Vertimus

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.

Rather than punish yourself wondering, hoping, that the album will come out in August or September, it seems wiser at this point to just wait until something 100% official is released by Interscope. And that could come later this month, next month, and so on. I think is IS possible that the album won’t be released until 2020, or perhaps about Christmastime of this year. We still have no solid, factual news on what’s holding it up

Regarding the poetry book, if a genuine music critic respects her but dislikes the book or knows it's objectively bad, they'll ignore it completely. That's known as a 'respectful silence.' But general industry 'critics' will probably say something vague but nice about it; they'll rate it 'B' or 'A-.' That's how most industry 'critics' respond to almost anything today, it's the 'Entertainment Weekly' approach to criticism, which is really just publicity and not legitimate criticism of any kind, intended to generally support whatever product and industry they're reviewing, whether it's music, television, publishing or movies. No one in academia is likely to review the LDR poetry book, so the only real criticism we're likely to see is from fans online. And most of those will support it 'because it's Lana, and anything Lana does is GREAT,' the same way fans responded to Tori Amos for a decade. So very few with some knowledge and background in poetry are likely to evaluate it as objectively as possible and give a considered opinion that's worth taking into consideration.

With this new series of earthquakes, we'll be lucky if the only PC or iMac in the whole world which holds the contents of NFR doesn't slip into a crevasse and disappear forever. Or hasn't already. Hopefully Jack and LDR also have copies on their phones, so a copy exists in Poland.

I am aware that most here are huge fans of UV and HM. I am not. I felt somewhat justified when, at the time of LFL came out, LDR said she felt she had “lost her way” on those albums. Because of the messy production on LFL, I am looking forward to a cleaner, less cluttered sound on NFR.

I am a great fan of LFL, or at least 65% of it. I think the sound quality is poor overall, the production messy and overcrowded, and there’s a lack of cohesion, but I still rate it highly. Songs like WTWWATWKD were a big step forward for her, after retreads like ‘Freak’ and ‘Art Deco,’ among others, which she could have produced in her sleep. For me, on ‘Honeymoon,’ she sounded bored to death with her own material and on her own album, and PDLMBM was embarrassingly bad. I think the best tracks from UV and HM combined would have made an okay album, but I would still have liked it less than LFL.

She is hard-working, she’s just no longer proceeding with her career in the accepted, standard manner, the thing most call “professional” and that includes being considerate of your fan base. The only real problem has been the totally irresponsible, blithe manner in which she’s communicated and miscommunicated with her public since last September. As we keep reminding one another, “she doesn’t owe us anything,” and that’s correct. But then don’t express things publicly that are flat-out wrong, misleading or inaccurate. And if you do, a simple tweet or post can correct any error or change of plans. As I have said, she could have let the world know the 3/29 date was wrong. It would have taken her 30 seconds to correct that, but she did nothing.

Let LDR and her team act irrationally and without common sense (or professionalism). That doesn’t mean we have to surrender common sense. Nor should we allow ourselves to be led down rabbit holes by what we WISH were true, or some nobody’s teasing or leading hoax tweet or post. Let’s not be gullible. When even LDR herself is not reliable as a source, then only an official press release by Interscope or a pre-order on a legitimate site can be trusted.

There are none and have been none in over half a year.

I think you’re wrong to use the word ‘confirmed’ about what she said at the recent concert about “in two months.” That’s not ‘confirmation’ when we’re talking about LDR, especially in this era. She also said, what was it, “soon” or “in a little bit.” I have no faith in any of these comments after the last year. ‘Confirmed’ is a strong word. We’ll have ‘confirmation’ when we get a ‘hard’ press release with a date from Interscope or a preorder on iTunes. Until then, I don’t think we can consider anything ‘confirmed.’

I feel the same way—I will accept it if they’re on the album, as I expect they will be, but I would rather have three new songs (I am including ‘Hope.’) Today it’s easy to customize your own version of an album via iTunes and the iPhone, and just add them if you’d prefer to in the event that they’re not on the official album. I took ‘Coachella’ off LFL and added ‘Best American Record.’