Vertimus

After hearing the snippets of both 'Happiness Is A Butterfly' and 'Blue Banisters,' the songs went off in directions I personally didn't care for, so I'm not too excited about 'Arcadia' right now, but I am hoping for the best with it. It's an exciting time, I hope we get the pre-release on Wednesday, and if there's even 1-2 completely new songs that I really love, that will be enough for me. Anything else will be the proverbial 'gravy.' If 'Thunder' has been reworked in a manner I like less than the leaked version, I'll just switch the versions in iTunes.

Barrie needs the money.

I have seen very few of her live performances (live with audience, that is, in a concert) that would justify being released on a live album, even if culled from many different performances. Personally, I think that, like Debbie Harry and Stevie Nicks, Lana really doesn't sound very good live in concert, unlike, say, Tori Amos, Brandi Caryle, or Fiona Apple, or from generations earlier, Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, Linda Ronstadt or Ann Wilson. Men tend to sing in a lower voice (Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Barrie James), but even those who use(d) falsetto a lot, like Jeff Buckley and Tyler Joseph, are often crystal clear, with Buckley being the male standout when it comes to falsetto. On the LFL tour, it seemed like 9/10ths of the concert was the audience singing every song at Lana's encouragement.

What about the musical she said she had been working on for a long time? And what about the songs she said she was contributing to a new version of Alice in Wonderland?

I think the reason she’s so casual about promotion, etc. now is at least partially because she’s a millionaire many times over at this point and thus can literally afford not to have huge worldwide sales. Joni Mitchell had the same attitude in in the 70s, though she was not nearly as wealthy then as Lana is now. But Mitchell could still afford to care about her music first and foremost, and turn her back on fame, fortune and celebrity. Lane seems to have the same attitude now. It’s about her art and music almost exclusively, and perhaps what her legacy will be.

Thank you. I love 'Thunder' too, but already have it downloaded and have listened to it hundreds of times--it's one of my favorites of all her thus-unreleased tracks. I have two versions of 'Cherry Blossom' too, which I also love. I have never liked all the songs on any of her albums--COCC had the highest 'like' or 'love' quotient for me, unlike most here--so if there's one or two entirely new songs that I like or love, I'll be content.

If the leaked songs that are going to be included are radically and creatively altered for the better (and I don't mean like 'Next American Record'), it will at least give us a new experience; I think that's the best we can hope for regarding tracks we already have heard dozens to hundreds of time. If they're changed only slightly, it's going to be a drag, I agree, especially since we've already heard WFWF, BB and TB. I'm not looking forward to this record very much, based on what we understand it's going to be (and I'm still burnt out from the NFR! rollout experience). It seems that she's making this album for non-Stans, which is her right. I support her right and decision to release whatever she likes, whenever she likes, even though I may not care for the end result as a whole.

My concern is based on the idea that she already scrapped the first version of this album, presumably 'Blue Banisters,' and at one time perhaps called 'Rock Candy Sweet.' Now that she's working on what seems like the second version, and including perhaps as many as 5 older songs (or more, for all we really know), some or all of which may have been leaked, my feeling is that she may regret doing this later, as it may seem like a bad idea or a compromise, or that she may actually scrap this second version again at the last minute. At this point in her career, a new album which may be fairly loaded with leaked tracks doesn't seem like the way to move forward. I also don't agree with the argument that she began being who she really is as an artist and writer on NFR!, especially after her own description of 'Honeymoon' (the album) and some of the great songs on 'Lust For Life,' like 'Heroin' and '13 Beaches.'

And, as I said yesterday, some of the leaked tracks were leaked by Lana herself—that’s been my understanding for a long time, though I have no hard proof. And I don’t refer to definite album tracks like ‘Black Beauty,’ but songs like ‘Fine China,’ which leaked on Christmas Day about 4 years ago.

I don’t feel she has anything to gain by covering a track like ‘D&R,’ as she could never improve upon the original. I find she never really seems melded to the songs that she covers, with very, very few exceptions. That’s my 2 cents.

Didn't she leak some of the songs, like 'Fine China,' herself? That was my understanding--it leaked on Christmas Day. I have a feeling this album (instead of the earlier version she scrapped) will, in time, represent another compromise to her, one she won't be happy with.

Full agree. I'd prefer no old songs we've already heard or have, unless she wants to release them on an 'Best of Unreleased' album down the road. Older material we have never heard, however, is okay with me.

If she's using older material, maybe several of the tracks are songs we've never heard before, like all the 'political songs' she said she scrapped from LFL. Did BOZ or anyone else confirmed that the older material she's reworking are songs that have been leaked?

I sure hope so.

I really hope the tracklist is fake...'Songbird,' one of the blandest, most overly-used titles ever? I doubt she would title a song 'Trail of Tears,' as, regardless of the 'Ride' video and the recent talk of donating to Native American causes, it's a subject I believe she doesn't know a great deal about and has no authentic personal or familial history with. From what I've seen of her choice in reading material, she tends towards secondary or tertiary sources and 'lite' versions of whatever the subject is that interests her. Which is fair enough. We don't know for a fact that LDR's an actual admirer of Sylvia Plath's poetry per se either, but Plath is mostly known for her early promise, 1950s marriage, mental illness, book 'The Bell Jar,' and especially her suicide. Even in the mid-70s, it was Plath's life and legend, not her poetry, that sustained her reputation. IF LDR were to co-opt the phrase 'trail of tears' completely for her own personal use, that would be a terrible and foolhardy mistake on her part, and hopefully, she would know better.

I don't think that's necessarily true, how you feel about the line and whether or not you support, don't support, or are indifferent to BLM, though I agree with most everything else that you've said. For good or bad, better or worse, the BLM protests have been a significant part of American life for the past 3-5 years, and they'll be remembered the way the protests against the Viet Nam war in the late 60s have been. They're part of the American record. I think the lyrics reflect an actual experience of hers. It's very likely that she attended at least one BLM protest, with or without Sean, and, later, in reflection, it gave her a pivot point for the song. Who wouldn't be affected by such an experience? Unlike some here, I don't think she's saying that Sean, or whomever was with her, saw her in that moment as an authentic BLM supporter and thus 'saw her for who she is,' while the other person was not a supporter, and that individual's lack of support for BLM drove them apart once and finally. I think the second party's seeing her 'for who she was' at that moment was something that bonded them together, because the second person was seeing, however briefly or not, her authentic self, and we know authenticity and identity are issues that have long-troubled LDR. And, at that moment of mutual recognition of one another (whether the other supported BLM or not), she also felt, "God, I wish I was with my father, [that] he could see us in all our splendor." It was a moment of realization for her, and of something resembling pride in the best sense.

That's absolutely what she's referring to, a Freudian 'Electra' complex. She's saying, "I have a textbook case of 'Love Daddy, Hate Mommy, my competitor for Daddy's attention." When she says, "And then there was the issue of her," she's likely referring to her mother, especially as she trounces her mother as something of a monster on in 'WFWF.' As all these 'Electra' thoughts and emotions boil up, she says, "I never felt jealous before this year, but I'm jealous now," because she's projecting her jealousy of her mother onto everyone and everything, and certainly onto any woman who enters their orbit with an eye on Sean (or whomever the man or other person is).

A-men.

Nothing sells like controversy, so that's unlikely. It's as unlikely as LDR producing an album strictly to be perceived as 'controversial.' Lana has a fairly low public profile; most Americans still don't know who she is, her name has no recognizable value to most, unlike names like Brittany Spears, Justin Bieber or Beyonce, whose names the public has heard in passing, whether they've ever knowingly heard their music or not.

Not that long ago she wrote, produced and then unfortunately cut ‘Serene Queen,’ which certainly had a groovy, high tech/techo, studio-manipulated sound. She might return to a broadly similar sound at any time, at least for a few cuts. I admit that, though I loved almost all of COCC, after most of NFR! and the three recent singles, I’m personally pretty tired of the slower, piano-ballady tracks.

COCC is an amazing album, I think it's the purest and most persona-free we've seen LDR. I love all the songs but one. From the last snippet she published, the 'map' video, it looks like she may be continuing in this vein, especially as WFWF also seemed to reflect LDR 'laid bare.' I'd like a few 'bangers' or songs in the 'Serene Queen' mode, but I'm looking forward to whatever is coming on the new album.

LDR Only Fans when?

But we don’t know that the three singles are on the new record, or still on it. I love ‘Paradise,’ so if it is sonically like P, that’s great news to me.

This is absolutely true. As I said last week, I stand by her decision to write and release whatever she wants to release, but that, of course, doesn't mean fans and stans are necessarily going to like or embrace it en masse. 'Serene Queen' is an excellent choice for "what if the album sounded like this?" I'd like to hear more uptempo or semi-uptempo dramatic songs along the lines of 'Summetime Sadness,' 'Cola,' 'Ride,' '13 Beaches,' 'Angels Forever,' 'Hollywood,' and 'The Greatest.' I liked the three singles well enough--especially TB and WFWF--and the new song sounds good. But especially after COCC, I'm in the mood for something livelier, with more contrast and edge.

Anyway, the correct quote from Peter Pan is "Death will be an awfully big adventure," not "life will be an awfully big adventure." Presumably, LDR's last two IG posts have something to do with the new record.