Foxglove

this is how quickly the hype for Norman fucking Rockwell! died

i like NFR, i did and i do. it's good, it's cute, it's accessible, it has brief glimpses of meaning and lucidity regarding an extremely disorienting modern world. it is Lana, for sure. no one else could have made this album. to be fair tho, to me, it's very clear that Lana lacked inspiration going into this album - something she freely admitted. Lana herself talked about having writer's block, being inspired by Jacking Off's chord progressions and writing melodies, etc etc. That is something that I think definitely comes through in NFR. Being so invested in her earlier work which was so imbued with potency and necessity, like Lana saying "i had to make these albums" - NFR is not that. it's good, yes. but it's dull-er than her previous work. it lacks the umph of her first three albums. it doesnt have that je ne sais quoi that Lana's early work had heavy in spades. so can we be honest... is this really her best work? i see all the people claiming this as her "magnum opus" or "masterpiece" which is like... did you not listen to Honeymoon? Ultraviolence? NFR doesn't even make sense without the context of Lana's past work. If NFR was her first album, it would've gotten panned af. the only reason people are paying so much attention to it is because we know what Lana has done and is capable of. NFR is her most basic album. and i'm not even saying that as a bad thing, i just really think it is. and that's a whole vibe or whatever. it feels like she's dumbing herself down for a broader audience. it feels like she's trying to assimilate into celeb culture and whatever. which is fine. it's her art, it's her life. and i like it. i still listen occasionally. but masterpiece? i think that time is past. maybe i am being too subjective, but idk. With her first three albums, i felt something so strong. a sense of urgency, desperation, stifled power, hopelessness as art, hopelessness as the essence of freedom, truth, iconography, apathy as self-protection, caring as a personal failure that was yet so necessary and unavoidable, SOMETHING powerful and mysterious and important that couldn't be fully described. NFR feels like taking all that and stripping of it of substance and regurgitating it as pure aesthetic bc she knows that's what worked for her in the past. when Lana was Lizzy, she wasn't successful or known. She didn't have accolades or a huge following or worldwide fame and recognition. but she had spirit and drive, she KNEW what she was doing was good and meaningful and mattered. and we can all hear and feel that in her unreleased music. i remember listening to her unreleased stuff after Born to Die came out and being like "damn this bitch is a for real star and a musical genius, she has such potency and magic, she is so much more for believing in herself without any recognition." it was a whole thing. NFR is like, when you get everything you ever wanted and lose what made you get it in the first place. that's what it feels like to me. which is a whole vibe. it might be her most depressing album because of that, which is powerful in its own way. it feels like Lana losing herself. being burnt out. i appreciate NFR, i really do. and i think there's meaning in seeing how it fits into her body of work. but i think it only packs a kick because of its relation to her past work, because we see the growth and change Lana has gone through. and that, to me, means it cant possibly be her best, most potent, "masterpiece" or "magnum opus". i love her art, and i love her as an artist. but not as much anymore. i think she lost something, and i think NFR is proof of that. i think the accolades and critical raving about NFR is proof of that. she's not an underground underdog rock star heroine enigma. she's a pop star. a regular person. good for her, if that's what she wants. but she doesnt have the power i felt in her first three albums. the experiences she went through before she was a bonafide star are more potent than whatever's happening now. maybe that's proof of what i always saw as her original point ----- you may get everything you want, and it'll still be hollow because what the world sees as success is bullshit, what society idolizes is trash, and what really matters gets ignored and forgotten.

quite bold of you to assume there will be a next era

the blackest day

the last time i truly felt like my life had meaning and purpose was when i was endlessly waiting for the release of Norman Fucking Rockwell and now that it's here... hope may be a dangerous thing for some but i dont have it where tf did that shit go. another loss for the culture, Lana. :/

well who here is (or can pass as) a "pretty" straight cis white lady with money and insta followers? just start hanging out at the cha cha matcha locations in LA and surely youll run into Lana

remember when NFR was the most anticipated album of all of 2019 and when it came out it fizzled like a damp firework and all the critics who used to trash Lana threw her some accolades bc they felt bad ab it, like what they did to Fiona Apple except her writing is actually brilliant and her music has meaning. i think my biggest wish for Norman Fucking Rockwell is that it included more references to teletubbies. if you hold me without hurting me, youll be the first who ever did

and i -- wow. a truly moving analysis. you're right. the sun doesn't always come out tomorrow, and both Lana and the Teletubbies are lying about it. i heard the war was never over for the exploited voiceless across the globe, yet their stories are still not being paid attention to. i cant wait for Lana's upcoming album "White Girl Woke For Now"

honestly, i think Teletubbies says a lot more about the political state of the world today than Lana could ever dream. The nuanced and delicate ways this groundbreaking show addresses such important topics is far above and beyond the child-like pattering of Lust For Life. While the Teletubbies seek a world where everyone is treated equally, receives a fair portion of Tubby Custard and Toast, and enjoys their day in the sun - they face challenges such as the pervasive tech industry's mass surveillance encroaching into their personal lives and even their own bodies through Tele Tummy Screen Implants, and dealing with the issues y'all described above like Dipsy's mistreatment as a Tubby of Color, Tinky Winky's sexuality, Po's tendency towards far right ideology, etc. Lust For Life barely scratched the surface of these issues, and Lana is content to just go to church and forget about it because it doesn't really affect her. I think comparing LFL to Teletubbies really sells the world of Teletubbies short.

remember when Lana made music videos? those were really the days

all we know is that her glamour lives on and on

It's funny that being supportive of LGBTQ people is political to some people, because for me it's extremely personal and inescapable. I support the sacred LeGyBTian people because I don't believe in self hatred. I express my gay love and gender variance because I believe in honesty and self expression. To have the most personal aspects of my life deemed uncomfortably political is honestly a slap in the face. I'm gay regardless of what's going on in politics. I am forced to be political, bc politics wants to intrude into my personal life, not the other way around. A whole fucking lot of cis/straight privilege really shows in this thread (and literally everywhere else in the world as well). Hooray for everyone privileged enough to stay out of politics! Be grateful for how easy you have it by even having a choice in the matter. Some of us don't get to choose whether or not we're gonna give a fuck today

skirtsandsuits blocked me on Instagram bc I mentioned the hotel she was posing in front of makes profit for those who legally murder gays. They dgaf and I doubt Lana does either. Us LGBTs are so easy to just ignore, they've been doing it for millenniae

anyone else already bored of NFR? damn... i was feeling it for a couple weeks but uh... i'd rather just listen to Freak and The Blackest Day over and over.

I mostly agree with this, and I also think its interesting that when people say "gays" theyre automatically assumed to be referring to gay men exclusively, when women comprise at least half or more than half of the LGBT community. I don't think Lana needs to do anything per se, but as a participant in Life on Earth, I have opinions about the stuff I see around me and sometimes feel an urge to share them. Personally I think it's very telling that an artist with a massive gay fan base only uses straight couples to represent "love" in a video for a song called "Love". A huge part of discrimination against LGBT folks, and also a huge part of the manifestation of misogyny, is erasure, as in - if we just don't acknowledge it we can pretend it doesn't exist. It comes off a little bit like erasure to hijack a topic that was in the title discussing LGBTQ issues, and make it about how gay men are forcing their voices louder than women. Like I said, so many LGBTQ people are women, so it's not me erasing women from the convo by discussing LGBTQ people. And literally the original post is ab how the voices and fandom of women and girls who are more easily able to be seen as "acceptable" in the mainstream overtake voices from LGBTQ people, that also includes women and girls. I see a lot of white/cis "feminism" centering issues that primarily affect or matter to a certain subset of people rather than acknowledging the whole. Not that that's what you're doing, but that happens a lot, and queer/gay/trans voices get ignored or erased That being said, I think misogyny plays into this whole issue a ton, and I think homophobia is even rooted in misogyny, so I dont mean to downplay the importance of this

i agree, and dont mean to frame it as "gays are the only reason lana is successful" or that no one else can relate. i am simply saying that her content is extremely relatable to a lot of gays, even at a time when the "mainstream" take was that LDR was a joke. obviously plenty of people of various backgrounds and stories and identities saw her talent and related. i dont mean to pit anyone above anyone else, but this thread is about LGBTQ+ issues, which are rarely centered in any conversation.

remember back in 2012 when the mainstream media was trashing LDR, like totally tearing her apart every chance they got to make fun of her, and us gays recognized she was a singularly special talent that needed to be recognized and honored????? then Ultraviolence came out and people were calling her unhinged and crazy bc she stuck to her style, but us gays swooned bc we connected so hard to what she was putting out. who knows more about loneliness than gays? who strives harder for fleeting moments of happiness, knowing they will eventually be let down, than gays?? who knows more about being crushed by shitty toxic men than gays???? no one, that's who. gays are more Lana than even Lana is Lana. i dont need Lana to make any grand statement acknowledging gay issues. she is a gay icon because her content is extremely relatable to gays. however, i would love if the good sis would actually educate herself about any of the zillion issues going on in the world that don't exclusively center wealthy straight cis white women. or like, stop going to homophobic church. its like, you can be a witch or you can be a christian. the christians killed witches. it doesnt make sense to be both, unless your whole shtick is collapsing logic, but Lana "doesnt relate" to that even a little bit bc she is less deep than she wants to seem like she is. i think Lana sees herself as the "bad girl" abandoned by god or whatever, just like gays are constantly told as we are excluded from traditional religious/spiritual practice and leadership positions and places of authority, but at the same time, she desperately wants to be back in god's good graces. and she knows, bc she is still allowed in the club by virtue of being a straight cis lady, she can just ignore all the fucked up shit and play into the Madonna/Whore dichotomy instead of actually shooting it down and opening the doors to heaven for everyone. Catholics are so fucked up bc they believe they are inherently evil and deserve eternal torture and suffering. So maybe Lana sees her "suffering" as some kind of Holy Touch From The Left Hand Of God instead of questioning the framework behind the entire system that makes her so fucked up about everything. (by "gays" here i mean ALL LGBTQ+ people, and by ALL LGBTQ+ people, i mean anyone who is non-cis and/or non-hetero, heretofore known as "the sacred Legybtian people"). The world will know peace when men are allowed to love each other, when the Legybtians re-rise to our Sacred Council, when the Feminine is recognized as the Divine Source of All Life and Beauty instead of demeaned. Until then, we're stuck with listening to Honeymoon on repeat You know, sometimes i think god is playing a little game with us, looking down from heaven laughing, trying to see how much we can take. the way things go, it's like a joke. i'm tired, i'm so fucking tired. thank you for attending my seminar

i mean.... sis goes to church. what do yall expect fr

I rly think Lana needs to make a whole record with this vibe, just imagine the impact. We stan a climate aware queen! Truly too much

so excited to be so let down in so fucking long

Lana cover this LOL

Ugh I hate her. I want to be like fuh ih I luh yuh but i cant, she's so willingly ignorant