Sam Gho

I agree.

My timeline: K: 1999-2004, 2004 spent in Alabama Van Wilson: A&R 5 points, 2006 met him at the WLSC 2006, probably a short fling. Jimmy G: 2007/2008. I think it was also platonic, and more driven from Lana's side. Probably covered the period she was at the trailer park in NJ Mike M: Met him first for the interview at Arlene's Grocery in February 2009. With him for 2009, and early 2010 (dated by tweets), but I guess he did not want her to pursue her music anymore, and they broke up (lyrics of Afraid really encapsulate their break-up). The guy rebounded quickly to the woman he got married to in October 2010. I think many of her songs deal with this relationship and the break-up. Reeve Carney, can't place him in the timeline, maybe 2008 after JG. I don't think Lana has had many relationships. She has said in multiple interviews that in real life she is very quiet, lonely, does not talk much, and therefore continues to feel very strongly about her main relationships (K and MM), because few people really understand her. I think the rings she wears is significant, particularly the one that covers both fingers, because I guess that indicates her eternal feelings for two men. I just hope she can move on at some point, and find someone (I hate thinking of her lonely and alone), although any boyfriend would have to learn to live with the ghosts of two people in the room, K and MM.

For K part 1, and Birds of a Feather.

Such a terrible thought, I think it is something she has hinted obliquely about, but I really hope she keeps it as just a fantasy. She has so much to give, and live for, and really not too many reasons to be that unhappy.

She looks so amazingly beautiful in this picture!!

Not even a dollar? (or euro)

Don't want to start an argument, but it is presumptuous in the extreme to state that she has had lip injections and a nose job. You may think so, that is your right, but you cannot state that you know it is a fact. I agree that she looks different but I think there is something about her that makes her face look very different at different times. I think how her face looked at the David Letterman show, is very different from how her face looks now, this summer, and we all agree that she did not have plastic surgery this year, right?. I do think she has lost significant weight from like 2008/2009 (I was quite shocked to see how skinny she was at the concert) and that would make her face and nose seem narrower. But whatever, if you read what I wrote, I was just stating what I believed, don't want to force it down your throat, but neither should you.

She looks beautiful!

Journalistic research is what I would like to think of it!

Tried to resist getting into this thread, but finally gave in. Here are some things that bug me about Lana. 1. Her lack of effort in preparing for live performances. In particular not using backing singers (given that all the songs in BTD have layering and loop back vocals), and inconsistent use of ear monitors. 2. Her using the exactly the same list of songs in exactly the same order for all of her concerts was really irritating (I attended two of the NY shows and felt like I was watching exactly the same show). Just changing the order of songs (and preferably cycling in one new song) would have introduced some spontaneity and made the shows more exciting. 3. I find her reluctance to do encores irritating, and really do not understand her philosophical resistance to it. 4. I really do not like her smoking. We know that smoking can destroy your voice and as a singer that is really stupid. 5. I think she has taken the mystery aspect of her background a bit too far, particularly as it leads her to trip up on facts e.g. her birthdate. 6. Not being sufficiently thoughtful and speaking in similar clichés in multiple interviews. On the other hand I have no problem with her appearance and I think she looks her age (saw her up close at the concert). I think constant dyeing may not be good for her hair but I don’t know much about such things. I also don’t think she had surgery on her face, and the reason her face looks different now is that she has lost significant amounts of weight (maybe when she was on the maple syrup/coffee diet in London), and the reason her lips look plumper is that she uses cayenne pepper. I am amazed at the number of songs she has written, and find the lyrics intriguing and interesting. Most amazingly, I have not been so smitten with an entertainer before, and I find her endlessly fascinating.

I couldn’t agree with you more. I find that Lana is really doing a disservice to her incredible talent and creativity, by not putting significantly greater effort in turning out spectacular live shows. I can completely sympathize with her protestation that she is nervous performing live, and that she is not a natural stage performer, but to me that should prod her into really buckling down on it, practicing a lot more, getting backing singers for layering/harmonies, taking advantage of other electronic aids, drums, and most importantly (and I have been harping on it for a while), using the best ear monitors available. I am a amateur musician and cannot stress the importance of ear monitors for live performances. It is a routine thing, and I can’t figure out why she resists using them more consistently. She can clearly sing great live in the studio, think of Goodbye Kiss, where she uses the monitors. I will keep hoping that she will at some point realize the importance of consistently performing well live if she wishes to achieve the success that she deserves, and really make an effort to improve.

I really like how she looks in the last picture with the dark hair. I am going to go with that for now, but I like her in every color!

Actually, there was something else I wanted to say but forgot. I am sure some of you have seen the following entry about her in Kent yearbook, which suggests she was heading off as a student to SUNY at Geneseo (near Lake Placid), which would be consistent with her having joined SUNY (or not), before going to Alabama, and then joining Fordham a year later.

I think the label asking her to change her age would be very surprising and kind of stupid. I think it came from Lana herself, but who knows!

The possibility that Lana might be a year older than what was known widely, for some reason bothers me. The discrepancy is so small that I don’t see any advantage for Lana to unnecessarily lie about it. However as I think about it more, I think I have come up with a possible explanation. One of the most mysterious parts of Lana’s past to me has been the time she spent in Alabama. She has mentioned this consistently beginning with her early interviews and I think it is true. However nothing else in her background really makes sense to explain a sojourn to Alabama. Except that if viewed in a certain way, it probably does make a lot of sense. I think when Lana got into high school in Lake Placid she met a guy who was bad news all around (the mysterious K). I think this is the guy who got her into alcohol and probably drugs later. However her drinking freaked out her parents who sent her to boarding school, mainly to get her away from this guy. However I am sure she kept meeting him, despite her parents opposition, e.g. when she came back home for vacations etc. After she finished school, I think her parents really wanted her to break off this relationship, but instead I think she ran away with this guy to Alabama. Instead of going to college she spent a year with this guy down in Alabama, where this guy kept getting into more and more trouble. This scenario would explain many of her lyrics (being on the run, Officer Brown checking on them, kids living the dark side of the American dream etc., there are many, many references in many songs that fit such a scenario), until this guy finally got caught and sent to prison. Not sure he got the death sentence (it’s too melodramatic, but a long prison sentence is as good as dying), and maybe he is still in prison. She said in an interview that he was still around and she was in touch with his mother, with would also be consistent with him being in prison. Anyway, once he got sent away she woke up and came back home, and finally joined Fordham. However, this scenario means that there is a year missing in her life. So for her friends from high school, her years in Fordham would be a year off. I think she realized in early interviews that this was likely to raise more questions later, instead it was easier to just to pretend that she had come to Fordham straight from Lake Placid. She has always been very reticent to speak about her time before NY probably for this reason. This was probably evident in the Complex interview where the interviewer had picked up some discrepancies about her age. Like many things, once you lie about something, even something very small and inconsequential, it becomes difficult to backtrack later. Therefore, according to the scenario I have laid out, she graduated from high-school in 2003, spent about a year with K in Alabama, and joined Fordham in Fall 2004. I also think that most of her songs are about K, although she does not name him (she hints at that in her My Space interview, where she says her songs are always about the same guy). I think she developed a crush on Jimmy Gnecco once she met him in NYC clubs, but if anything it was a short fling (even though she wrote a few songs about it). Jimmy however exposed her to being attracted to older men, but I don’t think she had any significant relationship until she met Mike Mizrahi (early 2009). Some of the songs that refer to old guys probably are written to him, and songs like Afraid, Damn You are definitely in reference to her breakup with him. However, I think she still obsesses about K, and that might make her a difficult person to have a long-term relationship with (although I hope I am wrong, and I really wish she finds a great guy to be with). I spend way too much time thinking about such stuff, gotta stop!

The picture is in New York Times Square!

I hear it as Aberdeen. It also makes more sense to me, there is an Aberdeen in Alabama (near Huntsville, more on that later), and maybe she did spend time there during her Alabama sojourn.

You are right about 1080p, but that's not a concert. Anyway, I hope she gives a great performance (hopefully with backing singers and a full band).

Can you buy the concerts? I don't see an option for it for the other performances. I read somewhere about some performances being released as EP's, but then we won't have the video.

I am really excited about Lana's upcoming performance at the iTunes festival, mainly because it will be the first professionally recorded live performance in 1080p HD/5.1. The performances remain on the iTunes website for a while but then become unavailable. Do any of you know of a way to record the HDMI signal that is output by my Apple TV, e.g. some kind of digital video recorder?

Thanks for your response, but you did not address the basis of the discrepancy in the WW album numbers between the two websites. As I mentioned, the numbers for other albums do not differ by much, and hence it seems to me that one reason maybe that Mediatraffic does not count some countries/or some mode of distribution, that Musiccharts does, and for some strange reason those countries/modes of distribution, include significant numbers of BTD albums.

Should be 2,171,000

Glad you liked it!

How do you know she is 27?

Hi Charlie, It is great that you posted these on this board. I do have a question however. Your numbers (at least the album sales) are from Mediatraffic.de, which for some reason, right from the beginning has reported sales of BTD that are at least 30% less than that posted by Musiccharts.net. However for nearly all other albums the two websites are within +/-5%. Do you know why this discrepancy, and why do you prefer Mediatraffic?