Vertimus

Why set up complicated interviews when a simple announcement or press release could solve the problem in a snap?

A [female] writer I like calls artists of all stripes--and especially female artists--sacred monsters, and I think we've seen a little bit of that behavior in Lana since 2012, just as I've certainly seen it in Tori Amos over the decades. Maria Callas, Judy Garland, Madonna--it's a sort of archetype that no doubt is partially the result of 'women in a man's word.' Both Greta Garbo and Nico both said they wished they had been born men, strictly due to the very different access men have in the world and the creative world in particular. And Greta Garbo and Anais Nin both said, at different points of their lives, that they found themselves burdened by impossible, crushing standards of excellence they set for themselves, and wondered how they had ever gotten to that point. I think we see all of this in some of Lana's behavior. If she's not a sacred monster, we often certainly treat her like one, which I don't think is healthy for anyone. It's certainly a projection many of us cast upon her. No wonder she wants to walk to the mall, watch television, and do the laundry. At this point, I don't have a lot of hope for Lasso as such. I almost hope it's morphed into something else and has a new name.

I doubt her label would make any firm objections about track inclusion at this point in her career, which seems at a kind of zenith. Henry could well be a kind of Ode to Billie Joe that really comes to life (and we don't know if the snippet opens the song, is from the middle or the bridge or whatever). And even if it's a sleepy, go-nowhere sort of track, I doubt they'd ask her to remove or replace it. And I very much doubt she would. The two interludes of OB weren't at all 'commercial,' and yet there they are. Candy Necklace wasn't commercial, and yet not only was it included, a major video was produced for it.

I love all those songs and wouldn't want them on Lasso, but would love to see them officially released somehow, some way. To me, they're superior to a lot of her released material, like ______, ______ ______, and ___________ _____ ___.

Until a disguttodeath impersonator manifests.

I want her to do whatever she wants to do, no matter how frustrating any changes are or seem to us. That's how good music is made. I don't mind collaborations. I don't expect more than 3-4 songs I like per album from any artist, so if there's more than that, great. If there's less, I'll cope. I'd prefer to see her work with someone other than JA, but that's just my preference. Viva Lana! She's had a terrific, high-profile two years, hopefully, whatever comes next will only build on all her effort and hard work.

It's up there with mine too (or down there).

He didn't release anything on IG about it--I just checked again, that's how I missed it.

Thank you!

That's good news--thanks, Is there a title yet? His songs are hit-or-miss with me, but when they hit, they're great.

We know a Lana album is never going to drop on the initial release date given and/or the date Lana herself says it will. To me, once an album is announced, it's best to just forget it or its single(s) until it/they actually do drop. The NFR! release burnt me out, and I learned my lesson.

Paradise for me, hands down, then BTD and UV in a tie. I don't care for the Lolita associations on Honeymoon; all that is missing is a lollypop. But the Honeymoon cover was much better than what was to come. I remember how clever and beautifully designed her early concert posters were--and then all of that came to a dead halt about the same time she stopped being an international style icon.

Agreed. As I see it, album cover and interior art are not a strong point of Lana's.

A-men. No muffled sounds.

I'd add anything by Tame Impala. A lot of Taylor Swift. I like three Kate Bush records, but her other albums are screechy and shrill, and 50 Words For Snow is awful. 21 Pilot's Clancy and Scaled & Icy are pretty self-indulgent and go-nowhere. To me, the worst song ever--going way back---is The Logical Song by Supertramp--and just about anything else by Supertramp. Most artists, even great artists like Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, the Rolling Stones, and R.E.M. have bad songs and occasionally, entirely bad albums.

Exactly—that would be just another football. I love Lana and her music, but being a fan and not a Stan makes the wait easier.

I'd like the same. I was listening to LFL yesterday, and it still smarts that Serene Queen, Yosemite, the original version of the title song, and Next Best American Record were left off while several crappy tracks like _________ and _________ made the cut.

I'm beginning to find all the delays, conception changes, and excuses exhausting. It's not fun or even time-filling anymore. I'm becoming apathetic, especially since Lasso, it seems will be another compromised album like LFL and BB (and perhaps Paradise and Ultraviolence). How many times can she pull the football away as we go to kick it?

Dragon Slayer* Live or Die* Serene Queen* California Last Girl on Earth* Angels Forever* Crazy For You Caught You Boy Hollywood French Restaurant* Making Out Wild One JFK Us Against the World Meet Me in the Pale Moonlight Fine China * Favorites

She's rarely looked better. Viva Lana!

I agree—Country Roads is such a classic—as several of Denver's songs are—that it's almost foolhardy to attempt it. You might as well try to cover A Change Is Gonna Come, Stairway to Heaven, Bohemian Rhapsody, Cornflake Girl, or Lover, You Should Have Come Over. I can see Lana attempting it in the studio, but when it falls as flat as it did, why release it? Maybe she tried it several ways, with big instrumentation, etc., and the released version was the best.

I follow Lana on Google News and received this in my feed from New Musical Express in April from a Courtney Love interview: "I haven’t liked Lana since she covered a John Denver song, and I think she should really take seven years off,” said Love. “Up until ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’ I thought she was great. When I was recording my new album, I had to stop listening to her as she was influencing me too much.” As I've said here before, it's ironic that Lana sang about John Denver's authentic vocal style on The Grants but then released a tepid cover of Country Roads that sounded like little more than a run-through or something like a road trip singalong. What was the point? If it was the first track of hers I ever heard, I wouldn't have bothered exploring her as an artist. I didn't care for Season of the Witch, which she didn't do anything interesting or fresh with. I neglected to add You Must Love Me among Lana's covers that I do like. Thanks.

I forget The Other Woman is a cover sometimes, as it fits so well with some other parts of Ultraviolence. I'd prefer no covers unless it's an entire album of covers and she's really had timwe to think about what she wants from the album and each track. I didn't care much for Blue Velvet either, which was probably a shout-out to David Lynch (which worked).

I'd like to see Lana do covers only when she really feels moved to, and when she puts some passion and deep feeling into them, like The Other Woman. I don't care for most of her others, though Heart-Shaped Box, Summertime, and Doin' Time are certainly serviceable. Country Roads was ho-hum, dull, and passionless, and I'm not surprised that Courtney Love criticized it. Lana's interpretation of For Free puts a happy spin on the song that isn't in the original and undercuts its poignancy. On the topic of folk ballads, it's interesting that some old British folk and border ballads address female empowerment (Tam Lin), cross-dressing (The Handsome Sailor Boy, which Kate Bush covered as a b-side, which asks, "Why are all the sailors hot for that new cabin boy?"), and even acknowledgment of same-sex attraction (in Willy O'Winsbury, the king says to his daughter's handsome lover, "And it is no wonder that my daughter's love you did win, for if I was a woman, as I am a man, my bedfellow you would have been").

A lot of folk songs that came here from the British Isles and then blossomed in Appalachia are about rape, murder, ghosts, fairies, tribal war and slaughter, treachery, betrayal, etc., and have musically shifted into 'Americana' and early country music since the 17th century. The House of the Rising Sun is an excellent example of that and the Animals did it justice. It sounds as if you would know that Robert Johnson claimed to have sold his soul to the Devil at the crossroads. You're absolutely right about the mix of genres that bleed into what we're now calling Southern Gothic, and of course the South also has the loss in the Civil War and the destruction of their previous way of life in their past, with an estimated 260,000 Southern soldiers dead. If you've ever seen the Ken Burns documentary about the Civil War, then you've seen stills of dozens or hundreds of amputated legs in one pile and a nearly equal pile of severed arms in another. And another 360,000 soldiers were killed in the North. Then Sherman marched to the sea and burned everything in his path, including Atlanta. Consider all the slaves who died of torture or neglect or both, and add New Orleans Voodoo and Southern Hoodoo to the mix, as well as Christianity and gospel music. Earlier, there were pirates and privateers in the area when Florida was part of the Spanish Main. So it's easy to see why the American South feels haunted--all those crumbling old graveyards along the coast and the Smoky Mountains themselves--and I hope Lana legitimately taps into its rich atmosphere and history. There's no other part of America like it. But knowing Lana, I'm not holding my breath, especially after the apparent shift she's made about the project. As I said yesterday, it could be that half or more of the original concept has been chucked out the window.