longtimeman

It could have been a plausible line, but she definitely sings 'get a little bit suburban'.

It's on 'Quiet Now'

Now that there's not really such a thing as physical singles any more, and you can buy songs individually on iTunes, I don't understand the difference between a promo single and a 'real' single. Will there be a separate release with extra bonus songs?

Just so I don't look negative all the time about analytical writing, I think there's one really interesting paragraph in the text that doesn't go far enough. (this is a little long, so I'm spoilering it)

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

Also, 'Ah he's in the sky with diamonds' is a terrible line that doesn't really scan or make sense, and ruins the joke.

I've loved Paloma from her first album - she's one of the singers who got me back onto female vocalists. And she's a fan of Lana as well (there was a pic earlier in the thread of her at a LDR show - here's a tweet about UV: https://twitter.com/Palomafaith/status/480327669276762113 )

There is no such thing as a fake fan. We all like things because we think they're cool, or they make us happy, or they're associated with something that makes us feel good. Sometimes I think that Lana is not for young girls, but then I remember what I was listening to when I was twelve years old, and I have to let it go. Lana's for anyone who likes her or likes her clothes or whatever. None of us loses anything as a fan if somebody else likes her for what we think is the wrong reason. It's not the young teens that are the problem, it's journalists exploiting and degrading Lana to bolster some point they want to make.

That's what I mean. Too many journalists think that they're explaining something by saying that she has a persona, or has created a persona, and then they don't bother to go into detail as to what that persona is, or what it means for Lana's art. Nobody takes her at her word that Lana and Lizzy are the same, even though it's clear that there's a logical progression from her visual and musical 'persona' that goes all the way back to her earliest recordings that we have, right through to now. The idea that Lizzy was a caterpillar and Lana is a butterfly is one of the lies that the media sells, because it's the simplest narrative to trace about her, and people can't seem to imagine any story that is different to the hundreds of movies we've seen either about how the innocent starlet comes from a small town and is exploited by the big star making machine or, on the other hand, of the careerist artist who will step on anyone and do anything to get to the top. I haven't seen anybody bother to seriously consider what it means for her to change the line of the old song to "Jim told me that he hit me and it felt like a kiss", or to write a song called "I fucked my way up to the top", and then drop the claim that she had a long relationship/affair with someone in the industry. I agree with you 100% that Lana is just a name to attach to whatever cause you happen to be pushing, and we would not be reading or bothering about any of these articles if they weren't built around (shallow) discussions of Lana. Sex sells in more ways than one.

There's something about Lana that makes writers want to pontificate, usually without any consideration of her as an artist, which is the only annoying thing. I'd love it if somebody actually tried to analyse her approach to persona (not what they think 'persona' means), and the unusual moral outlook of her songs and videos. Linking her to a nonsensical term like 'late-stage capitalism'* isn't doing anybody any favours. *

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

Well you can obviously do whatever you want, I don't mind. I just wish there was a better thing to make me feel better about it than to tell myself 'she was asking for it'.

You haven't had the brain implant yet?

I'm getting more and more bummed out about the fact so much of the available material by Lana was stolen from her personal files. It's as though we had all these fantastic photos of her, but that they were obtained by somebody breaking into her house and stealing her photo albums. Even though I like a lot of the songs, I'm tempted to delete them all and pretend they don't exist.

I listen to it every day - lots of days twice a day. When I had the version with 14 tracks, I would feel satisfied by the end of FK, but since I got the Target version with Flipside, I always feel like starting it again as soon as it finishes. I've only heard it twice on a friend's big loud speakers - every other time on iPod or in my car.

'Skid Row', as well as being a real place, is also a metaphor for experiencing hard times - see http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/skid+row for an example I've always understood the line 'I wear my diamonds on Skid Row' to be the narrator making herself look flashy despite being in hard times - the rest of the lyrics are about an 'outsider' finding her way 'in' (much like National Anthem, and the way the narrator of that song goes from being uncool to being too cool). So in a way, it's a class war, but from the other end - a low status person taking on the trappings of success, and making herself fit in with those at a higher status. This song also has two of my favourite Lana-isms. Of course, the classic first line, which is a brilliant boast in the tradition of years of hip hop singers, but it also has a self-mocking tone that is so often missing from that sort of line. She's selling herself (as a product, not necessarily in a prostitution sense), but winking at the challenge she's throwing out there. The target of her pick up line is first going to laugh and say 'that's bullshit', and then have to pause for a second and say 'but I better check, just to make sure'. Glorious. The other classic line is recasting the Beatles' phrase about an LSD-inspired vision of a lady among the stars, as an old rich guy in a jet. Too fucking funny and clever.

I thought this was a pretty good interview - a few points. - This explanation of what happened with Lou Reed makes a lot more sense than the previous account, which made it sound as though they had a recording session set up on the day he died, which was clearly not true (he had been unwell, and wasn't doing anything that strenuous in the last weeks of his life). The fact that she just took it upon herself to visit him, and had the bad luck to pick that day, at least could have happened. - How many times does she have to explain the whole persona/LDR thing? I know that it's the law that interviewers have to ask her about it, but she's said it so many times it should have sunk in already. It's her 'artist name', but that doesn't mean she's inventing more than any other songwriters, regardless of whatever name they choose to put on their records. (I've always thought it was closer to someone like Chan Marshall/Cat Power, who made out that 'Cat Power' was a band name, but always referred to just her and whoever she happened to be playing with, or just solo - I don't remember people hassling Chan at the time about how similar or different 'Chan' and 'Cat' were ...) - The drinking question reads worse than it sounds - it can seem from reading the transcript that she's planning on going back to drinking, but listening to her, it really sounds as though she's being honest with herself and not setting herself up as someone who thinks she's going to be 'sober for life'. The media has such a distorted view of drinking and alcoholism that she doesn't need the extra pressure of some bullshit article being written if she's photographed at a table where there are beer bottles (memo to the self righteous - it's quite possible for an ex-drinker to happily be around other people drinking and not feel drawn in to it, which she explains in this interview beautifully).

This is a fairly rough transcript but I've tried to be as accurate to the meaning of the questions and answers as possible. If I've made any substantial mistakes, please let me know.

This is great stuff - I'd heard about Father Yod, etc, but had not thought of him being an influence on Lana. Very nice research @@Lanakai

Lou Reed: "Come take a walk on the wild side" (Born To Die) Bryan Adams: Cruel World: "You're young, you're wild, you're free" // Heaven: "We were young and wild and free". Funkadelic: "Feet don't fail me now" (Born To Die/One Nation Under A Groove) Phil Collins: "I can feel it coming in the air tonight" (Guns and Roses)

ETA: stoopid post deleted

A couple of (generally positive) podcast reviews of UV - both of them show the time that the part of interest begins: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBbt7Xt6egM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zg-TtwXj7W8

It's probably important to put this here - a song I hated for many years, but now kinda like, and Bryan has shot some nice pics of Lana too.

We get it. You made it, you're proud of it. You don't need to spam every thread with it.