Vertimus

Let’s not. There will just be more attacks. Only certain people are allowed to make analytical remarks about LDR. Sorry if I misunderstood you. Here’s a brief Youtube video explaining the GR: https://youtu.be/6nSfJEDZ_WM Even Oprah, for God’s sake, has a vastly abbreviated article about the GR on her site. But Oprah is a misanthrope, bigot and misogynist, right? https://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/measuring-facial-perfection-the-golden-ratio

And I stand by that if you apply the GR to her entire head and face. But I was only applying it to her ears and their placement on her head. In the Hollywood of the 30s and 40s, the filmmakers, artisans and studio heads would have made sure that she was never filmed with her hair up for that reason, unless her ears were somehow disguised or obscured by a hat or something else. Just as Hollywood artisans cleverly disguised the perceived imperfections of both their male and female stars, whether it was shortness of height, short legs, a long neck, narrow face, stubby arms or whatever. Also, interestingly enough, naturally having the GR standard/symmetry in the face doesn’t guarantee what today we think of as beauty, the greatest example being the Mona Lisa. Is she beautiful by today’s standards? No. But her face has a strange cryptic power, and as it turns out, the source of that power IS the GR.

The Golden Ratio doesn’t only apply to women. It applies to humans, period. It is a beauty-and-proportion formula supported by mathematics and created/rediscovered by Renaissance painters and mathematicians of genius (though many an ancient Greek sculpture knew of it as well). It is not intended to be personal in any manner or insulting to anyone. The ‘perfectly’ proportioned human physique utilizes the same formula, but applied to the human body. So this is not a slag or attack on LDR, nor did I apply the GR to anything but her ears and their placement on her head.

I also agree with that, though for me it was her music—NFR specifically—AND the definite changes in her public persona and presentation of herself. I never said “her ears were too low for her to ever be beautiful.” I commented that she didn’t look very attractive with her hair pulled back because her ears are both large and set low on her head. According to the artistic/mathematical beauty-and-proportion principle of the Golden Ratio, which has been around since the Renaissance, the top of a person’s ear—where it meets the head—should align exactly with the middle of the eye. That’s all I pointed out, that her ears look large and low when her hair is pulled back, and thus she looks awkward, because the placement of her ears violates the Golden Ratio. That doesn’t mean she’s not beautiful or not beautiful in other ways, or every other way. But a couple of people who attack everyone on principle and enjoy being ignorant of course attacked me even though I provided links to pages about the GR, its history and continued use today.

Remain as ignorant as you want to be and proclaim it for all to see. That’s your choice.

FULL AGREE. I feel that, after 7 years, my major LDR phase is a thing of the past, killed off largely by NFR, not LFL.

Agreed. But the whole NFR rollout and my disappointment with the final release of it suggest to me that my major LDR period is over. I have been a rabid fan since BTD but haven’t listened to any of her music in months. I am glad she’s getting acclaim for NFR, but I personally don’t feel it is deserved and certainly not close to being her best. I still look forward to what she releases, but I can tell I have gone from Stan to Fan to Less Than A Fan at this point.

After the NFR fiasco, I tend to believe it’s number 3. She still hasn’t learned not to keep her mouth shut until there’s Absolute Certainty about a release date. Her continued practice of speaking casually about such things reflects immaturity and perhaps even a little personal pleasure in playing Cat & Mouse with her fans.

Thanks, RD.

It’s definitely not a Christmas or winter song. It’s about Southern California! I don’t think they’re ‘jingle bells,’ I think it’s a tambourine. What do the song credits state? Certainly not jingle bells.

So remove the real cover and replace it with attached art instead. If you have an iTunes account, it takes 30 seconds.

Two songs that would be great for LDR to cover are ‘So In Love’ by Cole Porter—listen to the great K.D. Lang version—and the 1950s Classic ‘Ebb Tide,’ which has a wonderful beach/surf/ocean theme and series of metaphors. I don’t think anyone can top Isaak’s version of ‘Wicked Game,’ so I wouldn’t want LDR to try, especially after her flat cover of PDLMBM.

When HM came out, she claimed TLY was her favorite track on the album, so it would be a mystery as to why she would dislike it now.

Ignore those posters who bully and intimidate others here. They’re legion. There’s about three dozen who feel they essentially own this site and endlessly harass those they dislike. Block them. There should be free expression here and no bullying or harassment. If someone doesn’t like or agree with something, ignore it.

True, but at the same time Lust for Life was lyrically incredibly corny and faux-woke with its half assed message of "hope" and subtheme of "PoLiTiCaL cLiMaTe". I don’t feel we can trust ANYTHING LDR says about her political affiliations, at any time. Songs like ‘American’ certainly don’t seem to celebrate the Democratic-Liberal POV, so initially I considered her to be conservative or a Republican, even if only vaguely so, as if politics were no a big concern or interest for her. Subsequently, after a good deal of attacks from the Left, she’s come out as a Democrat and also as something of a liberal, insofar as she’s expressed unwavering support for several liberal causes as well as her great dislike for Trump. However, lately she’s redefined herself yet again, as “a moderate.” So who the hell knows what her genuine political ideology is, if any?? I feel she just kisses whatever ass she feels pressured to kiss at a given time or moment. I don’t think she’s in any way politically astute, or even knowledgeable. There’s the cop, there’s that church she’s affiliated with, there’s her witchcraft spell against Trump, and so on. Let’s not forget she once described herself as a ‘chameleon soul.’

Because for some, anything analytical, critical in the original sense of the word, or well-reasoned is perceived as ‘negative’ and clearly ‘triggers’ them and makes them ‘feel bad.’ So they want to shut down thought and speech they don’t like. Which is absurd. If you read a sentence of a new post and don’t like its character or content, just SKIP IT, the same way many of us skip the ‘what color vinyl do you think LDR9 will be in 2023, chartreuse, cerise, or taupe?’ posts, or the ‘What season is UV to you?’ posts.

The way I see it, LDR seems to have thought that there is something powerful, interesting, dramatic and moody about the NFR title song, when for me, it’ comes off as little more than a trifle. I feel that LDR perceives it as having the depth and mystique of something like ‘Suspicion,’ when in fact it hardly goes anywhere, is unremarkable, and is over before it even seems to get started. The same with CG and several of the others. To me, most come across as demos of half-written songs.

I never claim any opinion of mine is fact. Not everyone here understands what a fact is anyway. Obviously, ‘LDR worked with Jack Antonoff on NFR” is a fact, ‘Cinnamon Girl is the best song ever written’ is not.

You and I think A WHOLE LOT ALIKE. I agree completely about HIAB. It’s the mash-up quality that ruins the song. It’s like she tried to make one jigsaw puzzle out of the random pieces of three different puzzles, and didn’t know what the completed picture was supposed to look like regardless. My feelings exactly about VB. Without the outro, there’s very little song at all, and only something any of us could have written; Antonoff should probably get the lion’s share of the composition credit, and probably filled out the song because otherwise it would barely be a useable track at all, unless only a kind of brief interlude like the T. S. Eliot one on HM. You express yourself very well in terms of your ability to define what you like and don’t like about the instrumentation and music. I also agree that LDR is moving away from everything that made her interesting, original, and visionary. What happened to the humor, satire and genuinely clever social commentary and asides? It’s as if she’s been replaced by a Pod Lana, a Woke PC Clone who wants to appease those on the Left who criticized her so harshly over the last five years. She’s been tamed or has self-tamed. It’s funny that NOW she seems to think she’s ‘breaking all the rules,’ when it was actually the BTD/P LDR that broke all the rules with songs like ‘Cola’ and ‘Gods and Monsters.’

I agree, MXDH. ‘Negative’ comments, intelligent and thoughtful or otherwise, make some people ‘feel bad.’ I am for free, if civil, expression. On a site like this, we would only HOPE some people would be analytical, perceptive and critical in the best sense of the word. Anyone who doesn’t want to read a specific post any further can just stop reading, ignore it, or skip ahead.

Understood. I feel the same way. We fell in love with and were seduced by a phantom. Thus, the ‘Vertigo’ references on my part. It’s interesting how her ‘glamour’ period actually seems to have reflected the original meaning of glamour: a spell placed on something by elves or fairies to give it another, better and more attractive appearance. I’ve made a playlist called ‘BOLDR’—‘Best of Lana Del Rey’—and most of it is from her early LDR period, including unreleased gems like ‘Angels Forever’ and ‘Hollywood.’ It also has a smattering if tracks from HM and LFL. I added CG and TG from NFR to it, but found I felt irritated and like I was fooling myself every time they came up in rotation, so I have removed them.

I think ‘The Greatest‘ should have returned to the refrain once more after the instrumental section...but that wouldn’t have given it the same ‘artistic credibility’ it is credited with by critics having the slow fade instead. I agree the record is boring: that’s exactly right. There’s not a lot of ideas present and so it all seems rather ho-hum. Where would VB have been without Jack’s long long outro?? ‘Love Song’ and ‘California’ are things she could have written in her sleep. I certainly can’t take HIAB seriously, that with the serial killer section mashed in. I definitely prefer LFL to NFR, as at least some tracks have the verve, vision and originality of her earlier work, though clearly she had begun repeating herself with tracks like ‘Cherry.’ I agree with you about the production and engineering on NFR. Why it is the way it is is another matter, and whether it’s that way by intent, accident or a combination of both, I assume we’ll never know. I feel like the LDR that I fell in love with is receding and disappearing more and more all the time, and probably never really existed, a la ‘Vertigo.’ THAT LDR interested me, the subsequent LDR(s) interest less and less.

Full agree with everything you’ve said here. LDR’s best music on the first three albums was visionary, confident, poised and dramatic/melodramatic...whatever it was, when it worked, it really worked (for me, ‘Paradise’ is the best). I have seen spurts of that same power on HM and LFL, but even the best/better songs on NFR are depthless, empty and hollow. There’s no emotional subtext or underlying reverberations. After you listen to them a few times, they feel used-up and dead. So it’s sad to me that LDR seems to think these are among the best she’s written. In terms of songwriting and performance, I will take ‘Yayo,’ ‘Ride,’ and ‘Old Money’ over anything on NFR any day. And certainly something as scalding and unruly as the original version of ‘Live or Die.’ I don’t see anything special about Looking For America.’ Anyone, probably any one of us, could have written it. It’s a very modest little B-side at best. Just because a song arises from a tragedy, or is protest song, doesn’t make it inherently good as a song, or interesting. Since the 1950s, many people have confused the quality of the song with the nature of the problem or tragedy, which is a big mistake. Yes, ‘Suspicion’ is an under-appreciated and relatively obscure R.E.M. track, and, as you’ve suggested, it has all the mood, depth, subtly and ambiguity that everything on NFR lacks. It’s fully realized, whereas as NFR is largely half-baked.

I still don’t care for NFR as a whole, and never play it, though a few songs are okay. It’s flat and lifeless for me. Some songs, like ‘CG’ and ‘TG’ could have been so much better with just a little tweaking. It’s LDR at her most boring, persona-wise, whether that’s persona is ‘authentically Lana’ or another intentional or semi-conscious pose. I’m glad to know others feel the same way. I was listening to R.E.M.’s great song ‘Suspicion’ this morning, and it occurred to me that something like it was what LDR was trying to create on NDR, but failed.

In terms of the references, they’re now no longer clever, they’re far too numerous and too obvious as well. So I wish she’d only use them when they are genuinely clever and have meaning of some kind within the context of the song.