Jeanne Dielman

OMG. The bangs! The bow! The "attending the Scammys' funeral" vibes! It's giving lush dark Nancy Sinatra as a rich snobbish cunt(r)y socialite widow.

Ocean Blvd is too personal, too diverse, too complex to win those conservative members over. It's one of the strangest and most idiosyncratic albums as it somehow manages to blend different genres into something wholly singular. Of course they'd pick the beige mediocrity of "the record" over it. They're so transparent and their dislike towards Lana is astonishingly obvious at this point. I mean, the Scammys almost always reward mediocrity over greatness so the results aren't particularly surprising, but what makes me truly mad is that they gave Best Alternative Performance to Paramore. A&W is the most acclaimed song of 2023, topping nearly every single important critics' list in the US. It's an undeniable achievement. It's the only song in that category that was literally nominated for SOTY! This is absolutely preposterous. She'll never be taken seriously by these flops. She's not "popular enough" to win the major categories; she's not "alternative" enough to win the smaller ones; hell, she'll probably submit "Lasso" in the country categories next year - assuming she does release that album -, and they will snub her AGAIN even if it's the most acclaimed album of the year, because she won't be considered "country" enough. She'll never win, and she shouldn't give any fucks anymore. They truly don't deserve her.

I'm at a loss for words...

Disgusting.

Okay, yes, let boygenius win the Rock categories, while Lana sweeps the Alternative ones.

My heart is about to explode, omg.

The inclusion of the BTS footage *is* the whole point. This adds so many interesting layers to an already deeply strange, complex and elusive song. What an astonishing achievement.

OMG!

A&W hopefully. Both A&W and Paris, Texas will explode charts/streams-wise if they receive the MV treatment.

Didn’t Nikki Lane mention that Lana is making music videos - plural! - for the album? I wonder if this is another Fuck it I love you/The greatest case with two thematically connected music videos. Candy Necklace and A&W would be a very cool combo.

Is that John Waters?! OMG. And the Marilyn wig

Fingertips is giving Björk circa Vespertine. It’s also become my currently favourite song off of the new album. A career highlight (well, Ocean Blvd has plenty of them anyway!).

Exactly. And didn’t Antonoff pretty much confirm that in a recent interview? I think it was the Rolling Stone UK one. Taco Truck could be a hint. A looser, sultrier style (first half of Taco Truck), mixed with surprising structure (the transition and change of style) and dark brooding atmosphere (the closing seconds of the track with the unsettling piano could be a nod to the heavier foreboding piano on Candy Necklace and the JB interlude which were the last songs to be recorded for the album apart from Margaret). I also find it quite bizarre that during the album photoshoot she told Neil that she wanted to include « Pearl watch me on ring a bell psycho lifeguard » on the album title, yet none of these words have appeared on the lyrics of any of the album tracks at all. And these were supposed to be the titles of five brand new songs!

Lol! They really tried it, poor things.

That’s because Antonoff could never play the piano as well as Batiste, so I understand their frustration.

Vile misogynistic trashbags.

120k first week sales (second best in her career so far behind UV) for her longest, least accessible and most challenging album to date.

I’m obsessed with Candy Necklace, Jon Batiste Interlude, Kintsugi and Fingertips.

He only counts for AOTY. I think he’ll give it a 7, but an 8 isn’t out of the question as long as he digs Side D (probably not, lol).

I hope that they will upload LA Times’ score, because they still haven’t added the review of Miley’s album, lol. In fact, the last review on MC is the one for SZA’s album last December. Perhaps we should spam LA Times’ music critic. Poor thing needs to understand that such delays are unacceptable.

Yes, they just added the Exclaim, BPM, The Observer and musicOMH reviews. They haven’t added the LA Times and Record Collector reviews yet. EDIT: Strangely enough, MC hasn’t uploaded LA Times’ review of Miles Cyrus’ Endless Summer Vacation either, and that one was released two weeks ago.

Exclaim raves about the record! 90/100! (it counts for MC!) https://exclaim.ca/amparticle/lana_del_rey_did_you_know_that_theres_a_tunnel_under_ocean_blvd_review

No, they haven’t updated it yet.

Vulture’s review. It’s a rave. https://www.vulture.com/2023/03/lana-del-rey-ocean-blvd-review.html Metacritic used to count their music reviews, but apparently not anymore.

I haven’t posted my full thoughts on the album yet, but this is her strangest and most unconventional album to date. It took me three listens to start grasping her overall vision and intentions, and I still think that I’ll have to revisit it several times in order to understand it better. It kind of feels like a culmination of her entire discography in terms of themes and inspirations - it shares some similarities with LFL, I suppose - while it introduces new elements (the gospel/background vocalists on the first two tracks; the stream-of-consciousness tracks in the middle; the unhinged foreboding energy of the exquisite instrumentals of the interludes; Jon Batiste’s extraordinary piano solo; the spectacular transition between the sections of A&W; the playful addition of Venice Bitch albeit in its more sinister version; the autotune and muffled watery mixing on Fishtail; the experimentations on Peppers and A&W; the cosy loose warmth of Margaret and Let The Light In; the diaristic lyrics of several tracks; the creative interpolation of SYML and RIOPY’s tracks). It feels too heavy, too confounding and certainly very promising in terms of what we should expect from LDRX. It’s a challenging album, but if Antonoff’s recent comments on Rolling Stone (if I remember correctly) are anything to go by, Lana is entering an entirely new level of artistry where she’s going to push herself even further. At the Billboards awards she admitted that she’s feeling very creative and relaxed these days - remember how stale she felt her writing was during the COCC/BB days? - and Ocean Blvd feels like that necessary transformative stepping stone that will allow her to explore her art even deeper. It’s been extraordinary to watch and I cannot wait for the next chapter.