on Ocean Blvd just doesn't stack up to me when compared to the greater songs on BTD and P. Not that a comparison needs to be made.

How about the entire outro or last 4th of Black Beauty?

The children's voices, the piano, the "Grenadine sunshine, and it fades sublime" line on Bel Air, and the entire song.

A-MEN! It's one of her most sophisticated songs in every way; I really miss that haughty version of LDR, even if it is a fantasy or just an aspect of her genuine self.

I hope the production is better on whatever comes next. I've been listening to Orville Peck's Pony and wonder why Lana can't consistently get that kind of a clean, almost 'live' sound.

I agree—the LDR albums I love most of those least liked by most members here. I will die on the LFL hill too; songs like WTWWAWWKOD and 13 Beaches are so much more original and creative than say, Art Deco, Love Song or How To Disappear, certainly more so that Happiness is a Butterfly, which I consider her worst-ever released track due to all the non-happiness-is-a-butterfly parts. Being a creative myself, as I'm sure many of us are, I do know that an artist is usually most enthusiastic about what they're working on currently, that's where all your energy is, so over a long recording process, it's easy to see how Serene Queen and NBAR might have seemed distant in time while Groupie Love, Coachella and Change seemed 'fresh and new.' That's where objectivity comes in, during the final selection process, which I do not think of as one of Lana's strong points.

It's still particularly obnoxious to me; it degrades the whole idea of 'people are powerful beings.' Yes, I know, artists from the birth of blues and rock n' roll do that all the time; Nico and Tori Amos come to mind immediately. They both even added numerous syllables to words on occasion. If it's done artistically or well, I have no problem with it, though Nico in particular was mocked for doing it. I can't imagine that Best American Record, the NFR version, was the original, and intended for LFL. It's so awkard and gutted.

This is brilliant. Thank you. I feel we lost so much, or perhaps a better way of saying it is I feel Lana made some bad decisions. I don't mind Yosemite being cut since we have it now, and though I love 3/4ths of LFL, there's a handful of songs I don't care for, and they're the usual suspects: Coachella, Groupie Love, the bastardized title track, and Change to me seems rushed and underdeveloped, and the she says "beins" instead of "beings" drives me crazy, just as the way she stresses the word "parents" on Coachella. I don't care for Get Free at all. I actually like In My Feelings, which I know many do not. And then the way she bastardized Best American Record for NFR!, since it was perfect as it was. That Serene Queen was cut still breaks my heart: it, and Cola, are the prototypical LDR songs for me—13 Beaches too.

If You Lie Down With Me & Cola

She's having her Rhiannon moment, physically and stylistically. With all her current success and high exposure, a new album of some kind seems imminent to me, even if it's (just) the unreleased album, which I don't think it will be.

Yes.