longtimeman

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.

Klaus Biesenbach, who is Director of MoMa, NYC, and has been hanging around Franco and Lana lately http://instagram.com/klausbiesenbach

There are more at Just Jared, none with her and James Franco, though: http://www.justjared.com/photo-gallery/3167626/lana-del-rey-supports-james-franco-child-of-god-premiere-15/

It's nice that something has united Lanaboards I love it, fwiw, just for the look on her face at the 'he hit me' line.

Well there's my day sorted.

Lana's mentioned Cat Power a few times lately - I wouldn't have said she sounds like BTD era, but these songs might suit you if you like the UV era http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3XmDc9WZSo

I just saw both excerpts and I'm sold. It looks incredible.

I agree - remember how negative people were about Brooklyn Baby based on the 'teaser'? I'm excited for anything she produces - that doesn't mean I'll always love it, but it's always fun to see what she's doing, especially when she's in control.

I agree - there's absolutely no motivation for Lana to (re-)release the two things I'm most keen for - the original Ultraviolence and her first album. If either of them are received well, it will reflect badly on what she's doing now, and if they're received badly, she'll be accused of cashing in on sub-par music.

It does if they're going for a Source/Father Yod vibe.

Rob tweeted not too long ago supporting gay marriage, and Lana has worked with plenty of gay men, etc. The difference with Kurt Cobain is that when he was speaking out against homophobia, the world, and particularly the rock world, was much worse than it is today, so he was actually being brave. (A lot of people at the time assumed that he would have to be gay or bi himself if he was standing up against homophobia). If Lana came out and made a statement about it now, she would get shit for it for taking on something that now seems like a 'motherhood' issue, particularly in the entertainment world. There was a lot of crap written recently about Macklemore not being the 'right kind' of pro-gay artist, and knowing how people respond to LDR, she'd get the same, or worse.

I'm usually pretty sensitive to the sound of autotune, and that doesn't sound like it to me. She sings quite softly on the studio records, so it might be that she's using a more speak-sing style than most pop singers that creates the illusion. (I'm happy to accept I might be wrong here). BTW, is the 'one exception' Birds of a Feather - where it's used more like an instrument than a corrective technique - or were you thinking of something else?

While we're living in a fantasy world, how about a DVD with the tour documentary that Chuck was shooting.

I've loved Sirens ever since I heard it at the right speed.

Yep, it's pretty funny how people are responding to her saying as though she's a bitter nobody, lamenting lost opportunities, and ignoring the fact that she's sold seven million copies of her first record, has just had a number one record with her second album, and is world famous. Or, to ruin her joke by explaining it, she's saying mockingly "imagine if some man I'd slept with had actually done me a favour because of it - I could really have become famous!"

What about John Cale's version (which is where Buckley adapted his cover from)?

It amazes me every time I hear VG how she manages to be so 'in the moment' of a moment that's so long over - both of the relationship, and the drunkenness. She's usually associated more with David Lynch, but the song is a Bergman movie boiled down to its essentials in under 5 minutes. The fact that people call it 'anti-feminist' seems to be entirely and tragically missing the point.

As much as we'll miss your condescension and having someone around to give us moral guidance, I have to farewell you with the traditional 'don't let the door hit your ass on the way out'. If you don't want to offend people, maybe you should not rush to call someone you've never met a 'whore'. English is obviously not your first language, so you might not pick up on some of the subtlety behind what Lana is saying, but it's not her fault that you're ignorant. Have fun sticking to morally pure artists, and I hope your wife never reads what you think about her body.

Sigh. The powers of clairvoyance that some people on this board possess is astounding sometimes. I would have thought we were past the point where sexual behaviour wasn't seen as conflicting with loving being around your family, but apparently we've still got a long way to go, baby. Here is an alternative explanation for some of the behaviour that doesn't require pretending to have some insight into the mental processes of somebody who you've never met. Singing, writing, performing, dancing, public relations, mixing with people, taking criticism and being optimistic are all different characteristics or skills. A person can have a few, or all, or none of these, but having one doesn't necessarily mean that you would be expected to have any of the others. To be a pop star, though, you're meant to have all of them, to an extreme degree. Each of us will decide which of them is more important - some people don't think a person should be considered a singer if they can't perform live, others don't care as long as they sound good on record. Some of us don't want to see a singer who can't dance at the same time, others of us don't care. Some of us don't care who a singer treats her fans, others of us really care about how the performer relates to people who like her. But you cannot ascribe a mental iilness to somebody because they are missing a few of these attributes. Even if Lizzy always wanted to be successful, the fact that there are parts of fame that make her miserable don't make her a hypocrite. They just mean that she couldn't see the future (like most of us can't), and the things that she was looking for in being famous came with a higher price than she expected. It's an age old story, and the only artists who manage to get through it are the ones who find a way to ignore all of the bullshit and focus entirely on the creative process. The rest either burn out or overdose or freak out. I'm hoping that the shift in tone in reporting on Lana - from beautiful puppet to worthwhile songwriter and singer - helps her to make the transition, but at this point, anything can happen. The Beatles stopped performing live because they couldn't hear themselves on stage, and because nobody cared about what they sounded like. Maybe Lana will decide that the chance to see the smiles on the people in the front row is not worth all of the bullshit, and she'll stop singing live as well. It's 100% true that some of her songs live are better than others, and some of her shows are better than others, and she has a few decisions to make about performing. But from her perspective, the things that she enjoyed doing - that were her way into the industry - had nothing to do with standing in front of 50,000 fans. They were writing, singing and putting together videos, and all of them could be done in a small room with only a few people around. That's an attitude I can relate to. Finally, relationships fall apart for all sorts of reasons, and there is no such thing as the objective truth of why something fucks up. Everybody who has an opinion is either a biased participant, or someone who doesn't know what happened. So when it comes to her time with Barrie and what went wrong, the only reasonable response is to nod and move on, and accept what both of them say about it as their take on it.

I love this interview, and @@evilentity pretty much summed up my thoughts. One thing, though - the seven year affair/relationship wasn't a marriage - she might have been with him every month, or every six months, or some other irregular pattern, and we don't know how much it overlapped with other relationships and events. This would be annoying if it was published by a real newspaper.

Right - would that be why people today still listen to records by 'difficult' artists who had bad relationships with journalists, changed their styles all the time and generally didn't 'play by the rules', like Lou Reed, Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Tom Waits, Frank Zappa, Pink Floyd, Miles Davis, Patti Smith, REM. I could go on and on. All of these artists have had journalists and the public write them off as 'washed up' or 'finished' at numerous points over time, but they all still sell tonnes of records - even the ones who aren't still alive - and, unlike the thousands of one hit wonders who followed all the rules and found that they bored the world after their fifteen minutes was over, they're not only remembered as the answer to trivia questions. I'm not as lucky as you to have a crystal ball to see the future, so I don't know what the next 10-20 years will look like for Lana, but if she keeps on putting her heart into records like Ultraviolence, she'll at least still be worth listening to, even if the mainstream moves on, and she'll probably be happier then as well.

Firstly, thank you for posting the song - it's fantastic. I find it so fascinating that Lana was my big break from all of the music that I had spent so long listening to (I'm talking about BTD), and since I've dug deeper, and particularly with UV, she brings me right back to so many of those things I've loved for so long - country/spaghetti western music, Lou Reed, Serge, Leonard Cohen. Serge is also the guy who recorded a duet with his daughter called Lemon Incest - something that even Lana might think is beyond the pale ... or maybe not (Side note: Charlotte Gainsbourg is now an actor, and recently appeared in the movie ... Melacholia. Circles inside circles ...)

She uses death in her songs in a particular, romantic way. It's not as though her videos are full of scenes of genocide - most of the time death is seen as a barrier to love, which can sometimes be overcome (Dark Paradise) and sometimes defeats you (Blue Jeans). I'd argue that the deliberately movie like quality of so many of her clips, particularly Summertime Sadness, mean that they're not showing death, they're showing a dream world where death doesn't have any repercussions. Her jumping off the bridge isn't going to end with her in a bloody heap at the bottom, but with her waking up. The problem is that pop music is seen as music for children, and one of the jobs that the media has given themselves is to protect children from the idea of death and suicide. But they're hot button issues, which excite and scare people (and sell) so if you can put those words on the front page of your newspaper or magazine, while taking the 'moral stand' of condemning anybody who seems to be 'promoting' them, you get the double win. Protect the children, scare the parents, and use the name of a celebrity to sell the story - the holy trinity of publication, and Lana fits in perfectly.