longtimeman

Twenty two years after hearing it for the first time ... The Velvet Underground and Nico Produced by Andy Warhol (aka the Banana album) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bARrDYnNLKQ

I might have to start watching this.

Where would Lana fandom be without stealing and mislabelling?

It just had it's world premiere on Australian radio - Lisa Mitchell's new song 'Wah Ha' [Note: she was all I listened to just before I discovered LDR]

Vocals can bleed into other tracks when a band is being recorded live.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wy3Nl2zsw-k For those wanting to love Lana more, and hate the paparazzi more.

I'm fascinated to hear what she came up with before Dan came along, but don't think we'll ever get to hear it. Lana has nothing to gain and everything to lose by having it heard (if it's not as good as the released version, people will say she only got the songs right with help; if it's better than the released version, people will criticise her for releasing the wrong version). And I'm still amazed that she went from having everything leaked, to having UV not leak at all, which is unbelievable in this day and age (the leak we all got came from a copy purchased in a store). That said, I love the alternate version of 'West Coast', and if there was a record like that, I'd be first in line for it. That vibe only fits a couple of other songs on the record, though, and is nothing at all like the only other alternate version we have (Black Beauty demo). The demos that were leaked before UV came out all sound like they're from different projects, and none of them have quite the right mood for what UV ended up being, except BB. The other songs she released outside of the records were in a darker singer/songwriter style (Leonard Cohen, Lee and Nancy), and it feels like the first version of UV was going to be a lighter companion to those (Joni Mitchell and the Eagles rather than Nico and the Velvets). I wonder whose idea it was to have those loud guitar solos in PWYC and SOC, and whether there is much distorted guitar on her original record. Just look at the bonus tracks - any of these could have been potentially the basis for the sound of a whole album: West Coast (alt version) - laid back 70's rock Black Beauty - Dark 80's power ballad Guns and Roses - No idea how to characterise this one, but as far away from 1987 Hard Rock as you can get with rock instruments Florida Kilos - Up tempo 2000's pop Is This Happiness - Downbeat Jeff Buckley-ish torch song Flipside - late 80's - early 90's Sonic Youth/Hole/Nirvana-ish sound

Of course I get the lyrics wrong, in this thread of all threads

I haven't read all of this thread to see if it's been mentioned ... But the first bunch of times I heard Blue Jeans, i heard 'I was into air pop' instead of 'I was into hip hop', which I thought was so specific and funny and awesome, it was a big reason I got hooked into that song. I was a little disappointed when I found out the proper lyric, but by that point I was hooked already.

There's two questions here. Firstly, I would not lose any respect for her if she did it. It's her body, and she can do what she wants with it. The second question that comes to my mind is would I want to see the pictures? I honestly don't know if I'd want to. Almost any time I see an actress I like in a movie where they're naked, I feel more awkward than anything else. I'm sure there are exceptions, but most directors and photographers don't seem to know how to shoot nudity in an interesting way, without making it either porn or depressing (or both). The photo posted above is pretty good, but is only about 10% as sexy as the shots of her walking the street in jeans and t-shirt, or where she's smoking with leather jacket on. I don't see the point in looking at nude pictures of celebrities unless they personally invited me to take them (in which case I'm talking a lot of them, and looking at them a lot).

I'm not a Lana collectibles expert, but I've got a few promos by other artists, that I'm 100% sure are genuine, that look pretty much like this, particularly with the sticker combined with a shoddy looking disc and cover. Also, it's being sold by a reputable seller who would know what the real thing usually looks/feels like, and would probably have a good source for it. IOW, I'm not saying I'm sure it's genuine, just that you shouldn't write it off because it looks terrible.

I enjoyed your comments, @ and generally agree. One aspect of Lana's voice is that she does not have a great deal of power, which hurts her at larger shows. Her best vocal performances (live) that I've seen are ones at small shows or live in the studio, even going back to her short blonde hair 'Lizzy' days, because she's not required to sing loudly. I don't consider her voice 'weedy', but she's never going to be a soul singer in line with an Adele or Joss Stone. Every part of her voice (pitch, tone, vibrato, control) suffers when she has to 'project', and she can either work on that, or if she doesn't want to, she can sing quieter. (She sings fairly softly on BTD, and her voice is mixed loudly, which produces a sound that I personally love). Where I agree with @@BlueJeans is in the tremendous variation in emotion she can put into her singing, which to me is her number one strength as a performer. There are versions of 'Blue Jeans' where she sings the 'bitches before' phrase with such venom, it doesn't sound like a performance at all, but like an emotionally heightened moment in a private relationship. There are so few singers who let themselves get that emotionally vulnerable in songs - I can think of Antony Hegarty and Chan/Cat Power as a couple of examples, but most singers will value the consistency of performance above the emotional variations that make her live shows so compelling. Here's a nice example of her voice where she's singing not that much louder than the volume of a normal conversation.

I agree with this. I never skip DMD, and I think the programming of it between VG and NA works really well, unlike DP following NA, which kills the momentum of the album.

She's not her grandmother, according to everybody (check out https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/beatrice-dautresme ), but there is a close enough similarity that I wonder if Lana saw the photos and used her as a model for the BTD era look.

Backing vocalists are a huge cost for an artist, as well, particularly on tour. Even if you pick up different singers in each city (to avoid paying for transport and hotels), you have to rehearse with them, pay them to perform, and deal with the possibility of them not fitting the group. It would obviously be more authentic if she could have them, but I don't think enough people would appreciate the effort to make it worthwhile.

Although this is totally in the realm of fantasy, I would love to see this happen.

Typical tabloid crap, and Franco making fun of them.

@@Trinity - 12=Black Beauty; 13=Guns and Roses; 14=Florida Kilos Thank you Moy, and to whoever put this together. Annoyingly, the Target edition does not give any credits for 'Flipside' - anybody with the French/Japanese versions want to check theirs? In any case, it seems to be just Blake and Lana, but I'd like to know who was behind the desk for it. In case anyone's interested, here's a song by Floating Action, the band with the mysterious Seth Kauffman.

I dunno - he took the effort to sign up here for 41 seconds to make a vague and inflammatory post. He seems legit to me.

Actually, it's none of those mundane things. It's things like having photos where she shows only one eye, or just being a woman in the music industry.

To be clear, I agree with you. The guy is a scumbag troll, but the difference between him and anonymous message board trolls is that he's making a living out of it. Why? Because people like to believe they've got secret knowledge that somebody else doesn't, and that by seeing through the worldwide conspiracy, they're able to feel superior to the rest of us who enjoy listening to music and watching movies. Of course, it also allows them to never actually try to do anything that will improve the world, because they're 'fighting the good fight' against a vast invisible enemy, so you can't expect them to actually do anything productive. I've seen what people who have a slight public profile have to deal with on a daily basis - I can't even imagine how much bullshit somebody with Lana's profile would have to deal with every minute of the day if they followed social media (which makes it completely understandable why she doesn't spend much time on twitter/facebook/,...).

He makes up shit for a living - lying on twitter probably doesn't even phase him. I really long for the days when it was just our parents and priests who tried to tell us that pop music was evil, and not illuminati hipsters.

The arrangement on the demo version would work really well for a live band, slowed down a bit in parts. Anyway, this is a great bonus song, but, like OTTR, might be too hard to sing live.

She looks really pretty, but I've seen her look happier.

I thought it was worth updating this thread to what will probably be close to the final score (I can't imagine too many other journals putting out reviews now, a month and a half after release). The Metascore is 75 (31 reviews), but more interesting is the breakdown: 22 positive, 8 mixed, and only 1 negative. That's a pretty strong showing - I checked the highest scores this year, and aside from classic re-releases, the only records other than Roseanne Cash and St Vincent to get higher than 86, were only reviewed by very few (up to 10) reviewers. Combined with hitting #1 in so many countries, Lana can be proud of what she's achieved.