Vertimus

I agree, LF. We'll have to wait and see. Nothing in it jumps out at me. I think a lot of what we're hearing on NFR are reactions to the overproduction of LFL, most of which I liked, but the production of which was awful on a lot of tracks, messy and unnecessarily multilayered ('God Bless America,' 'When The World Was At War,' 'In My Feelings,' etc.). At least the album is referred to as NFR, so we can probably put that horse to rest.

The thing with stripped-down piano ballads, like 'Old Money,' among LDR's, is that they have to have a strong melody to work, because there's nothing else, and the vocal follows the melody. 'Hope' has a fairly strong, recognizable melody--you can hum it easily. Some of the other piano snippets don't seem to have strong melodies, but may when we've heard the entire song.

I agree about the condescending tone; few of us know anything about one another--and that's what we're talking about specifically here, identity and authenticity, ironically enough. All I was saying was that the LDR of 2011-2012 WAS a persona, an act, purely that, which was presented more or less as 'real,' as 'authentic,' and a great deal of us bought into it because we wanted it to be so. I know I did. So I was, I acknowledge, very disappointed when she dropped the 2011-2012 persona and presented us more or less with a "this is more of who I really am, warts and all, even if it's still not totally me" persona and started being amateurishly photographed on a deck in a nightgown. Everything changed with the advent of UV, though 'West Coast' was, to me, more in line with BTD/P. By the era of LFL, she was posting those, to me, grotesque, poorly photographed selfies on Facebook, which suggested to me that she was telling her audience "but I'm not that, no I'm not that. I'm a youngish woman on the pretty side who has had some facial surgery, and, without makeup, this is what I look like." I assume she had some private reason for taking that course of action, probably related to the desire to completely strip away here 2011-2012 persona. So yes, she's a part of a historical tradition that's been taking since the dawn of recorded history, and the American entertainment industry in which 'common' individuals transform themselves through a lot of hard work into figures of galore, power and elitism, whether they're Napoleon, Marie Antoinette, Lord Byron, Louise Brooks, Paul Muni, Joan Crawford, Cary Grant, Lana Turner, Marilyn Monroe, Jim Morrison, David Bowie, Madonna or LDR. They often change their names; they become 'Cher' and 'Nico,' 'Tori Amos' and 'Lana Del Rey.' In some cases, the new persona is an overt character, like Pee Wee Herman or the multiple characters Andy Kaufman did. In many ways, the LDR of 2011-2012 was an overt character.

This thread shocked me because it made me realize how deceptive she can be. Not sure if the artist I fell in love with, who bares her soul in her songs and stays after concerts to say sweet things to fans, is the real her or if everything was fake. I put her on too high on a pedestal. I've finally come to accept the theory that "Lana Del Rey" is just a character and she's fabricated a lot of stories about her life to fit that glamorous, tragic narrative. Never going to let myself fall this hard in love with a famous person ever again because it sucks when your view of them becomes tainted. It may sound dramatic but this era truly feels like a heartbreak for me at this point I don’t know how long you’ve been a fan, but it’s been apparent since the release of UV that the LDR persona of BTD/P was a fabrication. Like so many, including me, you probably ‘wanted to believe,’ consciously or semi-consciously, that the LDR persona as we knew her from BTD/P was authentic.

Imagine LDR trying to do NFR interviews and facing a barrage of embarrassing questions about the history and delay of NFR. No matter what the truth and complications, these could still be handled with finesse and easy style by the right person, but at present I don’t have faith that she handle them at all. It could be a dramatic story, but I don’t have faith that she can tell it. She’ll be lucky if she gets sympathetic journalists who are willing to work with her or tell the story for her.

Whatever the apparent delay, he probably knows all the details. It’s partly his baby, after all. And I am sure she doesn’t have to worry about Jack spilling the proverbial beans.

Jack has probably moved onto a second or third new project since completing NFR, assuming he didn’t return for retakes, additional production or the addition of new songs to NFR. I doubt he’s sitting around concerned about the state and fate of NFR. He’s one of the most sought-after producers of the moment, as we all know, and he’s got his Bleachers projects. It may also be that LDR and Jack enjoyed working together so much that they’ve continued to compose together every now and then. She has mentioned getting together with Miles Kane often, saying about him, “we’re always up to something.” It may be the same with Jack, the Weeknd and others. She’s good friends with these people, and probably enjoys hanging out in the studio with them.

Hello and welcome. The main thing is, don’t tease your fans beyond the very small amount of teasing that goes into building suspense for a new project. Treat them with respect, as intelligent individuals who also support you financially. Don’t offer them something they can’t purchase. Don’t jerk them around, don’t confuse them and treat your own public statements are inconsequential. Treat yourself and them with respect.

THEN when she spoke about it, she should have just said, “I have finished a new album called “________,” and will share with all of you that it will be out a year from now, in the early Fall of 2019. You won’t hear much from me until then. Cheers.”

Okay. But that brings us back to the “how unprofessional can you get?” aspect of this highly-flawed rollout. It’s self-destructive and self-defeating to tease your fans, to dangle something in front of them and then yank it back or otherwise make it unavailable. It makes her look arrogant, indifferent, clueless and stupid (take your pick); it makes a great number of people lose respect for her. No one likes to be teased, fooled, toyed with or manipulated. I am not willing to make excuses for her poor business acumen based on speculation about her emotional and mental health, though it’s clear she does have troubles of these kinds; ‘Hope’ as much as declared it to be so. If the album is finished and she’s unable to make business decisions of any kind due to her inner troubles, then Ben and Interscope should make them after conferring with her.

But no one writes, produces, announces and completes a specific album, with a specific concept, and then just sits on it. If it were not repeatedly announced, over a period of 6 or more months, it would be different. It would be her private project that she can do with whatever she pleases. That’s like an adult making a grand evening supper for his or her family, making sure everyone knows to be home, having it ready to enjoy by 7:00 p.m., but then inexplicably letting it get cold and sit on the table overnight, and then offering it without explanation to your hungry, confused family at 3:00 p.m. the next day.

She was attempting to conquer the world then, and succeeded on multiple fronts (perhaps much to her surprise), then seemed to decide that she didn’t want it after all. Since then, she’s slowly withdrawn from the public eye and all the trappings of the 2011-2012 LDR, despite a subsequent Number One album and huge LFL tour.

"she hated the whole paradise album", "she didn't say anything about nfr when i asked" Paradise is my favorite of hers, except for ‘Blue Velvet,’ which I don’t care for, so that’s a shame from my POV. It would be helpful if we knew, assuming it’s true, what LDR hated—the production, the songwriting, the instrumentation, the arrangements or some combination of those. I know she said she didn’t like a lot of the production on BTD, and that it was forced in her. I wonder if she’s only begun hating Paradise recently?

It only makes sense that there is SOME reason for the delay. Whether it’s the poetry book or whatever, there has to be a reason. Albums don’t get recorded and announced and then thrown in a drawer or left sitting on a hard drive ‘just because.’ Since last September when MAC and VB were released, she could have written and recorded an entirely new album had she wanted to.

Thank you, it’s very kind of you to share that. I am glad we often think alike. I do write professionally in my work, though writing is only a part of what I do. I worked in a Communications unit of a large NYC organization for nine years, still write for another NYC organization now, and enjoy writing at all times.

Not that very long ago, LDR was celebrating being ‘a wild young thing’ in Southern California on songs like ‘West Coast,’ and I think that is how most of us still perceive her. Some of the songs on HM and LFL cemented that position— she was a ‘freak,’ still on the club scene, walking the beaches ‘with dripping peaches,’ interested in and frustrated by young men. So it’s hard to adjust to the perception of LDR now being something like a ‘Soccer Mom Without Kids,’ being PC and perhaps even referencing Jesus in a significant manner on MAC (which for many ties directly into Hillsong, accurately or inaccurately; we don’t have enough information to tell). Tori Amos became another sort of artist after the much-ballyhooed (by Amos) birth of her daughter, and releasing songs like ‘Ribbons Undone.’ A lot of fans felt she lost her edge. I have nothing against motherhood or parenthood, but I am not quite ready to reimagine or accept LDR as a middle class soccer mom. And you can become like a soccer mom or dad without actually having children, simply by settling into an early middle age, wearing ‘mom’ and ‘dad’ jeans that come up the navel, wearing ’comfortable shoes’ and so on. That’s why I feel the new album’s cover art will tell us a great deal about who LDR is now, or at least what role she’s playing or where she’s heading. I do not believe she has to appear ‘sexy’ in it, not by any means.

Yes, the'Power Elite' is ostensibly heterosexual, the majority is ostensibly heterosexual (often here we're working on the premise that homosexual and heterosexual are mutually exclusive and 98% of people are one or the other). But I don't buy into the belief that the majority always oppresses and controls the various minorities. Millions of times a day, all over the world, those in the 'majority' treat individuals of various 'minorities' humanly, decently and as absolute equals--and vice-versa--but we never hear about those interactions and transactions in the media, though we enact them ourselves, experience them and witness them ourselves--because the good in humanity, and the good of one individual to another individual, very rarely make the news. There are and were also gay 'power elites'--such as David Geffen's current Hollywood-based so-called 'Gay Mafia,' or, in the 1950s, agent Harry Willson, who 'discovered' Rock Hudson, Tab Hunter, John Saxon, Troy Donahue and a long string of other male screen actors. In the 1920s and 1930s, there were also smaller lesbian and 'gay power' groups in Hollywood, which Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich were a part of. But the main 'gay power' group are the hundreds of thousands of gay and lesbian men and women who are not closeted, but who also do not predominantly define themselves publicly as 'LGBTQ,' no more than their heterosexual counterparts identify themselves as heterosexual when meeting others, being introduced, being interviewed for a job, befriending neighbors, etc. These women and men are everywhere in America, and perhaps they might share their sexuality, be it bisexual, non-binary, lesbian, gay, pansexual, omnisexual. etc.--only when you get to know them, or they may never speak of it. Those people, who are discreet, I think they would say, are everywhere in America, they're teachers, professors, engineers, CEOs, tree surgeons, tugboat captains, actors, circus performers, dental hygienists, yoga instructors, doctors, maintenance personnel, airline attendants, shop clerks, high school coaches, entrepreneurs, designers, dry cleaners, insurance salesmen and so on. They're in the Blue states and in the Red states. And they have a lot of power, individually and collectively. Not everyone desires to refine themselves wholly about their sexual identity. Like it or not, there are hundreds of thousands of people who feel like this: "I'm attracted predominately to my own gender, but I don't identify as 'gay' or LGBTQ in the hardline sense of those terms, and I really don't relate to the 'gay community.' Most of my friends are heterosexual, know all about me, and the men I am interested in are men who approach the subject in the same way." You may see everything in strident political terms of oppression and victimization, but I don't. Without total fascism strictly and almost supernaturally enforced, no government or other control mechanism can force everyone in the world to accept all other people in all the myriad ways in which people can be individuals and live out their own reality. If I don't like bikers and Hell's Angels, I stay away from them. I don't try to shut down their organization unless they're directly threatening me or my community. IF someone attacks someone else, then the attacker must be brought to justice and punished to the full extent of the law. That applies to any and all situations.

But some people, the world over, do not like gay men and women solely on the basis of their sexuality. Just as some straight and gay people do not like heterosexual individuals who are into S&M or partner-swapping. Or just as some gay men and women dislike heterosexuals and call them 'breeders' or become 'separatists,' and try to live the separatist lifestyle as fully as possible--away from everything they deem 'heterosexual.' Some gay individuals don't like polyamorist trios or foursomes, or, to turn to another sort of issue, think first cousins marrying and having children should be unlawful and disgusting. So my point is there are people who think, believe and feel differently from all of us on a million points, small and large, and the more one realizes that, and stops reacting with pure emotion, the more mature and reasonably tolerant one becomes. So if someone--anyone--is actually violating the civil, legal and human rights of another individual, that's wrong and should be stopped. But a mosque saying, "Christians are free to enter and observe, but not actively worship and participate in our rites, and that includes gay men and women," is not violating anyone's rights. It's a private religious organization with centuries-old rules that define it. A Christian cannot enter and demand to be treated equally in every way like a Muslim adherent, just as a Christian cannot expect to turn up at a synagogue and be married there. If they do and they are denied marriage by the rabbi, are their civil, legal and human rights being violated? No. If Hillsong is saying, "No gay or lesbian person may enter any of our walls at any time under any circumstances, we believe they are an abomination in God's eyes and if they are discovered within our walls, we will forcibly throw them out. And in the meanwhile we will fight to overturn every law that supports LGBTQ rights the nation over," then that's wrong and should be contested and brought to the media's attention. But are they saying that?

Obviously, some of the issues people raise here week in and week out are contentious as well as complex, with long histories. There's more than one way to think about those issues, in fact, there's a vast array of ways to think about them. Not everyone thinks alike; that should be clear. If a male reporter gives a bad review to a Lady Gage performance on stage or on film, that doesn't make him a misogynist, even if he's also slagged an Ariana Grande album within six weeks or two. Few, if any, would ever make such a claim if the genders were reversed, or if both the critic and reviewer were both male or both female, or otherwise self-identified in the same way. Not liking or supporting something doesn't, generally speaking, equate to hate. If I don't like a film or song, and say so, it doesn't mean I am demanding all copies of it be burned. If I've had a bad experience with a short person and foolishly decide that, in my personal life, I no longer like people I deem to be "short," that's my right, as long as I do not violate their civil and legal rights by denying them housing, a job, attendance to a school or college, or whatever. If someone here isn't attracted to people with red hair or blond hair and decides never to date such a person, they are not violating the rights of people with red or blond hair. For better or worse, the federal and state systems define, over the course of time, what is and what is not discrimination. We see cases concerning that going to the Supreme Court a lot lately. Not every 'dislike' is a matter of human rights being violated, and it cheapens all the cases were human rights are violated to constantly, continually accuse others of violating others' rights. If you don't like me, even on the limited basis in which you know me, you are not violating my human rights by doing so or saying so. If I am banned here because I have broken the rules again and again, the administrators are not violating my human rights. Similarly, not every dislike or indifference amounts to a 'phobia.' If I decide I or anyone else doesn't want to date people with red hair, it doesn't make me or them 'gingerphobic.' The genuine meaning of 'phobic,' as opposed to the new slang version, is a very serious, uncontrollable, deep-seated fear and revulsion for something, whether it's insects, heights, whales or tall men with small feet. That's a big difference from casually disliking something or knowing yourself well enough to know there's something you're uncomfortable with in your personal life and would prefer to just avoid. Many here express all kinds of hate on a variety of subjects and topics on a weekly basis, but don't seem to see the irony in that. Look at the hostility expressed here constantly against various forms of organized religion. Are those who express those views here 'religion-phobic'? 'If someone here says, "I'm against organized religions of all kinds, including Buddhism and Islam," or "I have no appreciation of organized religion," or "Religion is just a means of controlling the masses, in my opinion," that's fine--that's what they think. It doesn't make them sick, it doesn't make them 'phobic' or mentally ill. Because people think differently from you on any topic doesn't not make them 'haters.' We get no where as a society or as individuals if everything comes down to--if you and I come down to--"I hate you because you think MAC is better than VB and 'Hope.'

The problem with the nature of this forum is that we all constantly have to repeat points endlessly because new people either come on or members only check it out periodically, and so miss a great deal of what has been said. What I originally said, to paraphrase myself, is that, from 2012 on, LDR took a substantial number of hits in her life, from the broad media, who accused her of being inauthentic, manufactured and the purely result of her father’s money, to her public feud with Lorde and criticisms from people like Kim Gordon and Eminem, to her disastrous appearance on SNL and the fact that SNL further parodied her on ‘Weekend Update’ seven days later, to losing the James Bond gig to Sam Smith, who became successful with his Bond track and then later appeared on SNL...with Lorde. AND her failed relationship with BJON, the break-ins at her home, threats from fans, the relative decline in her sales, etc., etc. My original point was, ‘Who wouldn’t be half-crazed by all of that?’ LDR would not have to stan Gordan to be troubled by criticism from her, and criticism that received a great amount of press. It was pretty much what sold Gordan’s book, if it sold at all. It’s probably the only thing most people remember about its release.

It’s terrific, you’ll enjoy it as long as you’re not looking for too-rational an explanation. Turner Classic Movies shows it once or twice a year.