Vertimus

Hilarious and true.

Full agree. Very awkward, especially the reaching forward part. The top she has on may be yellow, but it looks chartreuse, and chartreuse is never a good color for photos of any kind.

I agree. The good thing is that the colors in the cover can be manipulated by various programs to look a lot better and less washed out than they do.

Hopefully, it’s an all-new arrangement of the song, NOT produced by Nowels, but since she’s crediting him, it may be the version we already have.

Not the worst I have seen, but pretty bad. The colors are awful, including the yellow nail polish, and she looks plain and washed out. Geez. You have to wonder who is advising her. Maybe those Yes Men some of us discussed yesterday.

I don’t want BAR on NFR unless it has a completely new arrangement. The Nowel production curse is a slow, mellow beginning, then a lot of lukewarm bombast. LDR has too many songs that follow that pattern. I like BAR well enough, but the production and arrangements are tired and rote. We will get ‘Yosemite’ when LDR releases some kind of ‘greatest hits,’ ‘best of’ or career retrospective, like Tori Amos’s multi-disc ‘A Piano,’ which offered Amos’s rarities and some never-released-but-sought-after-tracks similar in status to ‘Yosemite.’

She’s probably had her astrological chart done and knows for a fact that that year, at the time she was born, she’s a Cancer. I have the same thing—born on the Capricorn/Aquarius cusp, but officially 6 hours into Aquarius though I have a lot of Capricorn placements.

Most famous artists throughout the 20th century and into this, by mid-career, find themselves surrounded by Yes Men and Flatterers, from Picasso, Marlon Brando, Elvis Presley, , The Rolling Stones and Andy Warhol to Nico, Whitney Houston, Jeff Buckley and beyond. Shakespeare wrote about. It’s an ages-old phenomenon wherever there is fame and power. So LDR is no different in that respect, and a lot of sycophants will do and say anything to stay close to the famous and powerful, even the famous and powerful in decline.

Right. Until there’s an official press release from Interscope/Universal about the date it drops, nothing is certain.

You say, “Hey Siri, play Cinnamon Long Snippet” and since I have the snippets on my iPhone and in my iTunes account, Siri recognizes the long snippet and plays it. Just like any other song you have in your iTunes account.

If there are exclamation points and you don’t like them, just take them out in your iTunes account. If you don’t like the album art, you can change that too to whatever you want. If you don’t like a song, remove it from the album but keep the file on your Mac or PC in case you want to hear it later. As far as piano ballads go, it’s the melody that counts. If it’s strong, the track will most likely work, as in ‘Bel Air,’ ‘Old Money,’ or ‘Is This Happiness.’ If the melody is weak, trite, poor, flat or nonexistent, then you have a lot of nothing.

I like it as well, and, if accurate, it’s also a tribute/shout out to the Neil Young song. We know she loves to drop references to the classic rock era. Her references have been getting way too obvious and un-clever, but I am not bothered by Cinnamon Girl. In response to the poster who asked, “What does it even mean?”, it could mean many things, symbolically, or even be a simple observation of the color of the girl’s skin.

Exactly. It certainly doesn't come off as satiric. It sounds a lot more like, "Hey, I've got another lukewarm, 3/4ths-finished song that I'd love to shove onto the album, what can we do to make it sound more substantial, more alive? Should we add a guitar solo a la 'Shades of Cool'? Or a ska rhythm? Or how about we have a male say, 'bitch' in the background a few times, and call it a day? I wanna get out of here."

It wasn't a general complaint about her swearing in her songs/lyrics, it was the use of the swear words on 'Cherry' specifically. Those who defended the use of those words on that song are the members who broadened the argument to all the songs she uses swear words on, which no one was complaining about here.

It depends on whether it’s integrated into the song and seems part and parcel of it, or just tacked on. Obviously, on a buoyant pop song like ‘Radio,’ the ‘fuck’ is intended to be clever and teasing, as it goes against the tone of the song, and it works. The same with ‘Cola,’ G&M,’ etc. To me, ‘HBTB’ was another not-quite-there song that didn’t work.

I agree. 'Cherry' was a 3/4ths-finished track, but LDR couldn't find a way to beef it up to a fully-developed song (the same way that 'White Mustang' was only half or 3/4ths of a song) so she added the 'bitch' and 'fuck' to attempt round it out, which didn't work, was on obvious attempt to flesh out the song, and made her look pathetic as an artist. There's a clean version out there, and that's the version I play when I play it at all, just as there is a 'Groupie Love' without the rap. Hopefully, there won't be any such cheap shots on the new record. I would think Jack would steer her away from them, as his name is also on it, but we'll have to wait and see.

This was the perfect time for her to reintroduce the name 'Norman Fucking Rockwell' to the world, or remind everyone of it, the non-Stans out there, and yet she referred to it only as "the new record."

That's right. Only an official corporate press release, unfortunately, means anything.

When VB was released, I didn’t se anyone here mention that the ‘fear fun’ line at the beginning was a direct reference to Misty’s ‘Fear Fun’ album.

That WAS ‘recently.’ But I want some official corporate recognition of the name. I want to see some publicity. Something more than just a LDR and Ben casually referring to the the album and NFR, or ‘the new album.’

When were those snippets posted? A hashtag is not ‘official’ in the manner I mean. I am not saying that NFR is not ‘going ahead,’ I am just saying it’s a bit mysterious that they’re not actively promoting the album by its name and keeping its name recognition high.

I’m not implying anything about the album name in terms of legal trouble, but the worst part is that the NFR name is not being bandied about in the media at all at present, and not by LDR and not by Interscope or Universal. You would think they would all WANT to keep the album title alive in the media as much as possible. They could even play off the delay and post a series of advertisements, something like “NFR IS coming...but when? Watch This Space.” But when was the NFR last publicized as the official title by Interscope? Months and months ago, half a year ago.

The thing is, all those hundreds and thousands of high fashion photos, numerous magazine covers, videos, etc. were LDR’s choice and/or done with her acquiescence. No one forced her to do anything related to all the various kinds of visuals. SHE made them important to the world and to her success, no one else did. Image IS important in the pop arena, we all know that. So the responsibility is hers. She publicly exploited herself and set that ball rolling. And when you get up on either a literal or physical stage, sometimes you get applause and sometimes people throw tomatoes or boo you, and you have to take responsibility for both, for getting up on stage willingly and willfully in the first place.

The BRD/P LDR was one Lana (or Lana persona), the UV & HM LDR another Lana, and the LFL LDR still another. Who knows whether the NFR LDR will be yet another. I think it will be.