Vertimus

I’m not mourning it. I’ve been through enough to know that what follows is as good and as bad.

7 minutes.

My new/current Top 5: Let the Light In Margaret Paris, TX Grandfather Taco Truck

It’s been fun, everyone. I look forward to seeing you all on the post-release thread.

I think the whole record sounds muted. There’s no crisp, ‘immediate’ production as on ‘Arcadia’ and ‘IFLDWM,’ especially on the vocals.

That's a good point. To them, they're on and the same. They hate Lana, period, and her success, period. Do you think they even bother to really listen to the music with an interested ear? Doubtful. She's just another artist they have to review and one that, in their circle, comes pre-packaged with hatred and a big red stamp saying "MUST BE TREATED DISMISSIVELY AS THE CLOSET CONSERVATIVE, RACIST, AND ACTIVE CHRISTIAN THAT SHE IS." Look at how the charges of racism have swirled around her; and like all such charges, no fact, no reality, no act or acts of Lana's could or can do anything to change them in her enemies' minds. They want to believe she's a racist, it makes everything else so much more convenient; no further argument is needed. I'll write you.

You know, Marianne Faithfull has been active as an artist since 1965, and reviews of her new albums often still start out like this: "As the big-breasted phantom mare of the 1960s pop world, who was busted with The Rolling Stones at Redlands and shortly after became a homeless heroin addictive...." STILL. 58 years later. Sadly, as long as the BTD era is the most high profile, public, and 'recognizable' of her career, that's what critics are going to run with every time, because they're hacks. They start at what they see is the beginning and then gloss over everything else as if it never happened--because they know nothing about it.

But these 'critics' aren't, in most cases, genuine music critics in the 20th century sense, and they're biased against her for a number of reasons. She still drives them mad with envy, despite having largely dropped the 'international high glam' look she adopted for a while. She's hugely wealthy, she owns multiple homes and sports cars, she's very talented in a number of ways, she has an actual career that has been successful on her own terms, she often speaks her mind, she's a Christian of some kind, and she has the adoration of enshrined American artists like Baez and Springsteen. Living in NYC, I encounter angry, frustrated people like this all the time, who spend more time attempting to halt the progress and success of others rather than concentrating on their own chances and opportunities. Such people are found everywhere, but especially in large American cities that are hubs for various entertainment industries.

I think if the critic is a genuine music critic with a love of music, they will, given access to the album. If you ever read through the hoary old Rolling Stones album reviews from the 70s, some of them go on for pages and there's no 'star rating system,' there are only words and more words. Those critics took music very seriously, and the reviews are on the 'deep' side, whether it's Bob Dylan, Melanie, the Grateful Dead, James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, the Rolling Stones, the Who, etc. However, if the 'critic' has sought that position primarily because it involves access to power and prestige, and they're essentially careerists with loyalty to no one and nothing, then you're going to get a lot of third-rate minds who review dozens of records a year and probably care very little about the artists in question, or their catalog. I read through about a dozen OC reviews yesterday on Google news, and most seemed to have just skimmed the record quickly, and were less positive than I expected them to me, more on the 'it's neither good nor bad' side, but if I had to decide, I'd say the good.'

Was it the global listening party?

Any hard news on the ‘surprise’?

Yeah, to me, a 'global listening party' is more exciting in theory than in actuality, and I can't see BOZ or any other 'insider' getting too hepped up about it.

So: was the global listening party the 'surprise'?

Yes, because that's clearly a source of the problem. But don't make the same mistake of interpreting that as if I am 'trashing' ill mental health. As I've said here before, it's as common and varied as physical ill health.

Thank you. I agree--it is 'victimization' in the sense that there is bullying and verbal abuse involved, and other 'mob behaviors' too. The response to OB as an album here has been largely positive from all that i've read, though members will have differing opinions on a song-by-song basis. As expected.

Yeah, the second is called bullying and 'internet bravery,' saying things the poster wouldn't dare have the nerve to say face to face, also known as cowardice.

I love BB. I bet that if fans and other listeners didn't have any idea what others thought, or what the 'majority consensus' was about any of Lana's records, they'd love BB or like it a lot more. There's a lot of unconscious bandwagon-jumping, here as well as in life generally, but that's nothing new with LDR's releases.

Right. It's a forum, not an echo chamber. The purpose is not to comfort and support the emotional fragility of the immature, who find every disagreeing opinion to their own a threat and an attack. Of course some fans and Stans won't like OC, and some professional critics won't as well. Of course. I'm surprised this go-around how many members I thought were more emotionally mature have been throwing around outrageous words and accusations, and then stepping back and saying, "Who? Me? Innocent me?" So full of love for what they like and so full of bile for everything else. They're caught in a conondrum and must be in their overall lives as well.

What a he man.

There's too much immaturity, period, and people whose right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. A lot of lack of mental health.

So many members trash BB openly and unapologetically, without concern for "bringing down the vibe" of those who like it, but won't hear anyone say a 'bad' word in the present about OC. The snake eats its own tail.

She probably followed her own counsel 100% this time, no compromises, not even slightly. I think she knew that many fans and Stans were somewhat tired of 'basic song' that she released a lot of in the last several years, as I mentioned earlier.

No Paris, TX?