evilentity

Edward Gallegos? He's been briefed.

But "XO" already is just a rip-off of the Keds "Yayo" video...

No, I honestly don't think saying Poolside is better than Tropico is necessarily mocking her or trying to be funny. I think it's a perfectly valid opinion that could be sincerely held. I also don't see any contradiction in wanting her to tour more and engaging in honest criticism or evaluating other artists more favorably. For the record, I don't think anything awful is OK to say about her or anyone else (I recently criticized some pretty ugly comments made about Lorde's appearance) although I think there is a place for irreverent humor. However, I don't think anything awful has even been suggested here. Please move away from the mindset where saying anything critical about her is "spiteful". Despite my reservations about being voted "Best Stan" by this community, I think I'm gonna start abusing that status by making an appeal to my authority every time a Lana-worshipper criticizes their brethren for being insufficiently devout: "Hey, I can be very critical at times, and look at me, I'm the Best Lana Stan!"

How is that necessarily spiteful? Even fans can have honest opinions (and criticism) without thinking everything she does is "flawless".

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/may/13/new-band-lana-del-ray

http://web.archive.org/web/20070603212320/http://liberatedmatter.com/crosspollination

Actually, it is. But I'm amused at the name of the hosting company.

Don't blame me. @@SitarHero and @@Viva started it again. I was just weighing in. Didn't even realize until now that it was old since I hadn't read any of it before.

The only thing that's ugly here are these comments. (And my subject-verb disagreement in the previous sentence.) Vile. Misogynist even. Oh yeah? Now I know what you're going to say 'cause you've already said it: But I think you're being disingenuous when you say that. Yeah, I know some of you commenting are also children, figuratively if not literally, but there's just something unseemly about a barely 17-year-old girl being subjected to so much criticism about her appearance. Agree with this 100%. Her face is unusual-- she's not conventionally pretty-- but I think she's very pretty nonetheless. And I mean that in the most non-creepy way a 32-year-old married man can say that about a girl scarcely older than half his age. What was this thread about again? Oh, right. Grammy said she'll leave the lights on for me.

He really is like the Bill Cosby of Hawaiian shirts.

^ Reposting this here.

I'm a little uncomfortable with the extent of stalking of people peripherally connected to Lana taking place on the forum lately. It's one thing when Lana basically outs herself as an AA member and we just put the pieces together, but do we have to out other members? It's called Alcoholics Anonymous for a reason. It's also one thing to figure out information like this privately and use it as a lead to figure out other stuff, but is it really necessary to post every last detail publicly on the forum? There's a reason I redact most names when I post Facebook screenshots. What exactly do we expect to gain by this?

I'm usually a Taylor hater, but DAMN.

First the Nicole Nodland Tropico poster debacle. Now this missing closing parens travesty. Lana needs a good copy editor.

My vision is complete.

Obviously I was just being facetious with this whole thing, and didn't notice a lot of the similarities until I went looking for them, but some of them struck me watching "Beyoncé" the first time through: The general theme of the dark side of beauty queens in "Pretty Hurts", the faux-Lynchian style of "Haunted", and the plot of "Heaven", though not any specific images from those videos. Some specific images that I did notice the first time through were Beyoncé at the gas station in "No Angel", Jay-Z smoking and the sequined flapper headdress thing in "Partition", and some of the Rosalita-esque scenes. But the black & white close-up underwater face shots in "Rocket", the Pieta pose in "Mine", and the Coney Island setting of "XO"-- strong Lana parallels in three consecutive videos-- started feeling downright eerie. Anyway, go watch all these videos if you haven't. They're really good. I highly recommend them.

Ha, I would have loved to have read these responses.

Um, guys, I just re-listened to that CatRadio interview. Can someone tell me where she actually says it was for her album? It's a little hard to hear what she's saying over the translation, but I never heard her say that. I do hear her say "soundtrack" in there. FWIW, I think some of you are reading too much into the "rock and roll" lyrics. Sure, it's anachronistic, but it's so generic that I don't think you can say that Lana (or any other lyricist) wouldn't put that in a song she knew would be used in a film set in the '20s. But I do think you can make a case based on the "channeling Joplin, Jimmy Page now" lyrics in the demo. Those are very specific references that would be very out of place in the main theme to The Great Gatsby. Their presence in the leaked demo and absence in the released versions are conspicuous. Combined with some of Luhrmann's comments, I think it probably was mostly written beforehand. But as I've said before, I suspect all that is irrelevant concerning her eligibility:

C'mon, you guys, of course it's not eligible. It was written long beforehand by Edward Gallegos. Ha, I wonder if this saboteur has been reading LanaBoards. And I wonder if this had anything to do with its Golden Globes snub. It doesn't matter if Y&B is a shit song. That might even help. To borrow President Obama's politically incorrect phrasing, the Best Original Song category is "like the Special Olympics or something":

PARTITION In "Partition", the camera takes us inside a palatial estate that almost looks like it could have been the setting for the "Born to Die" video. See the exterior and interior below: In the first of several scenes curiously similar to ones out of "National Anthem", we find Mrs. Carter seated at an immaculately set table, barely noticed by her rapper husband peering over his newspaper: In her mind, she embarks on a sexual fantasy. Again she channels Rosalita: Her rapper husband feels up her leg in a vehicle: She puts on a show for him, donning a sequined flapper headdress like Lizzy wears in this photo: Silhouette techniques like something out of "Summertime Sadness" are employed: Beyoncé pole dances like Lana in Tropico over a sexy French spoken interlude like in "Carmen": Like A$AP Rocky in "National Anthem", her rapper husband watches her performance voyeuristically, smoking a cigar: JEALOUS Beyoncé is a jealous, jealous, jealous gurrrrrl. This video begins in the same estate reminiscent of "Born to Die" as in "Partition". In one scene, the former Miss Knowles is draped over a pinball machine like Lana in "Ride": In another we see a "tunnel lined with yellow lights": ROCKET Like "Blue Jeans", "Rocket" opens on a black & white close-up of a reflection of the artist's face in a ripple of water: Later in each video we watch the artist submerge her face in water in slow motion: MINE Like Lana in the poster for Tropico, we find Beyoncé re-enacting Mary in the Pieta: Also, is that another Shaun Ross cameo? XO In "XO", Beyoncé orchestrates perhaps the largest NYC land grab since Dutch settlers bought Manhattan Island from Native Americans for 24 bucks, stealing the famed amusement destination from the Queen of Coney Island herself: ***FLAWLESS & SUPERPOWER Since I can't find any Lana plagiarism in either of these videos, I'm just gonna go ahead and assume they must be borrowed from the "Dark Paradise" and "Cola" videos that never materialized. @@Ultraviolence Watch these. One of them may be the closest thing you'll ever get to your precious "Cola" video. HEAVEN Here we have the biggest plot heist since Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds ripped off Gremlins. In "Heaven", Beyoncé portrays a woman mourning her deceased female bff in a series of flashbacks. Sound familiar? Of course it does. It's the plot of Lana's "Summertime Sadness" video. Not content to copycat one Lana video, "Heaven" filches from a few. A shot in a church mirrors the chapel in "Born to Die": In a flashback, Beyoncé's girlfriend sprays alcohol at a campfire party echoing scenes in "Ride": And we see her and her gal pal riding in a car like Lana & Jaime King: She only barely tries to disguise her copying Lana's recitation of the Lord's Prayer in Tropico by saying it in Spanish. Oh, and speaking of Spanish, here's Rosalita yet again: BLUE Sure, there's another "tunnel lined with yellow lights": The sequined bra is back: And she evokes Lizzy's showgirl style: But most saliently, this song is about Beyoncé's, uh, baby Blue love, the black baby daughter she had with a rapper. What a blatant "National Anthem" ripoff! GROWN WOMAN Last but not least, the video for "Grown Woman" consists of home footage of Beyoncé's childhood performances, a clear homage to Lana's DIY videos.

Beyoncé is certainly no stranger to accusations of plagiarism in her videos. Considering the large number of videos comprising her eponymous visual album, it would not be surprising if some of them were less than original. Did she copy Lana Del Rey? Compare the album cover design and font to a Paradise box set booklet: With Tropico, the "Ride" video, the "Blue Velvet" promo for H&M, and the "Song of Myself" promo for L'Officiel set to the intro to "Cola", Lana released some sort of video for almost every song on Paradise. One could argue that even the idea of releasing videos for the entire album is derivative. Now let's look at those videos. PRETTY HURTS Much like the opening bars of "Ride", the opening bars begin with the image of Beyoncé singing into a slender microphone, wearing a mostly white dress against sparkly blue stage curtains: The song's themes—eating disorders and the dark side of being a beauty queen—are straight out of "Boarding School", "Brite Lites", and "Pin-Up Galore". Indeed, here we see Mrs. Carter in Ms. Grant's short-cut meth-haired beauty queen style complete with sash accessory: Beyoncé also replicates Lana's arched back & cupped hand underwater poses from the "Blue Jeans" video: She not only borrows Tropico co-star Shaun Ross, but doubles down on the African albinism by casting Diandra Forrest. To top it off, Beyoncé even has the audacity to lift Lizzy's iconic trademark sequined bra: GHOST In "Ghost", Sasha Fierce is not herself, assuming the identity of Lana's Rosalita alter ego from her "Song of Myself" video for L'Officiel: HAUNTED The "Countdown" singer's video for "Haunted" begins with a hauntingly familiar countdown straight outta one of Lizzy's DIY "Gramma" videos: Then in true diva style, Beyoncé makes her male servant light her cigarette for her like a little bitch like Barrie at a Lana show: The whole video imitates the imitated Lynchian style of Lana's "Blue Velvet" promo for H&M complete with the requisite Doppelgangers: Yet it borrows scenes from "National Anthem" & Tropico. Black guys gambling? Check. Strippers giving lapdances to white businessmen? Check. People in whiteface? Check. Bubbles? Check. Originality? ...Anyone? Bueller? DRUNK IN LOVE In addition to lyrics that sound like a first draft of "Brite Lites" ("Flashing lights, flashing lights, you got me faded, faded, faded"), this intoxicating concoction's potency is poured from "National Anthem", where Lana grinds on another snifter-wielding rapper, A$AP Rocky: BLOW The cotton candy confection of the music masks Lana-like lyrics ("Every time I close my eyes", "I'ma let you be the boss of me", "Give me that daddy long stroke" and an interlude in French) in a video easily summarized as "pin-up girls at the roller derby". We also see a close-up of a disco ball a la her DIY "Yayo" video: And Beyoncé perched on the hood of a car in a fuck-me pose like Lana in the "Born to Die" video: In this case, we're lucky that "Blow" doesn't Soileau. Bradley sucks. NO ANGEL In an inversion of Lana's "angels forever" refrain, the "Halo" songstress proclaims, "You're no angel either, baby." She asks, "Tell me do you want to ride?" Like Lana in "Ride", Beyoncé is Queen of the Gas Station, knocking off Lana's hot long curly hair and cut-off jeans look. Unlike Lana, at least she's responsible enough to only be figuratively smokin' at the pump. We see chicks on the back of motorcycles: Tacky word bling: And pole dancers making it rain: YONCÉ In "Yoncé", she continues the ghetto theme, banging around with her gang of ghetto girls like Lana in Tropico: Who does Beyoncé think she is to appropriate all these signifiers of ghetto culture from gangsta Nancy Sinatra? Rather uppity if you ask me. CONTINUED...

OK, I hear you on the unannounced release (lesser known artists do that all the time) part but what about that combined with the fact that there are videos for each song. That's audacious. And to be able to do all that without much information leaking is also impressive. While I imagine there will still be a succession of tracks from this album promoted as singles, this feels analogous to Netflix's decision to release House of Cards all at once. @@Viva You've been talking (pejoratively) about Beyoncé as a "brand". In my view, this is a positive use of her status as a "brand": leveraging and investing up front the massive resources at her disposal to do something amazing that smaller artists just don't have the ability to do. Also, this album took the, uh, perfect form to grab my attention since I've never been much of a Beyoncé fan because when I just listen to her music untethered from her imagery (and images of her beautiful gyrating body ) I sometimes find her voice grating (an unpopular opinion, I know). But I've always liked her videos.

You know it: ULTRASPACEPOPVIOLENCE Ha, maybe Lana has already ditched the A Clockwork Orange theme for her next Kubrickian album concept, 2001: A Space Odyssey. Say what?

You should see what happens when you sync up "Rock Me Stable"/"Young Like Me" with The Wizard of Oz: