Sportscruiser

Oh Say Can You See

I love her to pieces but I just can’t force myself to believe she hasn’t heard at least Renaissance or some other mainstream popular releases. She’s been away from social media, not from the world.

I reeeeeally don’t wanna get my hopes up for the Grammys but A&W possibly being nominated is something I can see happening. AOTY nom not so much.

Her instagram feed is rancid and I’m not sure I like her work (from what I’ve seen online) but let’s hope. At the end of the day, Nadia Lee Cohen will remain undefeated as the best photographer who’s ever worked with Lana. I wish she did something with Petra Collins… Petra’s a huge fan of her.

Who’s the photographer?

No, it’s not. I wish people stopped discrediting the last 3 tracks as “bonus tracks”. Thematically they all make sense in the concept of the album of getting in and out of the tunnel. Taco Truck in particular is the epitome of that - Lana is repurposing the very song she always said it’s meant to listen to to vibe and drive to and putting at the end of an album where she distilled immense amounts of trauma; it makes perfect sense as the closer.

She’s really eating this era omfg.

OMFG.

My interpretation is that she’s evoking her father’s protection by a grander force (in this case in the figure of her grandfather) to keep him safe to do what he loves (which is fishing for sharks - which by itself can be literal or even metaphoric in the sense that he’s in the wilderness overcoming a species that’s stronger than him). That she chooses to juxtapose that with her own personal struggles with the way she’s perceived gives me the idea that she too longs for protection while she’s doing what she loves (singing, writing, living) without the fear of being misinterpreted or minimized in the process - her protection in this case comes in the form of the three loved ones she lost and talks about in other songs, poetically incarnated in three white butterflies. It seems they’re two different subjects altogether but she ties them rather interestingly.

A&W Grandfather Paris, Texas Taco Truck x VB Fingertips Kintsugi Peppers Candy Necklace Margaret The Grants Jon Batiste Interlude Let The Light In Fishtail Sweet Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd Judah Smith Interlude I love all of them and this is definitely a Top 3 record for me, only behind Honeymoon and NFR.

The Kintsugi - Fingertips - Paris Texas - Grandfather run is the most existential and esoteric Lana has ever been. I’m still as floored as ever.

I see some of y’all still displaying copious amounts of tasteless copy-paste one liners about how Kintsugi and/or Fingertips are boring and should have stayed as poems - as if Lana’s writing hasn’t at least since 2017 been merging the two art forms consistently. Between this and the anti-piano brigade… it’s a tragedy. I see nothing Greek in it

Sweet and Kintsugi keep rising in my overall rank. Beautiful, harrowing pieces. I love her so much.

Ocean Blvd isn’t meant to be or feel immediate: it’s meant for one to sit with it for a long, long time. It keeps growing and growing. The people who keep reducing it to a piano album are just stuck in BTD/UV nostalgia and can’t consume music that isn’t short or beat driven - or both.

Fashionably late in answering this but this is an interesting comment. I do wonder if Lana’s refusal to play the promotional game has led us to believe she’s overall lazy as an artist and incapable to conjure concept albums regardless of whether she promotes them as such or not. In my opinion, Lana as of right now wouldn’t make sure to go out of her way to say this is a concept album the same way most musicians do when they have a concept project in their hands. This album is clearly narrative-driven and its structure does obey to a certain narrative of getting in and out of a tunnel: The Grants anticipate this moment (“I’m doing the hard stuff, I’m doing my time”) before the title track and Sweet display her own anxieties as she goes further into her memories and past (fear of being forgotten, the anxiety of being in a relationship and wanting to know about its longevity, as she affirms to being someone deserving of that). From A&W forward she gets into the tunnel, to harrowing (A&W), eerie (the interludes), dark (Candy Necklace) and devastating (Kintsugi + Fingertips) effects as she gets more and more lost in the misty forests of her own traumas. From Paris, Texas forward it feels like she’s coming out of the tunnel (“I just needed two seconds to be me”) which culminates in Margaret, a very bittersweet moment where, as some review points, she’s a spectator of joy rather than a receptor. And then the Fishtail/Peppers/Taco Truck coda where she’s finally embracing the recklessness and devil-may-care side of her that so many people (her mother and some past relationships) made her feel bad and inferior about. Ending the album with “signing off bang bang kiss kiss” feels like a major “fuck off, peace out” ride into the sunset. Who knows where she goes from here - at the end of the day, it’s her path to forge and her trauma seems to be left behind. This tracklist feels so meticulous and incredibly deliberate in narrative and musicianship that it kind of feels unfair to discredit it as “non-conceptual” because Lana is too “lazy” to do something like that. Just because she’s not being overly promotional about it, doesn’t mean she’s a lazy artist. The fact that she poured so much of herself in this record and formatted it in such an intriguing and confounding fashion, makes me believe she’s anything but lazy.

Sweet is amazing. Sorry for doubting ya

Ultraviolence!

I can’t stop feeling there’s strong a connection between Grandfather and Lana’s Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood. I mean: But I’m just a soul whose intentions are good But I have good intentions even if I’m one of the last ones …coupled with the lush and bombastic atmosphere combines the best of Honeymoon’s and NFR’s worlds. I think it’s probably my favorite track of the album and a big big Lana song in general for me. It’s otherworldly.

This is one of her greatest achievements as a writer, vocalist and artist in general. It’s Lana at her most grandiose and mother nature-esque, what a force of nature this song is. I’m still absolutely floored.

Don’t know if someone shared this but this analysis is amazing and truly shines a light on this record as a concept record: https://mobile.twitter.com/M0TH3RCR33P/status/1639410172002009089?t=dz3Z2TlgYbPNuWMYW11Kcw&s=19 I’m also really happy to see so many people online loving this record. My instagram feed is full of people stanning different songs, I haven’t seen that since NFR.

I love it that she doesn’t compromise her sound, ever. She said “y’all want trap? shit, sure but… y’all gonna have some surf rock instrumentation throughout”. Brilliant. And also a major bop. The criss cross thing I don’t really know what it means but I always imagine it as (under a spoiler because of graphic language):

She basically said “to me mother is a slur “

It immediately transported me to a wedding in the 70s, very The Deer Hunter-esque. I also don’t get the complaining about Jack’s super short verse because it’s well short and once you imagine yourself at the mood and space the song is taking you to, it’s like the drunk groom just stormed the stage to sing some nonsense and then left. Incredibly atmospheric. Love it!

Thats exactly the point. She’s not trying to cater to anyone but herself. It makes sense: the ones who stick until the end are the ones who are interested in the whole journey.

Pitchfork came through with the BNM staple yassssss.