Vertimus

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.

I think there's one Sonic Youth song that I like, so I'm not praising Kim Gordan, or holding her opinions in esteem. I am saying that she is 'rock royalty' to many in the industry, highly respected both among musicians and 'suits,' so LDR was probably affected by Gordan's harsh criticism in some way.

I think she is highly intelligent as well as talented; her lyrics reflect both. I would never mistake her for anything but intelligent. But it depends how she applies it. She’s not necessarily overwhelmingly interested in politics or social causes. Like many artists and introverts, she’s probably fairly self-interested. She’s still young, still building her life. Joni Mitchell once wrote, “there’s a wide wide world of social causes and lovely landscapes to discover, but all I really want to do right now is find another lover.” I bet LDR feels that way sometimes too. We all want relief, relaxation, escape. And romance is the greatest escape of all.

I also feel this way, that we’ll never see a track listing or any album art. It’s the 60th anniversary of ‘The Twilight Zone,’ which is where some of us no doubt feel we have been living throughout the life of this thread. It really does feel unreal and surrealistic, like something that’s never going to end, or like Sartre’s 1944 play ‘No Exit,’ where people find themselves entering a small office waiting room with a few other people already in it, but all then find there is no way out. Or Luis Bunuel’s similar film, 1962’s ‘The Exterminating Angel,’ in which a group of upper class guests attend a high society party only to find they inexplicably cannot bring themselves to leave, and then, just as inexplicably, begin to die.

I think you’re taking it wayyyyy too far and simply being too doctrinaire. You seem to be seeking, desiring or demanding some perfect, absolutist, almost militant feminist messages in her lyrics, and you’re never going to find that in her or any female songwriter, unless that artist absolutely IS a feminist militant. And there no doubt are some. When you look at the post-50s era of pop music songwriting and recording by women, whether it’s Carole King, Joan Baez, Marianne Faithfull, Nico, the Supremes, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon, Patti Smith, Bette Midler, Melanie, Joan Armatrading, Debbie Harry, Linda Ronstadt, Stevie Nicks, Kate Bush, the three Roche sisters, Diana Ross, Christine McVie, Anne and Nancy Wilson, Lene Lovich, Rachel Sweet, Siouxie Sioux, Pat Benatar, Annie Lennox, Madonna and on to Fiona Apple, Natalie Merchant, Tori Amos, Shirley Manson, etc., you find a fair amount of submissiveness as well as vulnerability and hurt, because those are human CONSTANTS, not necessarily FEMALE constants. Men have written about those same human constants. (Look at a song like ‘The Devil In Me’ by Anderson East, which is about how his overwhelming desire for a woman leads him to drugs and drink and suffering, and yet it’s still a beautiful experience for him. There are hundreds of songs by men about the devastating experience of falling in love.) AND, in those female artists’ you also find fight, challenge, resistance, clarity, the desire for freedom, self-awareness, and rejection of romantic partners, male or female, whose behavior was domineering or otherwise not up to standard or simply unacceptable. It would be pretty condescending to say to those diverse individuals, “You weren’t thinking for yourself, ever, or able to, all your life you’ve under the yoke of the patriarchy!” In ‘Live or Die,’ well, the song is clearly not REALLY about female empowerment, it’s about a psychopathic couple, one female, one male, who are spree killing and loving every minute of it, and in which the female is dominant. That’s what makes it so great—it’s clearly role-playing on LDR’s part and not an actual, genuine reflection of who she is in any sense, and she pulls it off masterfully.

Plus her submissive position in her 2010 songs was not an interpretation. It was clearly there, not only in the voice, in the videos, in the overall attitude, it was in the words. It's striking when you discover new songs from that time, like Bad Boy. I'm not saying it's wrong though, it's a fact I didn’t say some of her lyrics were or were not submissive in fact, only that they were interpreted as such by many in the media and celebrity culture, and then decried as such. While I think there IS a submissive attitude in some of her songs (like ‘Blue Jeans’), there’s also a feeling of simply being overwhelmed by the experience of love, sexual attraction, and her lover in many songs, which is not something only women experience. And she has every right to be true to her own experience, whatever it is, and write about it. However, in ‘Live or Die,’ it’s LDR (or the female narrator) who is totally calling the shots, dominating the man, pushing him around and eventually betraying him. I think it’s one of her greatest songs and as far from PC as one could get. And she’s also giddily slaughtering people and loving every minute of it. Talk about female empowerment. In ‘Summertime Sadness’ she’s celebrating her lover and life, and despite her passion and willingness to die happily in the moment, there’s nothing overtly submissive or masochistic in the lyrics. And in ‘American,’ the narrator is not submissive, but in an apparently happy, ‘equal’ relationship with her male lover. So there’s some truth to the claim that she’s written about being submissive to her male partner, but it’s not the only truth or the only fact about her lyrics from that era.

The October Single (which is probably is Hope) was said to "stand on its own", because it was more serious in tone (she did say before that she had fun doing songs with Jack and that it did reflect in the songs). The Hope press release, in January, said that all 3 singles were "fan tracks" and that the first lead was coming. So, the three songs will be on NFR, unless she cut them out, which wasn't the case in January. “Fan tracks” is yet another description or designation, adding to the confusion. These various designations are probably just spontaneous conversational descriptions that have varied as a result OF being conversational. I do think at one point LDR or a team member, like Ben, referred to them as “stand-alone singles.”

y'all can't even blame her for waiting. she releases three stand-alone singles, which she verbally says they're STAND ALONE and y'all still be thinking they're on nfr. I have always questioned whether MAC, VB and Hope will be on NFR. She has made contrary statements about them, calling them “end of summer jams,” “ stand-alone singles” and her “favorites from the album.” So what can one conclude? Those comments are part of the mess of this era. We have heard them dozens or hundreds of times, we know them by heart, by this late date—and the even later-date of the album’s eventual release—, it makes little sense for them to be included.

By the way, I do think, as an individual and Democrat, LDR does share many contemporary social and political concerns and does broadly care about women as women as well as individuals, and feminism generally. So I don’t think she’s a complete hypocrite. But in the face of the onslaught of vicious attacks, I think she’s just buckled and given in, saying and doing what she feels they want to hear and see so they leave her alone. She has also received praise from liberals like Bruce Springsteen, who included her in a recent list of ‘Desert Island Artists’ someone asked him for. Obviously, she’s been supported and praised by Father John Misty, also a publicly-avowed liberal-leaning artist (and personal friend of hers) and other younger musicians.

Also, as a quick aside, Change doesn’t strike me as political. GBA isn’t a bad song and WTWWAWWKD delivers a message about ignoring war and suffering and the political climate and just going on about your pleasure and keeping on to hope, it’s strictly hedonistic and isn’t in anyway PC ‘Change’ IS political because it discusses the poisoning of the air and water by nuclear attack or another agent of war and the need for personal change that then might be reflected in the larger culture, as in the philosophy that if everyone took personal responsibility for their own faults and troubles, the entire culture would be transformed. My impression of WTWWATWKD is not that it was hedonistic, but rather that, in the face of an all-out war like WW II, people, in their recognized and acknowledged helplessness in the face of it, felt that dancing was their only means of fighting back, by continuing to enjoy themselves, or at least to pretend to—to use dancing as a show of hope, resistance, fortitude, will and the human spirit. That is EXACTLY what many of the British did during WW II, they continued to hold and attend concerts, poetry readings, the theater, etc., even though the Blitz was on and buildings were blowing up around them night and day, day and night.

It's no a “weird complaint” if you read between the lines of my post--I don't believe her PC-ism is genuine. It's merely a calculated response and appeasement to Gordan, etc. Therefore, she is attending a church that isn't in line with contemporary PC-ism. She's confused. She doesn't know who she is or what she really stands for or believes in. As I said, she’s stated that she was raised a Democrat, and probably remains one in good faith. Many, but not all, Democrats are also Liberals, so where she genuinely stands regarding Liberalism is a relative unknown. Personally, I don’t think she’s a very political animal. Her public statements and interviews don’t really reflect a deep understanding of politics. I haven’t disliked her political songs, but to the degree that they push her further into rigid PC-ism, I am against them. Nor do I want to see any virtue signaling.

I think this is absolutely true. The media, which is dominated by the Left in America and most of Europe, didn't like the "feminism just isn't an interesting concept' remark, her Old School 50s look and debutante gowns, and her songs about feeling passionate for men, which the media interpreted as submissive, or as 'female submission.' This was Kim Gordan's direct charge against LDR, and Gordan, though Gordan's era has passed, is still Alternative/Indie/Post-Punk royalty. Gordan's opinion carries definite weight in certain industry quarters. You might as well be criticized by Bob Dylan. So LDR wrote 'God Bless America,' 'Change,' and 'When The World Was At War' and other political songs she didn't include on the album, publicly came out against Trump, publicly announced she was putting a witch's curse on him, commented positively on the Women's March in D.C., etc. I think she did all of that to appease the forces on the Left that were railing against her for several years, though she was raised as a Democrat, as most of New York State is. She sort of buckled under and compromised or worse. That's where the early fire went, to my way of thinking. She put it out herself. And that's why I'm wary of the PC-ism that has crept into her lyrics and interviews. She's apparently become 'Woke LDR.'

I agree. She seemed more 'real' and authentic then. I've never felt or believed she is or was manufactured or the product of her father's or anyone else's money. She was more creative then too, with 'Meet Me in the Pale Moonlight,' 'Hollywood's Dead,' 'Live or Die'...the diversity and the attitude..'Last Girl on Earth.' 'Go Go Dancer.' So funny, lever and free to say, do and sing what she wanted to. Now there's the relative withdrawal of celebrity, the moody silences, and also the PC tip-toeing so 'names' like Kim Gordan, Eminem and Lorde don't come after her again. Personally, I think it's fair to speculate about her mental health on the basis of 'Hope,' and the influence of drugs cannot be ruled out, since she's sang about them, and even celebrated them, so much. Whatever it is, I would like Madeline back, the LDR of BTD/P, not the 'pod people' LDR. The quality of everything she's released has slipped and we've just accepted it because we love the powerful LDR of yore. I knew hard times were ahead when I saw the LFL cover, with the obviously fake, evenly-spaced daisies in her hair, the rote 'hippie lace dress,' and the smile, to say nothing of the interior photos, which, for me, were third-rate and half-assed.

That's right. There's definitely a comfortable, easy middle ground. Elizabeth Taylor is a perfect example--and LDR is only 30 or so! It still takes work, but hopefully most of us put something like that amount of effort into our own daily appearance, insofar as we're out in public, or for our spouse, partners, children and other relatives. Out of self-respect and respect for others.

In the distant past, relatively speaking, artists like Carly Simon sailed into their 30s and 40s looking as beautiful and striking as ever--and also mature and womanly, stylish and attractive, if not overtly sexual. And continued to be successful in the pop market. Debbie Harry of Blondie did the same thing--she was born the same year as Simon, and greatly reduced the more obviously sexual aspects of her persona as she aged. More recently, Tori Amos has struggled to find the right pop persona after 35 years of age, but has done a reasonably good job of it. There's no reason at all that LDR can't present herself as a beautiful, classy, sophisticated woman in her 30s or 40s, as Simon did, or as Julie Christie and Lauren Hutton appeared to the world in their 40s. 'Attractive' when applied to a woman doesn't have to mean 'cheap' or 'obvious' or 'overtly sexual.'

And let’s not forget that “next year” can turn into “I am going to release it in 2021” or beyond. She might as well just start recording a new album with newer songs and forget NFR. And let’s not forget that “next year” can turn into “I am going to release it in 2021” or beyond. She might as well just start recording a new album with newer songs and forget NFR.

Also well said. We were seduced by Madeline a la Hitchcock’s ‘Vertigo.’

Well said. It seems at least several of us feel this way.

Then she should have either made a definite statement about the album’s release—“it won’t be out for a full year”—or not mentioned it at all.