veniceglitch

Got a PR blast this AM...
 
LANA DEL REY COVERS MARFA JOURNAL, ISSUE 4
The cover was shot at Jean Harlow's house in Beverley Hills, California and the creative direction was in collaboration between Lana and Alexandra Gordienko.
View the full shoot and access images here: http://we.tl/txzqiZSYPq
 
Sorry, I'm at work, but hopefully someone else can upload them! 
 
 

 

Got a PR blast this AM...
 
LANA DEL REY COVERS MARFA JOURNAL, ISSUE 4
The cover was shot at Jean Harlow's house in Beverley Hills, California and the creative direction was in collaboration between Lana and Alexandra Gordienko.
View the full shoot and access images here: http://we.tl/txzqiZSYPq
 
Sorry, I'm at work, but hopefully someone else can upload them! 
 
 

 

Got a PR blast this AM...
 
LANA DEL REY COVERS MARFA JOURNAL, ISSUE 4
The cover was shot at Jean Harlow's house in Beverley Hills, California and the creative direction was in collaboration between Lana and Alexandra Gordienko.
View the full shoot and access images here: http://we.tl/txzqiZSYPq
 
Sorry, I'm at work, but hopefully someone else can upload them! 
 
 

 

Got a PR blast this AM...
 
LANA DEL REY COVERS MARFA JOURNAL, ISSUE 4
The cover was shot at Jean Harlow's house in Beverley Hills, California and the creative direction was in collaboration between Lana and Alexandra Gordienko.
View the full shoot and access images here: http://we.tl/txzqiZSYPq
 
Sorry, I'm at work, but hopefully someone else can upload them! 
 
 

 

I don't want to be one of those fans, but I've got nothing to lose...
 
Lana doesn't love music as much as she says. Or, I don't know, she does but it's different. Waaaay different. She's so lucky to have so many people buying her albums and listening to her songs and watching her videos. She's super lucky and she doesn't know that. If I had her luck, I would do a lot of stuff, but she's not like that. And that's a shame since Lana is really smart and creative, but she's too lazy. She doesn't want to think about her potential (UV is the only exception). What's "exciting" to us is normal to other fanbases. We get fucking excited when she's going to release a video because we only got 5 videos in the last 22 months, and one of them costed 0 dollars. We got extremely excited when she announced she was going to do that live set the other day because we don't get HQ concerts/live sets since 2012 I think. 
 
And that's a shame, really, because everyone is doing the opposite. Some new artists are working their asses off because they want to show how talented they are. FKA twigs, for example, she an unknown in real life but every indie blog is talking about her. She does expensive videos and is on tour since May 2014, if I'm not mistaken. She doesn't perform on TV but she does live sets on the radio, performs at huge festivals, etc. She's ambitious, musically, she creating her own world just like Lana did with Born to Die and that's why twigs is getting so much attention online, and that's why I love her. I don't love her new hardcore electronic industral stuff, though, but I still love her because LP1 is fucking excellent and she's an incredible artist.
 
And now let's talk about someone with a huge career - Björk. In 2007, she said she reaaaally hated being a superstar back in the 90s, but she releases extremely awesome records every 3-4 years. 30 years into her career, she put out the work of art that Vulnicura is. She did a great tour and is about to release an acoustic version of the record. She also had an exhibition in a museum and made three high quality videos. Oh, and she worked with one of the most exciting producers at the moment: Arca.
 
Adele is like Lana, but it's a different story since she's not a visual artist, and she's more like ~adult contemporary~ kind of artist. Come on, even Rihanna, whose singles are written by other people, looks excited and energetic when she's performing. And she sings like 30 songs despite not being the most incredible vocalist or dancer of all time.
 
Lana lacks of passion and energy. She's tired. She's not sad anymore, but she somehow managed to stay reaaally out of the spotlight, and that's sad not only for the fans, but for the critics, etc. They loved Honeymoon and everything she does becomes a music blog entry. I really hope she someday understands that she's capable of a lot of things, but it's like she's scared of herself. She is brilliantly talented.

No, she didn't. Stop spreading false information.
 
The Weeknd, Fallout Boy, Luke Bryan, Meek Mill, Nicki Minaj, Meghan Trainor Florence And The Machine alone sold more during the first week. Let alone Drake, who charted twice with bigger numbers, having 2 albums this year selling more during the first week. Dr Dre, too. Or Lana's labelmate Kendrick Lamar. I ain't bothered enough to count more of them.
 
So, no. Lana's numbers are actually not anything special. Rather the opposite. Selena's numbers ain't surprising. She was never an album seller. Her last album didn't even go Gold in the US. But at least, when her album sales ain't that great, she can still call a big hit this year in the US her own. Lana can't since her singles after the Summertime Sadness remix ain't selling shit.
 
And Janet didn't open up with less than 100k. She sold 109k which is 4k more in pure sales than our homegirl. Besides, Janet selling over 100k in this sales climate as a veteran is pretty impressive. Lana as a quite new artist should outdo her easily, which she didn't.
 
So pls, before you post, rather inform yourself and stop trolling this place.

Don't know if this "unpopular," but it is a series of opinions.

 

I remember reading a piece that spearheaded Lana’s importance: holding up the lonely torch of the female depressive in pop culture as a voice that deserves to be heard.

 

I agree with this. It's so easy to see her disaffected nature as a defect, but it's at the core of who she is and why she makes art to begin with. It's what gives her introspection, but also brings forth isolation.

 

Lana's perspective, from a 'marketability' and thematic angle, is one that would have made more sense in the mid 1990s. She would have kindred spirits in Garbage, Tori, Fiona, even Alanis. But in some ways, her perspective is even more needed now, because there is SUCH a lack of diversity in the females we hear from in pop culture, and the kinds of stories they tell. Shirley Manson of Garbage has pointed this out, fittingly enough. We need to hear from the miserable girl, the loser, the ones who don’t want to play nice, and maybe don’t even get out of bed some days. There’s always been a place for that girl in other media: literature, film, art. Music, especially pop music, doesn’t know what to do with this personality type. If it’s Kurt Cobain or Leonard Cohen (or any number of current male indie mini-gods), it’s tortured genius. If it’s a woman doing it, it’s pathetic, INDULGENT solipsism. How dare you be so lazy, inwardly focused and torpid when there are SOCIAL ISSUES to examine and crusade. That's the attitude Lana faces.

 

 We live in the age of the Totally Transparent, Fervently Disciplined, and Manicured Go-Getter. Taylor. Katy. Demi. Even Rihanna. They are corporate workhorses, THIRSTY for the fame, and more than ready to play and stay in the game. The personality type this workload requires is not for the delicate, sensitive, ambivalent type. They don’t look inward. They are fixated on the crowd. You see these same types in offices all over the world. Type A middle managers. They get shit done, might seem like “team players” (dictators in disguise), but they aren’t interesting and don’t offer a lot of innovation or insight into life, creativity, or much else. I’m sure the economic collapse of the past 10 years and the wreckage of the music industry has a lot to do with why this middle manager pop star archetype has prevailed. It’s sheer survivalism. 

 

The truth is the Lana of Born To Die, and that album itself, is an anomaly. It’s a character study in what it would be like to be a famous pop star. In philosophy, there’s an idea that to create a character, you have to lack what that character has for it to work (Homer vs Achilles is a classic example.) Lana was never a natural star by any means, but she’s clearly seen it as a way to transcend herself or try to another skin on. (“Give a man a mask and he’ll tell you the truth.” - Oscar Wilde.) To parallel her to Britney, Lana never has had a pre-Blackout glory era. This is where I think some LDR fans get it wrong. BTD was not her Baby One More Time or Oops! or whatever. Even on BTD, she was a propped-up simulacrum of what a pop icon might be like. She represented the IDEA. It was NEVER natural. She was the weirdo philosophy major playing dress up as the cool girl, singing into her mirror. The fact that she found an audience is a small miracle, but her intuitive habitat is still dancing around, alone, with her headphones on, wondering what it would be like to be onstage. The actual stage is foreign to her, and almost besides the point. I bet when she’s up there, she imagines being alone.

 

Look at ALL her work before, and after, BTD. The work of an outsider dreaming her life away, imagining that fame could transform her, fulfill her, then finding nothing there. Even before she became famous, the lyrics suggest she already was aware of its empty promise (probably due to her study of doomed cult icons). If anything, what she’s doing now is getting back to her roots: turning her LACK of fulfillment into art, trying to make something tangible of a void within. It’s hard work, and clearly she’s not always up to making it a complete vision. To create and share art is an attempt to tell your story in the hopes of CONNECTING with people. But that’s where it stops for Lana. In solitude, she records her vision then hits “send.” Then she disengages, unable to sustain the ideal in real-time. Unable to fulfill the pop duties. Unable to deliver the big pay off, for herself, or for her fans. It’s like a surrealist film that cuts off in the ‘wrong’ moment, just to leave you on edge. How many times can you get away with it? We’ll be finding out.

 

And that’s another thing. I think Lana’s “failure” to rise the occasion affects certain fans personally. Not just because they want her to get a Top 10 and compete with the ‘normal’  pop stars. But because maybe they, too, are depressed and know too well what it means to not deliver, to not function optimally, to disappoint people. When you’re depressed, being able to complete ANYTHING can feel like an insurmountable challenge. If you’re blessed with the strange mix of being both ambitious AND prone to depression, you are constantly at war with yourself, which Lana seems to be. Sometimes she has the energy to fight through it and deliver us true magic. These are her little victories. Other times, she drowns in her own ennui and forgets everyone but herself. Some fed up fans say she doesn’t care, but I don’t believe this is true. I’m sure she’s in a state of frequent frustration, with the “world,” but more often, with herself.

 

Part of what drew me — and many others, I’m sure — to Lana’s work and persona was that she seemed malcontented, if not quite tormented. Life is too much, and not enough, for her. I remember that little-known Gwen Stefani lyric (“I sip on dreams and choke on real things.”) To me, that’s Lana constant M.O. She wants desperately to escape, to isolate, and to never work another day again (the ultimate sin of today’s life-hack-driven, entrepreneurial, “optimize yourself!” digital nomad climate). She never makes it clear what it IS, exactly, that would make her happy, because what she’s asking for is impossible. A LOT of people empathize with this ambivalence, despite the fact that this passive, me vs. the world view of reality is literally censored out of modern day music. You’re not supposed to complain! Things will get better if you live, laugh, and love! LDR will never live, laugh and love first-hand, but she’ll always wonder what that might feel like. And pine for it like its her to mourn.

 

Female depressives can sustain a career. It doesn’t have to end in a Sylvia Plath/Amy Winehouse tragedy. Shirley Manson and Fiona Apple are still going strong 20 years down the line, and in some ways, seem more connected and ‘healthy’ than ever, while still finding a way to channel their grievances through their art. They’ve evolved their artistry to a level that is undeniably iconic. They will never top the charts again, but that was never the point. They have huge cult followings that will always follow their next move. It’s a family. I’d love for Lana to have this in her 40s, too, but I believe at some point she’ll have to start making art as part of a conversation, not just a soliloquy, for this to happen. 

This is my favorite post on this whole site.

She'll be the first actually-hologramed celebrity and we wont even know when it happens. 
 
About 5-15 years later, when NASA makes it to Mars, they'll discover Lana on a lawn chair lying out in the excruciatingly unguarded solar rays while drinking thawed out Mars water from a martini glass. It will be unclear how she is capable of such a feat. 
 
5 years later, Lana drops a vaporwave album that consists her moaning over 1990s weather channel music. 3 years after that, she announces another short film where she is paired with Elon Musk and Jesus on a SpaceX spaceship. 
 
5 years even later, Lana announces at a breakthrough physics conference that humanity has discovered unlimited energy. And even then, with unlimited energy, Lana still hasn't released the short film.  With unlimited energy, medical technologies are no longer costly to produce, and mankind produces permanent life extension drugs. Lana, after taking these life extension drugs, allegedly tells Rolling Stones magazine that she "still wishes she was dead already". 

Fantastic post!
 
I love Honeymoon, prefer UV and she said in that interview with The Weeknd that her tastes her changing, so her next album will probably change. I also don't hear the boredom people are talking about...although yes like you and others have said, so much of the same, same, same in her lyrics. She has said before how her influences haven't changed since she was 15. Jesus - I think she said that when she was like 28...
 
But while I love listening to what she says sometimes in her interviews, she is conformist yes. The conformity comes through in her solipsism, her problems with other women, thinking everything that happens to her is personal, her worshipping of men and stealing aspects of marginalised cultures, the latter also makes her boring. She makes up stories about her life--a lot of the things don't add up (I don't care tbh but to me it reinforces how probably normal and privileged her life is compared to the average person). 
 
I'm here for her and her music though. Good to see constructive criticism on this board.  

I agree with the general consensus that she needs to challenge herself. As much as I admire her work and connect to her viewpoint more than most artists right now, there's something missing in her work ethic as an artist. Doesn't she want to grow? Learn a new instrument, try playing with new forms/elements of expression? Explore a new way of writing or singing? Learning to produce? Where's her hunger? It's like she's paralyzed in a very specific, very evocative spot creatively. She can go 'deeper and deeper' but she can't move PAST it. It feels like compulsion. It can be beautiful and compelling and euphoric when she gets it right, but I'm starting to wonder, like others, where it can go from here. Surely, this is some sort of finale.
 
For someone who has traveled much of the globe, she acts like no place exists but LA. For someone who claims to be a writer first, I sense no drive to push herself further, to become more nuanced, imaginative, precise. For someone who seems, at heart, mainly preoccupied with existential ponderings, she refuses to offer us a true peak into her intellect. She'd rather link to a famous philosopher's video than share her own opinion. Similar thoughts on why she covers Nina Simone and quotes TS Eliot on record — to add a weight her own work cannot provide yet.  For awhile, that evasion felt like mystique, now it's beginning to reek a bit of fear. She's managed to create a pseudo-reality for herself where she gets to play the frigid icon who never explains, but she's painted herself into corner, one where she cannot let loose and experiment and fuck up and be FREE. She professes her love of being WILD and FREE,  but she seems quite conservative and inhibited at the end of the day. I mean, the fact that she hates Thai food (and also "spicy and exotic" food) actually says a lot about her tolerance for 'openness to new experiences'. I maintain the belief that she's actually closer to Little Edie of Grey Gardens than Marilyn Monroe — a grandiose recluse. And that is fascinating. But there's many ways to create haunting art that deviates from the themes she's already worn thin. I'd like to see her explore her devout solipsism a new way. Or even better, let go of it, connect with the real world and join humanity. At some point, the bubble needs to burst.
 
Maybe she SHOULD start by traveling somewhere new. If she were in Seoul or Tokyo or Cairo, would she just shut her eyes to the present moment? Has anything new inspired her since she first started making music? She prides herself on 'always being inspired by the same few things,' but either her relationship to those things needs to change, or the actual content does. As beautiful and intriguing as Honeymoon is, it is safer than Ultraviolence, where she tried on new sounds, moods, perspectives, eras of living. Honeymoon all feels like a daydream of youth and romance long dead and gone. I'm okay with that, if it really IS the "swan song" for the Haunted Hollywood LDR. It's hard to tell where Lana's head is at now. On one level, she seems to be getting more metaphysical, on another, she seems to want to stick to shallow tropes. It's almost like she's afraid to show how smart she actually is. There's some vanity vs. intelligence schism within her that I've never understood, but seems to hold her back. It's always sad when women dumb themselves down, and the reasons are always rooted in fear of rejection.
 
TL;DR:
I get that she's aiming to be an Auteur, therefore consistent in her themes, but I mean, even Woody Allen eventually ventured outside of the neurotic tics of the Upper West Side....

Don't know if this "unpopular," but it is a series of opinions.

 

I remember reading a piece that spearheaded Lana’s importance: holding up the lonely torch of the female depressive in pop culture as a voice that deserves to be heard.

 

I agree with this. It's so easy to see her disaffected nature as a defect, but it's at the core of who she is and why she makes art to begin with. It's what gives her introspection, but also brings forth isolation.

 

Lana's perspective, from a 'marketability' and thematic angle, is one that would have made more sense in the mid 1990s. She would have kindred spirits in Garbage, Tori, Fiona, even Alanis. But in some ways, her perspective is even more needed now, because there is SUCH a lack of diversity in the females we hear from in pop culture, and the kinds of stories they tell. Shirley Manson of Garbage has pointed this out, fittingly enough. We need to hear from the miserable girl, the loser, the ones who don’t want to play nice, and maybe don’t even get out of bed some days. There’s always been a place for that girl in other media: literature, film, art. Music, especially pop music, doesn’t know what to do with this personality type. If it’s Kurt Cobain or Leonard Cohen (or any number of current male indie mini-gods), it’s tortured genius. If it’s a woman doing it, it’s pathetic, INDULGENT solipsism. How dare you be so lazy, inwardly focused and torpid when there are SOCIAL ISSUES to examine and crusade. That's the attitude Lana faces.

 

 We live in the age of the Totally Transparent, Fervently Disciplined, and Manicured Go-Getter. Taylor. Katy. Demi. Even Rihanna. They are corporate workhorses, THIRSTY for the fame, and more than ready to play and stay in the game. The personality type this workload requires is not for the delicate, sensitive, ambivalent type. They don’t look inward. They are fixated on the crowd. You see these same types in offices all over the world. Type A middle managers. They get shit done, might seem like “team players” (dictators in disguise), but they aren’t interesting and don’t offer a lot of innovation or insight into life, creativity, or much else. I’m sure the economic collapse of the past 10 years and the wreckage of the music industry has a lot to do with why this middle manager pop star archetype has prevailed. It’s sheer survivalism. 

 

The truth is the Lana of Born To Die, and that album itself, is an anomaly. It’s a character study in what it would be like to be a famous pop star. In philosophy, there’s an idea that to create a character, you have to lack what that character has for it to work (Homer vs Achilles is a classic example.) Lana was never a natural star by any means, but she’s clearly seen it as a way to transcend herself or try to another skin on. (“Give a man a mask and he’ll tell you the truth.” - Oscar Wilde.) To parallel her to Britney, Lana never has had a pre-Blackout glory era. This is where I think some LDR fans get it wrong. BTD was not her Baby One More Time or Oops! or whatever. Even on BTD, she was a propped-up simulacrum of what a pop icon might be like. She represented the IDEA. It was NEVER natural. She was the weirdo philosophy major playing dress up as the cool girl, singing into her mirror. The fact that she found an audience is a small miracle, but her intuitive habitat is still dancing around, alone, with her headphones on, wondering what it would be like to be onstage. The actual stage is foreign to her, and almost besides the point. I bet when she’s up there, she imagines being alone.

 

Look at ALL her work before, and after, BTD. The work of an outsider dreaming her life away, imagining that fame could transform her, fulfill her, then finding nothing there. Even before she became famous, the lyrics suggest she already was aware of its empty promise (probably due to her study of doomed cult icons). If anything, what she’s doing now is getting back to her roots: turning her LACK of fulfillment into art, trying to make something tangible of a void within. It’s hard work, and clearly she’s not always up to making it a complete vision. To create and share art is an attempt to tell your story in the hopes of CONNECTING with people. But that’s where it stops for Lana. In solitude, she records her vision then hits “send.” Then she disengages, unable to sustain the ideal in real-time. Unable to fulfill the pop duties. Unable to deliver the big pay off, for herself, or for her fans. It’s like a surrealist film that cuts off in the ‘wrong’ moment, just to leave you on edge. How many times can you get away with it? We’ll be finding out.

 

And that’s another thing. I think Lana’s “failure” to rise the occasion affects certain fans personally. Not just because they want her to get a Top 10 and compete with the ‘normal’  pop stars. But because maybe they, too, are depressed and know too well what it means to not deliver, to not function optimally, to disappoint people. When you’re depressed, being able to complete ANYTHING can feel like an insurmountable challenge. If you’re blessed with the strange mix of being both ambitious AND prone to depression, you are constantly at war with yourself, which Lana seems to be. Sometimes she has the energy to fight through it and deliver us true magic. These are her little victories. Other times, she drowns in her own ennui and forgets everyone but herself. Some fed up fans say she doesn’t care, but I don’t believe this is true. I’m sure she’s in a state of frequent frustration, with the “world,” but more often, with herself.

 

Part of what drew me — and many others, I’m sure — to Lana’s work and persona was that she seemed malcontented, if not quite tormented. Life is too much, and not enough, for her. I remember that little-known Gwen Stefani lyric (“I sip on dreams and choke on real things.”) To me, that’s Lana constant M.O. She wants desperately to escape, to isolate, and to never work another day again (the ultimate sin of today’s life-hack-driven, entrepreneurial, “optimize yourself!” digital nomad climate). She never makes it clear what it IS, exactly, that would make her happy, because what she’s asking for is impossible. A LOT of people empathize with this ambivalence, despite the fact that this passive, me vs. the world view of reality is literally censored out of modern day music. You’re not supposed to complain! Things will get better if you live, laugh, and love! LDR will never live, laugh and love first-hand, but she’ll always wonder what that might feel like. And pine for it like its her to mourn.

 

Female depressives can sustain a career. It doesn’t have to end in a Sylvia Plath/Amy Winehouse tragedy. Shirley Manson and Fiona Apple are still going strong 20 years down the line, and in some ways, seem more connected and ‘healthy’ than ever, while still finding a way to channel their grievances through their art. They’ve evolved their artistry to a level that is undeniably iconic. They will never top the charts again, but that was never the point. They have huge cult followings that will always follow their next move. It’s a family. I’d love for Lana to have this in her 40s, too, but I believe at some point she’ll have to start making art as part of a conversation, not just a soliloquy, for this to happen. 

Don't know if this "unpopular," but it is a series of opinions.

 

I remember reading a piece that spearheaded Lana’s importance: holding up the lonely torch of the female depressive in pop culture as a voice that deserves to be heard.

 

I agree with this. It's so easy to see her disaffected nature as a defect, but it's at the core of who she is and why she makes art to begin with. It's what gives her introspection, but also brings forth isolation.

 

Lana's perspective, from a 'marketability' and thematic angle, is one that would have made more sense in the mid 1990s. She would have kindred spirits in Garbage, Tori, Fiona, even Alanis. But in some ways, her perspective is even more needed now, because there is SUCH a lack of diversity in the females we hear from in pop culture, and the kinds of stories they tell. Shirley Manson of Garbage has pointed this out, fittingly enough. We need to hear from the miserable girl, the loser, the ones who don’t want to play nice, and maybe don’t even get out of bed some days. There’s always been a place for that girl in other media: literature, film, art. Music, especially pop music, doesn’t know what to do with this personality type. If it’s Kurt Cobain or Leonard Cohen (or any number of current male indie mini-gods), it’s tortured genius. If it’s a woman doing it, it’s pathetic, INDULGENT solipsism. How dare you be so lazy, inwardly focused and torpid when there are SOCIAL ISSUES to examine and crusade. That's the attitude Lana faces.

 

 We live in the age of the Totally Transparent, Fervently Disciplined, and Manicured Go-Getter. Taylor. Katy. Demi. Even Rihanna. They are corporate workhorses, THIRSTY for the fame, and more than ready to play and stay in the game. The personality type this workload requires is not for the delicate, sensitive, ambivalent type. They don’t look inward. They are fixated on the crowd. You see these same types in offices all over the world. Type A middle managers. They get shit done, might seem like “team players” (dictators in disguise), but they aren’t interesting and don’t offer a lot of innovation or insight into life, creativity, or much else. I’m sure the economic collapse of the past 10 years and the wreckage of the music industry has a lot to do with why this middle manager pop star archetype has prevailed. It’s sheer survivalism. 

 

The truth is the Lana of Born To Die, and that album itself, is an anomaly. It’s a character study in what it would be like to be a famous pop star. In philosophy, there’s an idea that to create a character, you have to lack what that character has for it to work (Homer vs Achilles is a classic example.) Lana was never a natural star by any means, but she’s clearly seen it as a way to transcend herself or try to another skin on. (“Give a man a mask and he’ll tell you the truth.” - Oscar Wilde.) To parallel her to Britney, Lana never has had a pre-Blackout glory era. This is where I think some LDR fans get it wrong. BTD was not her Baby One More Time or Oops! or whatever. Even on BTD, she was a propped-up simulacrum of what a pop icon might be like. She represented the IDEA. It was NEVER natural. She was the weirdo philosophy major playing dress up as the cool girl, singing into her mirror. The fact that she found an audience is a small miracle, but her intuitive habitat is still dancing around, alone, with her headphones on, wondering what it would be like to be onstage. The actual stage is foreign to her, and almost besides the point. I bet when she’s up there, she imagines being alone.

 

Look at ALL her work before, and after, BTD. The work of an outsider dreaming her life away, imagining that fame could transform her, fulfill her, then finding nothing there. Even before she became famous, the lyrics suggest she already was aware of its empty promise (probably due to her study of doomed cult icons). If anything, what she’s doing now is getting back to her roots: turning her LACK of fulfillment into art, trying to make something tangible of a void within. It’s hard work, and clearly she’s not always up to making it a complete vision. To create and share art is an attempt to tell your story in the hopes of CONNECTING with people. But that’s where it stops for Lana. In solitude, she records her vision then hits “send.” Then she disengages, unable to sustain the ideal in real-time. Unable to fulfill the pop duties. Unable to deliver the big pay off, for herself, or for her fans. It’s like a surrealist film that cuts off in the ‘wrong’ moment, just to leave you on edge. How many times can you get away with it? We’ll be finding out.

 

And that’s another thing. I think Lana’s “failure” to rise the occasion affects certain fans personally. Not just because they want her to get a Top 10 and compete with the ‘normal’  pop stars. But because maybe they, too, are depressed and know too well what it means to not deliver, to not function optimally, to disappoint people. When you’re depressed, being able to complete ANYTHING can feel like an insurmountable challenge. If you’re blessed with the strange mix of being both ambitious AND prone to depression, you are constantly at war with yourself, which Lana seems to be. Sometimes she has the energy to fight through it and deliver us true magic. These are her little victories. Other times, she drowns in her own ennui and forgets everyone but herself. Some fed up fans say she doesn’t care, but I don’t believe this is true. I’m sure she’s in a state of frequent frustration, with the “world,” but more often, with herself.

 

Part of what drew me — and many others, I’m sure — to Lana’s work and persona was that she seemed malcontented, if not quite tormented. Life is too much, and not enough, for her. I remember that little-known Gwen Stefani lyric (“I sip on dreams and choke on real things.”) To me, that’s Lana constant M.O. She wants desperately to escape, to isolate, and to never work another day again (the ultimate sin of today’s life-hack-driven, entrepreneurial, “optimize yourself!” digital nomad climate). She never makes it clear what it IS, exactly, that would make her happy, because what she’s asking for is impossible. A LOT of people empathize with this ambivalence, despite the fact that this passive, me vs. the world view of reality is literally censored out of modern day music. You’re not supposed to complain! Things will get better if you live, laugh, and love! LDR will never live, laugh and love first-hand, but she’ll always wonder what that might feel like. And pine for it like its her to mourn.

 

Female depressives can sustain a career. It doesn’t have to end in a Sylvia Plath/Amy Winehouse tragedy. Shirley Manson and Fiona Apple are still going strong 20 years down the line, and in some ways, seem more connected and ‘healthy’ than ever, while still finding a way to channel their grievances through their art. They’ve evolved their artistry to a level that is undeniably iconic. They will never top the charts again, but that was never the point. They have huge cult followings that will always follow their next move. It’s a family. I’d love for Lana to have this in her 40s, too, but I believe at some point she’ll have to start making art as part of a conversation, not just a soliloquy, for this to happen. 

Don't know if this "unpopular," but it is a series of opinions.

 

I remember reading a piece that spearheaded Lana’s importance: holding up the lonely torch of the female depressive in pop culture as a voice that deserves to be heard.

 

I agree with this. It's so easy to see her disaffected nature as a defect, but it's at the core of who she is and why she makes art to begin with. It's what gives her introspection, but also brings forth isolation.

 

Lana's perspective, from a 'marketability' and thematic angle, is one that would have made more sense in the mid 1990s. She would have kindred spirits in Garbage, Tori, Fiona, even Alanis. But in some ways, her perspective is even more needed now, because there is SUCH a lack of diversity in the females we hear from in pop culture, and the kinds of stories they tell. Shirley Manson of Garbage has pointed this out, fittingly enough. We need to hear from the miserable girl, the loser, the ones who don’t want to play nice, and maybe don’t even get out of bed some days. There’s always been a place for that girl in other media: literature, film, art. Music, especially pop music, doesn’t know what to do with this personality type. If it’s Kurt Cobain or Leonard Cohen (or any number of current male indie mini-gods), it’s tortured genius. If it’s a woman doing it, it’s pathetic, INDULGENT solipsism. How dare you be so lazy, inwardly focused and torpid when there are SOCIAL ISSUES to examine and crusade. That's the attitude Lana faces.

 

 We live in the age of the Totally Transparent, Fervently Disciplined, and Manicured Go-Getter. Taylor. Katy. Demi. Even Rihanna. They are corporate workhorses, THIRSTY for the fame, and more than ready to play and stay in the game. The personality type this workload requires is not for the delicate, sensitive, ambivalent type. They don’t look inward. They are fixated on the crowd. You see these same types in offices all over the world. Type A middle managers. They get shit done, might seem like “team players” (dictators in disguise), but they aren’t interesting and don’t offer a lot of innovation or insight into life, creativity, or much else. I’m sure the economic collapse of the past 10 years and the wreckage of the music industry has a lot to do with why this middle manager pop star archetype has prevailed. It’s sheer survivalism. 

 

The truth is the Lana of Born To Die, and that album itself, is an anomaly. It’s a character study in what it would be like to be a famous pop star. In philosophy, there’s an idea that to create a character, you have to lack what that character has for it to work (Homer vs Achilles is a classic example.) Lana was never a natural star by any means, but she’s clearly seen it as a way to transcend herself or try to another skin on. (“Give a man a mask and he’ll tell you the truth.” - Oscar Wilde.) To parallel her to Britney, Lana never has had a pre-Blackout glory era. This is where I think some LDR fans get it wrong. BTD was not her Baby One More Time or Oops! or whatever. Even on BTD, she was a propped-up simulacrum of what a pop icon might be like. She represented the IDEA. It was NEVER natural. She was the weirdo philosophy major playing dress up as the cool girl, singing into her mirror. The fact that she found an audience is a small miracle, but her intuitive habitat is still dancing around, alone, with her headphones on, wondering what it would be like to be onstage. The actual stage is foreign to her, and almost besides the point. I bet when she’s up there, she imagines being alone.

 

Look at ALL her work before, and after, BTD. The work of an outsider dreaming her life away, imagining that fame could transform her, fulfill her, then finding nothing there. Even before she became famous, the lyrics suggest she already was aware of its empty promise (probably due to her study of doomed cult icons). If anything, what she’s doing now is getting back to her roots: turning her LACK of fulfillment into art, trying to make something tangible of a void within. It’s hard work, and clearly she’s not always up to making it a complete vision. To create and share art is an attempt to tell your story in the hopes of CONNECTING with people. But that’s where it stops for Lana. In solitude, she records her vision then hits “send.” Then she disengages, unable to sustain the ideal in real-time. Unable to fulfill the pop duties. Unable to deliver the big pay off, for herself, or for her fans. It’s like a surrealist film that cuts off in the ‘wrong’ moment, just to leave you on edge. How many times can you get away with it? We’ll be finding out.

 

And that’s another thing. I think Lana’s “failure” to rise the occasion affects certain fans personally. Not just because they want her to get a Top 10 and compete with the ‘normal’  pop stars. But because maybe they, too, are depressed and know too well what it means to not deliver, to not function optimally, to disappoint people. When you’re depressed, being able to complete ANYTHING can feel like an insurmountable challenge. If you’re blessed with the strange mix of being both ambitious AND prone to depression, you are constantly at war with yourself, which Lana seems to be. Sometimes she has the energy to fight through it and deliver us true magic. These are her little victories. Other times, she drowns in her own ennui and forgets everyone but herself. Some fed up fans say she doesn’t care, but I don’t believe this is true. I’m sure she’s in a state of frequent frustration, with the “world,” but more often, with herself.

 

Part of what drew me — and many others, I’m sure — to Lana’s work and persona was that she seemed malcontented, if not quite tormented. Life is too much, and not enough, for her. I remember that little-known Gwen Stefani lyric (“I sip on dreams and choke on real things.”) To me, that’s Lana constant M.O. She wants desperately to escape, to isolate, and to never work another day again (the ultimate sin of today’s life-hack-driven, entrepreneurial, “optimize yourself!” digital nomad climate). She never makes it clear what it IS, exactly, that would make her happy, because what she’s asking for is impossible. A LOT of people empathize with this ambivalence, despite the fact that this passive, me vs. the world view of reality is literally censored out of modern day music. You’re not supposed to complain! Things will get better if you live, laugh, and love! LDR will never live, laugh and love first-hand, but she’ll always wonder what that might feel like. And pine for it like its her to mourn.

 

Female depressives can sustain a career. It doesn’t have to end in a Sylvia Plath/Amy Winehouse tragedy. Shirley Manson and Fiona Apple are still going strong 20 years down the line, and in some ways, seem more connected and ‘healthy’ than ever, while still finding a way to channel their grievances through their art. They’ve evolved their artistry to a level that is undeniably iconic. They will never top the charts again, but that was never the point. They have huge cult followings that will always follow their next move. It’s a family. I’d love for Lana to have this in her 40s, too, but I believe at some point she’ll have to start making art as part of a conversation, not just a soliloquy, for this to happen. 

Don't know if this "unpopular," but it is a series of opinions.

 

I remember reading a piece that spearheaded Lana’s importance: holding up the lonely torch of the female depressive in pop culture as a voice that deserves to be heard.

 

I agree with this. It's so easy to see her disaffected nature as a defect, but it's at the core of who she is and why she makes art to begin with. It's what gives her introspection, but also brings forth isolation.

 

Lana's perspective, from a 'marketability' and thematic angle, is one that would have made more sense in the mid 1990s. She would have kindred spirits in Garbage, Tori, Fiona, even Alanis. But in some ways, her perspective is even more needed now, because there is SUCH a lack of diversity in the females we hear from in pop culture, and the kinds of stories they tell. Shirley Manson of Garbage has pointed this out, fittingly enough. We need to hear from the miserable girl, the loser, the ones who don’t want to play nice, and maybe don’t even get out of bed some days. There’s always been a place for that girl in other media: literature, film, art. Music, especially pop music, doesn’t know what to do with this personality type. If it’s Kurt Cobain or Leonard Cohen (or any number of current male indie mini-gods), it’s tortured genius. If it’s a woman doing it, it’s pathetic, INDULGENT solipsism. How dare you be so lazy, inwardly focused and torpid when there are SOCIAL ISSUES to examine and crusade. That's the attitude Lana faces.

 

 We live in the age of the Totally Transparent, Fervently Disciplined, and Manicured Go-Getter. Taylor. Katy. Demi. Even Rihanna. They are corporate workhorses, THIRSTY for the fame, and more than ready to play and stay in the game. The personality type this workload requires is not for the delicate, sensitive, ambivalent type. They don’t look inward. They are fixated on the crowd. You see these same types in offices all over the world. Type A middle managers. They get shit done, might seem like “team players” (dictators in disguise), but they aren’t interesting and don’t offer a lot of innovation or insight into life, creativity, or much else. I’m sure the economic collapse of the past 10 years and the wreckage of the music industry has a lot to do with why this middle manager pop star archetype has prevailed. It’s sheer survivalism. 

 

The truth is the Lana of Born To Die, and that album itself, is an anomaly. It’s a character study in what it would be like to be a famous pop star. In philosophy, there’s an idea that to create a character, you have to lack what that character has for it to work (Homer vs Achilles is a classic example.) Lana was never a natural star by any means, but she’s clearly seen it as a way to transcend herself or try to another skin on. (“Give a man a mask and he’ll tell you the truth.” - Oscar Wilde.) To parallel her to Britney, Lana never has had a pre-Blackout glory era. This is where I think some LDR fans get it wrong. BTD was not her Baby One More Time or Oops! or whatever. Even on BTD, she was a propped-up simulacrum of what a pop icon might be like. She represented the IDEA. It was NEVER natural. She was the weirdo philosophy major playing dress up as the cool girl, singing into her mirror. The fact that she found an audience is a small miracle, but her intuitive habitat is still dancing around, alone, with her headphones on, wondering what it would be like to be onstage. The actual stage is foreign to her, and almost besides the point. I bet when she’s up there, she imagines being alone.

 

Look at ALL her work before, and after, BTD. The work of an outsider dreaming her life away, imagining that fame could transform her, fulfill her, then finding nothing there. Even before she became famous, the lyrics suggest she already was aware of its empty promise (probably due to her study of doomed cult icons). If anything, what she’s doing now is getting back to her roots: turning her LACK of fulfillment into art, trying to make something tangible of a void within. It’s hard work, and clearly she’s not always up to making it a complete vision. To create and share art is an attempt to tell your story in the hopes of CONNECTING with people. But that’s where it stops for Lana. In solitude, she records her vision then hits “send.” Then she disengages, unable to sustain the ideal in real-time. Unable to fulfill the pop duties. Unable to deliver the big pay off, for herself, or for her fans. It’s like a surrealist film that cuts off in the ‘wrong’ moment, just to leave you on edge. How many times can you get away with it? We’ll be finding out.

 

And that’s another thing. I think Lana’s “failure” to rise the occasion affects certain fans personally. Not just because they want her to get a Top 10 and compete with the ‘normal’  pop stars. But because maybe they, too, are depressed and know too well what it means to not deliver, to not function optimally, to disappoint people. When you’re depressed, being able to complete ANYTHING can feel like an insurmountable challenge. If you’re blessed with the strange mix of being both ambitious AND prone to depression, you are constantly at war with yourself, which Lana seems to be. Sometimes she has the energy to fight through it and deliver us true magic. These are her little victories. Other times, she drowns in her own ennui and forgets everyone but herself. Some fed up fans say she doesn’t care, but I don’t believe this is true. I’m sure she’s in a state of frequent frustration, with the “world,” but more often, with herself.

 

Part of what drew me — and many others, I’m sure — to Lana’s work and persona was that she seemed malcontented, if not quite tormented. Life is too much, and not enough, for her. I remember that little-known Gwen Stefani lyric (“I sip on dreams and choke on real things.”) To me, that’s Lana constant M.O. She wants desperately to escape, to isolate, and to never work another day again (the ultimate sin of today’s life-hack-driven, entrepreneurial, “optimize yourself!” digital nomad climate). She never makes it clear what it IS, exactly, that would make her happy, because what she’s asking for is impossible. A LOT of people empathize with this ambivalence, despite the fact that this passive, me vs. the world view of reality is literally censored out of modern day music. You’re not supposed to complain! Things will get better if you live, laugh, and love! LDR will never live, laugh and love first-hand, but she’ll always wonder what that might feel like. And pine for it like its her to mourn.

 

Female depressives can sustain a career. It doesn’t have to end in a Sylvia Plath/Amy Winehouse tragedy. Shirley Manson and Fiona Apple are still going strong 20 years down the line, and in some ways, seem more connected and ‘healthy’ than ever, while still finding a way to channel their grievances through their art. They’ve evolved their artistry to a level that is undeniably iconic. They will never top the charts again, but that was never the point. They have huge cult followings that will always follow their next move. It’s a family. I’d love for Lana to have this in her 40s, too, but I believe at some point she’ll have to start making art as part of a conversation, not just a soliloquy, for this to happen. 

Don't know if this "unpopular," but it is a series of opinions.

 

I remember reading a piece that spearheaded Lana’s importance: holding up the lonely torch of the female depressive in pop culture as a voice that deserves to be heard.

 

I agree with this. It's so easy to see her disaffected nature as a defect, but it's at the core of who she is and why she makes art to begin with. It's what gives her introspection, but also brings forth isolation.

 

Lana's perspective, from a 'marketability' and thematic angle, is one that would have made more sense in the mid 1990s. She would have kindred spirits in Garbage, Tori, Fiona, even Alanis. But in some ways, her perspective is even more needed now, because there is SUCH a lack of diversity in the females we hear from in pop culture, and the kinds of stories they tell. Shirley Manson of Garbage has pointed this out, fittingly enough. We need to hear from the miserable girl, the loser, the ones who don’t want to play nice, and maybe don’t even get out of bed some days. There’s always been a place for that girl in other media: literature, film, art. Music, especially pop music, doesn’t know what to do with this personality type. If it’s Kurt Cobain or Leonard Cohen (or any number of current male indie mini-gods), it’s tortured genius. If it’s a woman doing it, it’s pathetic, INDULGENT solipsism. How dare you be so lazy, inwardly focused and torpid when there are SOCIAL ISSUES to examine and crusade. That's the attitude Lana faces.

 

 We live in the age of the Totally Transparent, Fervently Disciplined, and Manicured Go-Getter. Taylor. Katy. Demi. Even Rihanna. They are corporate workhorses, THIRSTY for the fame, and more than ready to play and stay in the game. The personality type this workload requires is not for the delicate, sensitive, ambivalent type. They don’t look inward. They are fixated on the crowd. You see these same types in offices all over the world. Type A middle managers. They get shit done, might seem like “team players” (dictators in disguise), but they aren’t interesting and don’t offer a lot of innovation or insight into life, creativity, or much else. I’m sure the economic collapse of the past 10 years and the wreckage of the music industry has a lot to do with why this middle manager pop star archetype has prevailed. It’s sheer survivalism. 

 

The truth is the Lana of Born To Die, and that album itself, is an anomaly. It’s a character study in what it would be like to be a famous pop star. In philosophy, there’s an idea that to create a character, you have to lack what that character has for it to work (Homer vs Achilles is a classic example.) Lana was never a natural star by any means, but she’s clearly seen it as a way to transcend herself or try to another skin on. (“Give a man a mask and he’ll tell you the truth.” - Oscar Wilde.) To parallel her to Britney, Lana never has had a pre-Blackout glory era. This is where I think some LDR fans get it wrong. BTD was not her Baby One More Time or Oops! or whatever. Even on BTD, she was a propped-up simulacrum of what a pop icon might be like. She represented the IDEA. It was NEVER natural. She was the weirdo philosophy major playing dress up as the cool girl, singing into her mirror. The fact that she found an audience is a small miracle, but her intuitive habitat is still dancing around, alone, with her headphones on, wondering what it would be like to be onstage. The actual stage is foreign to her, and almost besides the point. I bet when she’s up there, she imagines being alone.

 

Look at ALL her work before, and after, BTD. The work of an outsider dreaming her life away, imagining that fame could transform her, fulfill her, then finding nothing there. Even before she became famous, the lyrics suggest she already was aware of its empty promise (probably due to her study of doomed cult icons). If anything, what she’s doing now is getting back to her roots: turning her LACK of fulfillment into art, trying to make something tangible of a void within. It’s hard work, and clearly she’s not always up to making it a complete vision. To create and share art is an attempt to tell your story in the hopes of CONNECTING with people. But that’s where it stops for Lana. In solitude, she records her vision then hits “send.” Then she disengages, unable to sustain the ideal in real-time. Unable to fulfill the pop duties. Unable to deliver the big pay off, for herself, or for her fans. It’s like a surrealist film that cuts off in the ‘wrong’ moment, just to leave you on edge. How many times can you get away with it? We’ll be finding out.

 

And that’s another thing. I think Lana’s “failure” to rise the occasion affects certain fans personally. Not just because they want her to get a Top 10 and compete with the ‘normal’  pop stars. But because maybe they, too, are depressed and know too well what it means to not deliver, to not function optimally, to disappoint people. When you’re depressed, being able to complete ANYTHING can feel like an insurmountable challenge. If you’re blessed with the strange mix of being both ambitious AND prone to depression, you are constantly at war with yourself, which Lana seems to be. Sometimes she has the energy to fight through it and deliver us true magic. These are her little victories. Other times, she drowns in her own ennui and forgets everyone but herself. Some fed up fans say she doesn’t care, but I don’t believe this is true. I’m sure she’s in a state of frequent frustration, with the “world,” but more often, with herself.

 

Part of what drew me — and many others, I’m sure — to Lana’s work and persona was that she seemed malcontented, if not quite tormented. Life is too much, and not enough, for her. I remember that little-known Gwen Stefani lyric (“I sip on dreams and choke on real things.”) To me, that’s Lana constant M.O. She wants desperately to escape, to isolate, and to never work another day again (the ultimate sin of today’s life-hack-driven, entrepreneurial, “optimize yourself!” digital nomad climate). She never makes it clear what it IS, exactly, that would make her happy, because what she’s asking for is impossible. A LOT of people empathize with this ambivalence, despite the fact that this passive, me vs. the world view of reality is literally censored out of modern day music. You’re not supposed to complain! Things will get better if you live, laugh, and love! LDR will never live, laugh and love first-hand, but she’ll always wonder what that might feel like. And pine for it like its her to mourn.

 

Female depressives can sustain a career. It doesn’t have to end in a Sylvia Plath/Amy Winehouse tragedy. Shirley Manson and Fiona Apple are still going strong 20 years down the line, and in some ways, seem more connected and ‘healthy’ than ever, while still finding a way to channel their grievances through their art. They’ve evolved their artistry to a level that is undeniably iconic. They will never top the charts again, but that was never the point. They have huge cult followings that will always follow their next move. It’s a family. I’d love for Lana to have this in her 40s, too, but I believe at some point she’ll have to start making art as part of a conversation, not just a soliloquy, for this to happen. 

Don't know if this "unpopular," but it is a series of opinions.

 

I remember reading a piece that spearheaded Lana’s importance: holding up the lonely torch of the female depressive in pop culture as a voice that deserves to be heard.

 

I agree with this. It's so easy to see her disaffected nature as a defect, but it's at the core of who she is and why she makes art to begin with. It's what gives her introspection, but also brings forth isolation.

 

Lana's perspective, from a 'marketability' and thematic angle, is one that would have made more sense in the mid 1990s. She would have kindred spirits in Garbage, Tori, Fiona, even Alanis. But in some ways, her perspective is even more needed now, because there is SUCH a lack of diversity in the females we hear from in pop culture, and the kinds of stories they tell. Shirley Manson of Garbage has pointed this out, fittingly enough. We need to hear from the miserable girl, the loser, the ones who don’t want to play nice, and maybe don’t even get out of bed some days. There’s always been a place for that girl in other media: literature, film, art. Music, especially pop music, doesn’t know what to do with this personality type. If it’s Kurt Cobain or Leonard Cohen (or any number of current male indie mini-gods), it’s tortured genius. If it’s a woman doing it, it’s pathetic, INDULGENT solipsism. How dare you be so lazy, inwardly focused and torpid when there are SOCIAL ISSUES to examine and crusade. That's the attitude Lana faces.

 

 We live in the age of the Totally Transparent, Fervently Disciplined, and Manicured Go-Getter. Taylor. Katy. Demi. Even Rihanna. They are corporate workhorses, THIRSTY for the fame, and more than ready to play and stay in the game. The personality type this workload requires is not for the delicate, sensitive, ambivalent type. They don’t look inward. They are fixated on the crowd. You see these same types in offices all over the world. Type A middle managers. They get shit done, might seem like “team players” (dictators in disguise), but they aren’t interesting and don’t offer a lot of innovation or insight into life, creativity, or much else. I’m sure the economic collapse of the past 10 years and the wreckage of the music industry has a lot to do with why this middle manager pop star archetype has prevailed. It’s sheer survivalism. 

 

The truth is the Lana of Born To Die, and that album itself, is an anomaly. It’s a character study in what it would be like to be a famous pop star. In philosophy, there’s an idea that to create a character, you have to lack what that character has for it to work (Homer vs Achilles is a classic example.) Lana was never a natural star by any means, but she’s clearly seen it as a way to transcend herself or try to another skin on. (“Give a man a mask and he’ll tell you the truth.” - Oscar Wilde.) To parallel her to Britney, Lana never has had a pre-Blackout glory era. This is where I think some LDR fans get it wrong. BTD was not her Baby One More Time or Oops! or whatever. Even on BTD, she was a propped-up simulacrum of what a pop icon might be like. She represented the IDEA. It was NEVER natural. She was the weirdo philosophy major playing dress up as the cool girl, singing into her mirror. The fact that she found an audience is a small miracle, but her intuitive habitat is still dancing around, alone, with her headphones on, wondering what it would be like to be onstage. The actual stage is foreign to her, and almost besides the point. I bet when she’s up there, she imagines being alone.

 

Look at ALL her work before, and after, BTD. The work of an outsider dreaming her life away, imagining that fame could transform her, fulfill her, then finding nothing there. Even before she became famous, the lyrics suggest she already was aware of its empty promise (probably due to her study of doomed cult icons). If anything, what she’s doing now is getting back to her roots: turning her LACK of fulfillment into art, trying to make something tangible of a void within. It’s hard work, and clearly she’s not always up to making it a complete vision. To create and share art is an attempt to tell your story in the hopes of CONNECTING with people. But that’s where it stops for Lana. In solitude, she records her vision then hits “send.” Then she disengages, unable to sustain the ideal in real-time. Unable to fulfill the pop duties. Unable to deliver the big pay off, for herself, or for her fans. It’s like a surrealist film that cuts off in the ‘wrong’ moment, just to leave you on edge. How many times can you get away with it? We’ll be finding out.

 

And that’s another thing. I think Lana’s “failure” to rise the occasion affects certain fans personally. Not just because they want her to get a Top 10 and compete with the ‘normal’  pop stars. But because maybe they, too, are depressed and know too well what it means to not deliver, to not function optimally, to disappoint people. When you’re depressed, being able to complete ANYTHING can feel like an insurmountable challenge. If you’re blessed with the strange mix of being both ambitious AND prone to depression, you are constantly at war with yourself, which Lana seems to be. Sometimes she has the energy to fight through it and deliver us true magic. These are her little victories. Other times, she drowns in her own ennui and forgets everyone but herself. Some fed up fans say she doesn’t care, but I don’t believe this is true. I’m sure she’s in a state of frequent frustration, with the “world,” but more often, with herself.

 

Part of what drew me — and many others, I’m sure — to Lana’s work and persona was that she seemed malcontented, if not quite tormented. Life is too much, and not enough, for her. I remember that little-known Gwen Stefani lyric (“I sip on dreams and choke on real things.”) To me, that’s Lana constant M.O. She wants desperately to escape, to isolate, and to never work another day again (the ultimate sin of today’s life-hack-driven, entrepreneurial, “optimize yourself!” digital nomad climate). She never makes it clear what it IS, exactly, that would make her happy, because what she’s asking for is impossible. A LOT of people empathize with this ambivalence, despite the fact that this passive, me vs. the world view of reality is literally censored out of modern day music. You’re not supposed to complain! Things will get better if you live, laugh, and love! LDR will never live, laugh and love first-hand, but she’ll always wonder what that might feel like. And pine for it like its her to mourn.

 

Female depressives can sustain a career. It doesn’t have to end in a Sylvia Plath/Amy Winehouse tragedy. Shirley Manson and Fiona Apple are still going strong 20 years down the line, and in some ways, seem more connected and ‘healthy’ than ever, while still finding a way to channel their grievances through their art. They’ve evolved their artistry to a level that is undeniably iconic. They will never top the charts again, but that was never the point. They have huge cult followings that will always follow their next move. It’s a family. I’d love for Lana to have this in her 40s, too, but I believe at some point she’ll have to start making art as part of a conversation, not just a soliloquy, for this to happen. 

Don't know if this "unpopular," but it is a series of opinions.

 

I remember reading a piece that spearheaded Lana’s importance: holding up the lonely torch of the female depressive in pop culture as a voice that deserves to be heard.

 

I agree with this. It's so easy to see her disaffected nature as a defect, but it's at the core of who she is and why she makes art to begin with. It's what gives her introspection, but also brings forth isolation.

 

Lana's perspective, from a 'marketability' and thematic angle, is one that would have made more sense in the mid 1990s. She would have kindred spirits in Garbage, Tori, Fiona, even Alanis. But in some ways, her perspective is even more needed now, because there is SUCH a lack of diversity in the females we hear from in pop culture, and the kinds of stories they tell. Shirley Manson of Garbage has pointed this out, fittingly enough. We need to hear from the miserable girl, the loser, the ones who don’t want to play nice, and maybe don’t even get out of bed some days. There’s always been a place for that girl in other media: literature, film, art. Music, especially pop music, doesn’t know what to do with this personality type. If it’s Kurt Cobain or Leonard Cohen (or any number of current male indie mini-gods), it’s tortured genius. If it’s a woman doing it, it’s pathetic, INDULGENT solipsism. How dare you be so lazy, inwardly focused and torpid when there are SOCIAL ISSUES to examine and crusade. That's the attitude Lana faces.

 

 We live in the age of the Totally Transparent, Fervently Disciplined, and Manicured Go-Getter. Taylor. Katy. Demi. Even Rihanna. They are corporate workhorses, THIRSTY for the fame, and more than ready to play and stay in the game. The personality type this workload requires is not for the delicate, sensitive, ambivalent type. They don’t look inward. They are fixated on the crowd. You see these same types in offices all over the world. Type A middle managers. They get shit done, might seem like “team players” (dictators in disguise), but they aren’t interesting and don’t offer a lot of innovation or insight into life, creativity, or much else. I’m sure the economic collapse of the past 10 years and the wreckage of the music industry has a lot to do with why this middle manager pop star archetype has prevailed. It’s sheer survivalism. 

 

The truth is the Lana of Born To Die, and that album itself, is an anomaly. It’s a character study in what it would be like to be a famous pop star. In philosophy, there’s an idea that to create a character, you have to lack what that character has for it to work (Homer vs Achilles is a classic example.) Lana was never a natural star by any means, but she’s clearly seen it as a way to transcend herself or try to another skin on. (“Give a man a mask and he’ll tell you the truth.” - Oscar Wilde.) To parallel her to Britney, Lana never has had a pre-Blackout glory era. This is where I think some LDR fans get it wrong. BTD was not her Baby One More Time or Oops! or whatever. Even on BTD, she was a propped-up simulacrum of what a pop icon might be like. She represented the IDEA. It was NEVER natural. She was the weirdo philosophy major playing dress up as the cool girl, singing into her mirror. The fact that she found an audience is a small miracle, but her intuitive habitat is still dancing around, alone, with her headphones on, wondering what it would be like to be onstage. The actual stage is foreign to her, and almost besides the point. I bet when she’s up there, she imagines being alone.

 

Look at ALL her work before, and after, BTD. The work of an outsider dreaming her life away, imagining that fame could transform her, fulfill her, then finding nothing there. Even before she became famous, the lyrics suggest she already was aware of its empty promise (probably due to her study of doomed cult icons). If anything, what she’s doing now is getting back to her roots: turning her LACK of fulfillment into art, trying to make something tangible of a void within. It’s hard work, and clearly she’s not always up to making it a complete vision. To create and share art is an attempt to tell your story in the hopes of CONNECTING with people. But that’s where it stops for Lana. In solitude, she records her vision then hits “send.” Then she disengages, unable to sustain the ideal in real-time. Unable to fulfill the pop duties. Unable to deliver the big pay off, for herself, or for her fans. It’s like a surrealist film that cuts off in the ‘wrong’ moment, just to leave you on edge. How many times can you get away with it? We’ll be finding out.

 

And that’s another thing. I think Lana’s “failure” to rise the occasion affects certain fans personally. Not just because they want her to get a Top 10 and compete with the ‘normal’  pop stars. But because maybe they, too, are depressed and know too well what it means to not deliver, to not function optimally, to disappoint people. When you’re depressed, being able to complete ANYTHING can feel like an insurmountable challenge. If you’re blessed with the strange mix of being both ambitious AND prone to depression, you are constantly at war with yourself, which Lana seems to be. Sometimes she has the energy to fight through it and deliver us true magic. These are her little victories. Other times, she drowns in her own ennui and forgets everyone but herself. Some fed up fans say she doesn’t care, but I don’t believe this is true. I’m sure she’s in a state of frequent frustration, with the “world,” but more often, with herself.

 

Part of what drew me — and many others, I’m sure — to Lana’s work and persona was that she seemed malcontented, if not quite tormented. Life is too much, and not enough, for her. I remember that little-known Gwen Stefani lyric (“I sip on dreams and choke on real things.”) To me, that’s Lana constant M.O. She wants desperately to escape, to isolate, and to never work another day again (the ultimate sin of today’s life-hack-driven, entrepreneurial, “optimize yourself!” digital nomad climate). She never makes it clear what it IS, exactly, that would make her happy, because what she’s asking for is impossible. A LOT of people empathize with this ambivalence, despite the fact that this passive, me vs. the world view of reality is literally censored out of modern day music. You’re not supposed to complain! Things will get better if you live, laugh, and love! LDR will never live, laugh and love first-hand, but she’ll always wonder what that might feel like. And pine for it like its her to mourn.

 

Female depressives can sustain a career. It doesn’t have to end in a Sylvia Plath/Amy Winehouse tragedy. Shirley Manson and Fiona Apple are still going strong 20 years down the line, and in some ways, seem more connected and ‘healthy’ than ever, while still finding a way to channel their grievances through their art. They’ve evolved their artistry to a level that is undeniably iconic. They will never top the charts again, but that was never the point. They have huge cult followings that will always follow their next move. It’s a family. I’d love for Lana to have this in her 40s, too, but I believe at some point she’ll have to start making art as part of a conversation, not just a soliloquy, for this to happen. 

I agree with the general consensus that she needs to challenge herself. As much as I admire her work and connect to her viewpoint more than most artists right now, there's something missing in her work ethic as an artist. Doesn't she want to grow? Learn a new instrument, try playing with new forms/elements of expression? Explore a new way of writing or singing? Learning to produce? Where's her hunger? It's like she's paralyzed in a very specific, very evocative spot creatively. She can go 'deeper and deeper' but she can't move PAST it. It feels like compulsion. It can be beautiful and compelling and euphoric when she gets it right, but I'm starting to wonder, like others, where it can go from here. Surely, this is some sort of finale.
 
For someone who has traveled much of the globe, she acts like no place exists but LA. For someone who claims to be a writer first, I sense no drive to push herself further, to become more nuanced, imaginative, precise. For someone who seems, at heart, mainly preoccupied with existential ponderings, she refuses to offer us a true peak into her intellect. She'd rather link to a famous philosopher's video than share her own opinion. Similar thoughts on why she covers Nina Simone and quotes TS Eliot on record — to add a weight her own work cannot provide yet.  For awhile, that evasion felt like mystique, now it's beginning to reek a bit of fear. She's managed to create a pseudo-reality for herself where she gets to play the frigid icon who never explains, but she's painted herself into corner, one where she cannot let loose and experiment and fuck up and be FREE. She professes her love of being WILD and FREE,  but she seems quite conservative and inhibited at the end of the day. I mean, the fact that she hates Thai food (and also "spicy and exotic" food) actually says a lot about her tolerance for 'openness to new experiences'. I maintain the belief that she's actually closer to Little Edie of Grey Gardens than Marilyn Monroe — a grandiose recluse. And that is fascinating. But there's many ways to create haunting art that deviates from the themes she's already worn thin. I'd like to see her explore her devout solipsism a new way. Or even better, let go of it, connect with the real world and join humanity. At some point, the bubble needs to burst.
 
Maybe she SHOULD start by traveling somewhere new. If she were in Seoul or Tokyo or Cairo, would she just shut her eyes to the present moment? Has anything new inspired her since she first started making music? She prides herself on 'always being inspired by the same few things,' but either her relationship to those things needs to change, or the actual content does. As beautiful and intriguing as Honeymoon is, it is safer than Ultraviolence, where she tried on new sounds, moods, perspectives, eras of living. Honeymoon all feels like a daydream of youth and romance long dead and gone. I'm okay with that, if it really IS the "swan song" for the Haunted Hollywood LDR. It's hard to tell where Lana's head is at now. On one level, she seems to be getting more metaphysical, on another, she seems to want to stick to shallow tropes. It's almost like she's afraid to show how smart she actually is. There's some vanity vs. intelligence schism within her that I've never understood, but seems to hold her back. It's always sad when women dumb themselves down, and the reasons are always rooted in fear of rejection.
 
TL;DR:
I get that she's aiming to be an Auteur, therefore consistent in her themes, but I mean, even Woody Allen eventually ventured outside of the neurotic tics of the Upper West Side....

POPMATTERS
8/10
http://www.popmatters.com/review/lana-del-rey-honeymoon2/

POPMATTERS
8/10
http://www.popmatters.com/review/lana-del-rey-honeymoon2/

POPMATTERS
8/10
http://www.popmatters.com/review/lana-del-rey-honeymoon2/

THE GIRL MOST LIKELY For V's Best of the Best Issue, Steven Klein and Lana Del Rey unite for an intimate "Private Collection" of Polaroids. Don't miss more photos and an interview with close friend James Franco where the singer opens up on those relationship rumors, her colorful past, and being misunderstood in the U.S. PRE-ORDER YOUR COPY NOW
 
 


 
 



From Huffington Post:
 
Lana Del Rey doesn't always give interviews, but when she does, she makes them count. 
The sultry songstress sat down with friend James Franco for V Magazine's fall issue to talk about her new album, the criticisms she faces and, of course, that infamous "anti-feminist" quote. 
 
""The luxury we have as a younger generation is being able to figure out where we want to go from here, which is why I’ve said things like, 'I don’t focus on feminism, I focus on the future,'" she told Franco. "It’s not to say that there’s not more to do in that area. I’ve gotten to witness through history the evolution of so many movements and now I’m standing at the forefront of new technological movements."
She continued, "I’m not undermining other issues. But I feel like that’s obvious, like I shouldn’t even have to bring that up." 
Of her new album, "Honeymoon," Del Rey explained, "It's the word that sums up the ultimate dream. I mean, life is a honeymoon, y'know?? Life, love, paradise, freedoms ... that's forever." 
Del Rey also appears on the glossy's cover, which was shot by photographer Steven Klein and left totally unretouched. "

I really love Swan Song. It should have gotten a video. It has become a standout for me on this record along with The Blackest Day, 24, Salvatore and Terrence Loves You. The second half in general is way stronger than the first one.

Don't know if this "unpopular," but it is a series of opinions.

 

I remember reading a piece that spearheaded Lana’s importance: holding up the lonely torch of the female depressive in pop culture as a voice that deserves to be heard.

 

I agree with this. It's so easy to see her disaffected nature as a defect, but it's at the core of who she is and why she makes art to begin with. It's what gives her introspection, but also brings forth isolation.

 

Lana's perspective, from a 'marketability' and thematic angle, is one that would have made more sense in the mid 1990s. She would have kindred spirits in Garbage, Tori, Fiona, even Alanis. But in some ways, her perspective is even more needed now, because there is SUCH a lack of diversity in the females we hear from in pop culture, and the kinds of stories they tell. Shirley Manson of Garbage has pointed this out, fittingly enough. We need to hear from the miserable girl, the loser, the ones who don’t want to play nice, and maybe don’t even get out of bed some days. There’s always been a place for that girl in other media: literature, film, art. Music, especially pop music, doesn’t know what to do with this personality type. If it’s Kurt Cobain or Leonard Cohen (or any number of current male indie mini-gods), it’s tortured genius. If it’s a woman doing it, it’s pathetic, INDULGENT solipsism. How dare you be so lazy, inwardly focused and torpid when there are SOCIAL ISSUES to examine and crusade. That's the attitude Lana faces.

 

 We live in the age of the Totally Transparent, Fervently Disciplined, and Manicured Go-Getter. Taylor. Katy. Demi. Even Rihanna. They are corporate workhorses, THIRSTY for the fame, and more than ready to play and stay in the game. The personality type this workload requires is not for the delicate, sensitive, ambivalent type. They don’t look inward. They are fixated on the crowd. You see these same types in offices all over the world. Type A middle managers. They get shit done, might seem like “team players” (dictators in disguise), but they aren’t interesting and don’t offer a lot of innovation or insight into life, creativity, or much else. I’m sure the economic collapse of the past 10 years and the wreckage of the music industry has a lot to do with why this middle manager pop star archetype has prevailed. It’s sheer survivalism. 

 

The truth is the Lana of Born To Die, and that album itself, is an anomaly. It’s a character study in what it would be like to be a famous pop star. In philosophy, there’s an idea that to create a character, you have to lack what that character has for it to work (Homer vs Achilles is a classic example.) Lana was never a natural star by any means, but she’s clearly seen it as a way to transcend herself or try to another skin on. (“Give a man a mask and he’ll tell you the truth.” - Oscar Wilde.) To parallel her to Britney, Lana never has had a pre-Blackout glory era. This is where I think some LDR fans get it wrong. BTD was not her Baby One More Time or Oops! or whatever. Even on BTD, she was a propped-up simulacrum of what a pop icon might be like. She represented the IDEA. It was NEVER natural. She was the weirdo philosophy major playing dress up as the cool girl, singing into her mirror. The fact that she found an audience is a small miracle, but her intuitive habitat is still dancing around, alone, with her headphones on, wondering what it would be like to be onstage. The actual stage is foreign to her, and almost besides the point. I bet when she’s up there, she imagines being alone.

 

Look at ALL her work before, and after, BTD. The work of an outsider dreaming her life away, imagining that fame could transform her, fulfill her, then finding nothing there. Even before she became famous, the lyrics suggest she already was aware of its empty promise (probably due to her study of doomed cult icons). If anything, what she’s doing now is getting back to her roots: turning her LACK of fulfillment into art, trying to make something tangible of a void within. It’s hard work, and clearly she’s not always up to making it a complete vision. To create and share art is an attempt to tell your story in the hopes of CONNECTING with people. But that’s where it stops for Lana. In solitude, she records her vision then hits “send.” Then she disengages, unable to sustain the ideal in real-time. Unable to fulfill the pop duties. Unable to deliver the big pay off, for herself, or for her fans. It’s like a surrealist film that cuts off in the ‘wrong’ moment, just to leave you on edge. How many times can you get away with it? We’ll be finding out.

 

And that’s another thing. I think Lana’s “failure” to rise the occasion affects certain fans personally. Not just because they want her to get a Top 10 and compete with the ‘normal’  pop stars. But because maybe they, too, are depressed and know too well what it means to not deliver, to not function optimally, to disappoint people. When you’re depressed, being able to complete ANYTHING can feel like an insurmountable challenge. If you’re blessed with the strange mix of being both ambitious AND prone to depression, you are constantly at war with yourself, which Lana seems to be. Sometimes she has the energy to fight through it and deliver us true magic. These are her little victories. Other times, she drowns in her own ennui and forgets everyone but herself. Some fed up fans say she doesn’t care, but I don’t believe this is true. I’m sure she’s in a state of frequent frustration, with the “world,” but more often, with herself.

 

Part of what drew me — and many others, I’m sure — to Lana’s work and persona was that she seemed malcontented, if not quite tormented. Life is too much, and not enough, for her. I remember that little-known Gwen Stefani lyric (“I sip on dreams and choke on real things.”) To me, that’s Lana constant M.O. She wants desperately to escape, to isolate, and to never work another day again (the ultimate sin of today’s life-hack-driven, entrepreneurial, “optimize yourself!” digital nomad climate). She never makes it clear what it IS, exactly, that would make her happy, because what she’s asking for is impossible. A LOT of people empathize with this ambivalence, despite the fact that this passive, me vs. the world view of reality is literally censored out of modern day music. You’re not supposed to complain! Things will get better if you live, laugh, and love! LDR will never live, laugh and love first-hand, but she’ll always wonder what that might feel like. And pine for it like its her to mourn.

 

Female depressives can sustain a career. It doesn’t have to end in a Sylvia Plath/Amy Winehouse tragedy. Shirley Manson and Fiona Apple are still going strong 20 years down the line, and in some ways, seem more connected and ‘healthy’ than ever, while still finding a way to channel their grievances through their art. They’ve evolved their artistry to a level that is undeniably iconic. They will never top the charts again, but that was never the point. They have huge cult followings that will always follow their next move. It’s a family. I’d love for Lana to have this in her 40s, too, but I believe at some point she’ll have to start making art as part of a conversation, not just a soliloquy, for this to happen.