veniceglitch

This all reminds me of why I needed to get out of academia. It must be hard to write about a rock record when you've obviously never heard one before in your life, and you compare the increasing intensity of 'Cruel World' to EDM, when Ultraviolence has as much in common with dance music as it does to polka (a better comparison would be to the Velvet Underground's 'Heroin', which is actually similar to it stylistically)

From their website, "The New Inquiry is a space for discussion that aspires to enrich cultural and public life by putting all available resources—both digital and material—toward the promotion and exploration of ideas." They dedicated a whole, 24-page issue to Lana, and it's actually very interesting! Different essays discuss the appropriateness of Lana's inclusion on the Maleficent soundtrack, her glamorization of Americana as a lie, femininity, whiteness, and especially Ultraviolence. On the whole, it's pretty positive, though--my favorite is "The Fake as More," which focuses on her image. It's free!

 



 

Source: http://thenewinquiry.com/features/ms-america/

Pretty soon Lana101 will be taught across campuses nationwide. 

She seems preoccupied by repetition, rituals, iconography. It feels almost religious. I believe she truly is a visual thinker, and tries to use her words to paint the obsessive scenery she loves. I like how she talks about how words sound; their universally understood meaning or context isn't so important to her, which I think gets her in trouble with more linear types (journalists) in interviews, etc. The title Ultraviolence is a good example. She knows its pop cultural history, but she bends the word itself to her own will. It's all how it makes her feel, and how she can use word and motifs as tools to create new meanings. For her, language is an intuitive art like everything else.
 
Red dress. Blood red jam. Red lipstick. Red nail polish. Red, white, blue. Blue dark. Blue jeans. Blue hands. Blue mascara. Boy blue. Swayin'. Swingin'. Driving fast, 'bout 99, in cars with boys, alone. The list goes on.
 
I enjoy how sensory-oriented her lyrics are, but I get the sense she does this knowing that concrete words can hold a lot of abstract power, not because she literally only thinks about things in terms of their color etc. I get the sense she approaches melody-writing similarly; she's fine recycling her own motifs because it reinstates the ritualistic nature of her music. That said, I am hungry for new metaphors and themes from her. I'm sure the music she makes in her 30s will reveal a whole new part of her mind and soul.
 

Thanks for the link. Yet another piece that could be summed up as 'Here is an essay about my world view, which mentions someone famous to get more clicks'.

Think Piece O'Clock from Salon/AlterNet. 
http://www.salon.com/2014/07/08/why_lana_del_ray_is_the_perfect_artist_for_an_america_in_decline_partner/

This sounds very Jersey. I actually know that part of NJ well and enjoy knowing she roamed those parts. I wonder if she ever went to Satin Dolls (the strip club Bada-Bing used on The Sopranos) in Lodi. I bet she has.   
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bada_Bing

Looking forward to stormy hacker romances in future videos, when Lana decides to go cyberpunk.     

Nashville... Midwest...? what nashville did she go to?

nah probably selling firearms via the internet... guy in NJ (I think) was arrested for it ~ or was the founder of the site or something. had mob connections as well.,,

Hmm thanks... My imagination soars like an eagle sometimes LOL.
 

Gods & Monsters: "God is dead/God's dead" - Friedrich Nietzsche ("Gott ist tot")
 
G&M: "Life imitates art" - Oscar Wilde ("Paradoxically though it may seem, it is none the less true that life imitates art far more than art imitates life")

Just so you guys know, The Source Family doc is on Netflix now. Weirdly, I queued it last night. #synchronicity #LanaMoments
 
http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/70234699?trkid=13630398

Bruce Springsteen: Bad Desire/I'm On Fire tropes

She seems preoccupied by repetition, rituals, iconography. It feels almost religious. I believe she truly is a visual thinker, and tries to use her words to paint the obsessive scenery she loves. I like how she talks about how words sound; their universally understood meaning or context isn't so important to her, which I think gets her in trouble with more linear types (journalists) in interviews, etc. The title Ultraviolence is a good example. She knows its pop cultural history, but she bends the word itself to her own will. It's all how it makes her feel, and how she can use word and motifs as tools to create new meanings. For her, language is an intuitive art like everything else.
 
Red dress. Blood red jam. Red lipstick. Red nail polish. Red, white, blue. Blue dark. Blue jeans. Blue hands. Blue mascara. Boy blue. Swayin'. Swingin'. Driving fast, 'bout 99, in cars with boys, alone. The list goes on.
 
I enjoy how sensory-oriented her lyrics are, but I get the sense she does this knowing that concrete words can hold a lot of abstract power, not because she literally only thinks about things in terms of their color etc. I get the sense she approaches melody-writing similarly; she's fine recycling her own motifs because it reinstates the ritualistic nature of her music. That said, I am hungry for new metaphors and themes from her. I'm sure the music she makes in her 30s will reveal a whole new part of her mind and soul.
 

Lana's "Alabama Year" was probably more like a week-long Deliverance-themed road trip. I assume that many of her tropes are based on brief experiences/ideas that impacted her and shaped her sense of self, but chronologically, weren't that significant. (The cult thing, the '7 year?!' relationship with the music mogul, the scary 'meth era'.) And I think she spins different versions of the same story, or new stories altogether, that complement whatever aesthetic/preoccupation she currently has going on. Let's say she gets further inspired by Sixties' left-leaning music and drug culture, but this time with a British or German angle. I'm sure she'll suddenly have stories about how the Canterbury scene influenced her, or how she spent a previously unmentioned mystery year in Berlin (Bowie style) and while she was there discovered Krautrock and German philosophy. (Because it's Lana, it can't just be that she looked it up online, she has to have been there.) 
 
LDR is the ultimate adapted screenplay experience.
 
And I don't mind that at all. Facts aren't relevant to most art.

Lana's "Alabama Year" was probably more like a week-long Deliverance-themed road trip. I assume that many of her tropes are based on brief experiences/ideas that impacted her and shaped her sense of self, but chronologically, weren't that significant. (The cult thing, the '7 year?!' relationship with the music mogul, the scary 'meth era'.) And I think she spins different versions of the same story, or new stories altogether, that complement whatever aesthetic/preoccupation she currently has going on. Let's say she gets further inspired by Sixties' left-leaning music and drug culture, but this time with a British or German angle. I'm sure she'll suddenly have stories about how the Canterbury scene influenced her, or how she spent a previously unmentioned mystery year in Berlin (Bowie style) and while she was there discovered Krautrock and German philosophy. (Because it's Lana, it can't just be that she looked it up online, she has to have been there.) 
 
LDR is the ultimate adapted screenplay experience.
 
And I don't mind that at all. Facts aren't relevant to most art.

Lana's "Alabama Year" was probably more like a week-long Deliverance-themed road trip. I assume that many of her tropes are based on brief experiences/ideas that impacted her and shaped her sense of self, but chronologically, weren't that significant. (The cult thing, the '7 year?!' relationship with the music mogul, the scary 'meth era'.) And I think she spins different versions of the same story, or new stories altogether, that complement whatever aesthetic/preoccupation she currently has going on. Let's say she gets further inspired by Sixties' left-leaning music and drug culture, but this time with a British or German angle. I'm sure she'll suddenly have stories about how the Canterbury scene influenced her, or how she spent a previously unmentioned mystery year in Berlin (Bowie style) and while she was there discovered Krautrock and German philosophy. (Because it's Lana, it can't just be that she looked it up online, she has to have been there.) 
 
LDR is the ultimate adapted screenplay experience.
 
And I don't mind that at all. Facts aren't relevant to most art.

Lana's "Alabama Year" was probably more like a week-long Deliverance-themed road trip. I assume that many of her tropes are based on brief experiences/ideas that impacted her and shaped her sense of self, but chronologically, weren't that significant. (The cult thing, the '7 year?!' relationship with the music mogul, the scary 'meth era'.) And I think she spins different versions of the same story, or new stories altogether, that complement whatever aesthetic/preoccupation she currently has going on. Let's say she gets further inspired by Sixties' left-leaning music and drug culture, but this time with a British or German angle. I'm sure she'll suddenly have stories about how the Canterbury scene influenced her, or how she spent a previously unmentioned mystery year in Berlin (Bowie style) and while she was there discovered Krautrock and German philosophy. (Because it's Lana, it can't just be that she looked it up online, she has to have been there.) 
 
LDR is the ultimate adapted screenplay experience.
 
And I don't mind that at all. Facts aren't relevant to most art.

She seems preoccupied by repetition, rituals, iconography. It feels almost religious. I believe she truly is a visual thinker, and tries to use her words to paint the obsessive scenery she loves. I like how she talks about how words sound; their universally understood meaning or context isn't so important to her, which I think gets her in trouble with more linear types (journalists) in interviews, etc. The title Ultraviolence is a good example. She knows its pop cultural history, but she bends the word itself to her own will. It's all how it makes her feel, and how she can use word and motifs as tools to create new meanings. For her, language is an intuitive art like everything else.
 
Red dress. Blood red jam. Red lipstick. Red nail polish. Red, white, blue. Blue dark. Blue jeans. Blue hands. Blue mascara. Boy blue. Swayin'. Swingin'. Driving fast, 'bout 99, in cars with boys, alone. The list goes on.
 
I enjoy how sensory-oriented her lyrics are, but I get the sense she does this knowing that concrete words can hold a lot of abstract power, not because she literally only thinks about things in terms of their color etc. I get the sense she approaches melody-writing similarly; she's fine recycling her own motifs because it reinstates the ritualistic nature of her music. That said, I am hungry for new metaphors and themes from her. I'm sure the music she makes in her 30s will reveal a whole new part of her mind and soul.
 

She seems preoccupied by repetition, rituals, iconography. It feels almost religious. I believe she truly is a visual thinker, and tries to use her words to paint the obsessive scenery she loves. I like how she talks about how words sound; their universally understood meaning or context isn't so important to her, which I think gets her in trouble with more linear types (journalists) in interviews, etc. The title Ultraviolence is a good example. She knows its pop cultural history, but she bends the word itself to her own will. It's all how it makes her feel, and how she can use word and motifs as tools to create new meanings. For her, language is an intuitive art like everything else.
 
Red dress. Blood red jam. Red lipstick. Red nail polish. Red, white, blue. Blue dark. Blue jeans. Blue hands. Blue mascara. Boy blue. Swayin'. Swingin'. Driving fast, 'bout 99, in cars with boys, alone. The list goes on.
 
I enjoy how sensory-oriented her lyrics are, but I get the sense she does this knowing that concrete words can hold a lot of abstract power, not because she literally only thinks about things in terms of their color etc. I get the sense she approaches melody-writing similarly; she's fine recycling her own motifs because it reinstates the ritualistic nature of her music. That said, I am hungry for new metaphors and themes from her. I'm sure the music she makes in her 30s will reveal a whole new part of her mind and soul.
 

But it's sooooooo good 
 
(I'm rooting for a lizzie revival)

Top Trilogy/Perfection: Sad Girl / FMWUTTT / Ultraviolence
 
Next Best/Seriously great: West Coast / Brooklyn Baby / Shades of Cool / Cruel World / PWYC
 
Very Good: MPG / Old Money  / The Other Woman
 
Bonus: 
 
1) Is This Happiness
2.) Black Beauty
3.) Flipside
4.) GNR
5.) Florida Kilos
 
FK feels so out of place on an otherwise fully formed, cohesive artistic statement. It feels like a throwaway from the LG days, back when Lizzy was more obsessed with being Lolita than The Lonesome Queen.

I think it's definitely an update on Young & Beautiful, as others have said. But really, I think it's about fading youth, transformation, girlhood vs womanhood, and pondering what her future holds when her fantasy, looks, naivety, and her men fail her. I think it's really LDR waving goodbye to the past iterations — Trailer Park Princess, Ms. 4th of July, Lolita, et al and evolving into her new life phase, The Lonesome Queen, a precocious girl turned grown-ass complicated woman now more at home in dark jazz clubs and empty mansions than gas stations and high school parking lots. It's very Frances Farmer / Blanche DuBois. (This comparison has been written about.)

I've always noticed this wide-eyed Jezebel-in-training/jaded, world-weary woman tension in LDR's music, and wondered how long she would hold onto the adolescent motifs given that she's nearing 30 and in many ways seems like an old soul. But that's just it: youth and beauty never really reflects on itself — someone yearning for it does (aka someone on the outside looking in, which LDR's music definitely is). Lana's music is almost never about living in the present, even with all those sensory/action words and use of the present voice — it's always about 'remember when,' 'what could have been,' and an imagined past. So, it makes sense that she, as a young but wise woman of 29, would already reminisce about the naive "power of youth" of her own recent/theoretical past. But I think with this album, and this song + The Other Woman tellingly following it, she's ready to let go of girlhood and embrace her dark and isolated matriarch throne. 
Her doing the Malificent theme song actually (if coincidentally) speaks volumes. Lana longs to be the passive, eternally young, and lovely Sleeping Beauty but she will always, deep down, be the equally beautiful, but mortal, complex and tortured Malificent.

imo, BTD/Paradise were more like Hollywood glam and high production. UV sounds like she's singing those surf songs again, cheap mic, electric guitar. Florida Kilos, for example, sounds like those unreleased songs that never been on a proper album.