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I think you got the wrong forum. So you're gonna wanna go down the hall, turn left, take the stairs down to the basement, and they'll be a sparkley door labelled "GAGA BOARDS" I got the wrong forum you say?! I defended Lana online more than you homos and underage girls (who should never be here in the first place tbh) combined in the last two years. I defended her ass as Rainzen, John Botha, Bloodred Jamsoul, Tycho Verus, xwy (chek the hater articles). To give you some examples I dragged the smug haters on Stereogum relentlessly until they lost their poise to drag her. I even provoked Maura Johnston to reply in the comment section (I wrote as John Botha along with samgho who posted here some time ago) after she dragged Lana in article about SS. http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/lana-del-reys-odd-summertime-sadness-success-20130927 She only existed online and it always seemed that the readers are agreeing with the shit written about her. I did it because I believed in her talent and I thought that she was subjected to an unfair online bullying. Other dedicated fans are keeping twitter accounts to inform people about her and to promote her music. This forum isn't payed by her I suppose, is maintained by relatively poor fans. Other artists pay a PR team to take care of things like that. I didn't bring this up because it means something to anyone, it doesn't mean anything to me anymore. I just wasted my time as you morons are wasting yours talking about a mentally disturbed, subpar singer who cannot hold properly a tune live. So don't talk to me as you were/was a bigger Lana fan because you were not. But you all are right. There is no point for venting my frustration anymore because she is killing her career quicker than i thought. Finally. a message in a bottle for her (there is a small chance she is checking LB): Keep lying Lana (the invented Lolita truck driving in your interview with BB), not performing, sounding bored, make another campfest like Tropico, and talk ridiculous shit about death and you'll be again the laughing stock of the music industry but this time around without the possibility of a happy ending because of your fans (you'll have no fandom left in 2 years max bookmark me).

She's so over all the glamour but she still had a shoot with (a very locale) Vogue. Can she be more ridiculous?! This woman should stop the trolling because is not even funny anymore. Isn't she living like a recluse being struck by a death phobia since she was 4 y.o?! Why is she posing in Vogue when she's the poster child for second hand outfits? I'm still amazed that Billboard let her pose in those horrible outfits that she uses on every occasion to convince people that she's a girl of humble origins and low self esteem. Yea, right Lana you have a low self-esteem because you never get the dick you wanted and you cannot sing live. Both motives are legit sources for her depression not like her "death phobia".

I heard about Adele before Lana. I respected her voice but I never cared about her music and after listening to Hello, which btw is a good song, I still don’t care. But what is striking about Adele is the difference in attitude and respect towards her craft compared to Lana. The singing is top notch and is engaging the listener, the video is crafted with care. She didn’t throw out left and right mediocre songs just to bore everybody with them, she waited until she had something meaningful to say and of course she isn’t blabbering in interviews like a 10 y.o. about death. So it isn’t surprising that MTWBT is at 6,5 mil views (with 3,5 mil followers!) and Hello is rocketing towards 105 mil views in a few days. It’s not the case that Lana is more artsy and Adele is more pop but rather Lana made herself insufferable for everybody who holds a job and have a heart. There are some very young fans who still follow her like a “queen” but they don’t understand yet the ridiculous self-destructiveness of Lana’s behavior. Lana is the queen of failure, of shitting on something that she achieved with such a huge luck. As someone who don’t care about Adele’s music I still watched her video two times and I left with good feelings towards her. Lana: slow songs about loss and love, BW video, vintage look -> career ruining flop Adele: slow songs about loss and love, BW video, vintage look -> Taylor beating success The irony, The difference is simple in my view: Adele can sing (live) and she knows her strengths while Lana wants to do a bigger Tropico and she ditched even the idea of singing live on a tour.

Lana is too bored to dress up properly, to brush her hair, to wash her car, or to do anything. Now I’m kind of sorry about Fran who got into this depressed woman just to fuck up his life. Barrie is fucked up nicely in Glasgow, the dumb rocker came to LA for her to light up her cigs during the concerts, now he moved back with his mom and he is starting his career from scratch. Lana’s is just too depressed for this business and she isn’t enjoying anything. At first I thought that she exaggerates but now I'm convinced that she is like that. She became unbearable to follow as an artist, her career became a travesty, she’s just throwing out albums and she doesn’t do anything with them, she hides from everything in the first month after the album's release. HM is shaping up to be an “milking” album for what is left from her fandom and she has one sensible thing to do in my opinion: call it a career. It’s time for her to announce a theater farewell tour and at the end of it she can throw out another album to milk the last standing stans and then she can go and fuck her(depressive)self. I'm so over her, some of you guys here were really nice people and I wish you all the best

I don’t intend to write on LB for a while so I put all my thoughts about the HM era here and it came out a bit lengthy sry for that I would entitled this review “LDR hits a wall with Honeymoon”, but in fact is more accurate to say that she hit several walls at once with this release. I said in my earlier posts that I don’t understand her rush to come out so soon with an album after UV. Commercially didn’t make any sense as it is confirmed by the dismal sales of HM. She wasn’t ready to promote and her shy and awkward promotion of HM is a clear indication of that. I feared that she will come out with an album that will be the bad middle point of being in the same time subpar commercially and critically. The critics didn’t panned the album but no one is enthusiastic about it as were some of them with UV. This album just doesn’t make sense from the standpoint of her career and taken together with the botched UV era is creating a lack of perspective on her career which has inevitable influences on everybody who’s following her. The lyrical wall. When you put out slow music you put inevitably your lyrics to the front. She was widely criticized for her cliché-istic writing by using a lot of well-known poetic references, pop imagery and for the over use of location names and icons. When you’re aware of that you have to be extra careful to not abuse it again because otherwise you’re putting yourself in the trolling category. At this point in her career trolling is just infuriating and lame. BB, MPG, FMWTT was enough of trolling, she didn’t needed more emphasis on how misunderstood and how mistreated she is by the critics. That’s why I don’t like the cover of DLBM, as it is an unnecessary lament especially after the UV era when she was praised plenty. Another major critical point regarding the lyrical content of HM is about the narrow sided artistic vision of hers. Honeymoon opens a bit towards more nuances about relationships but not enough to create the feeling of her moving forward artistically. I felt that HM is a combination of BTD and UV lyrically but there are present the same overused tropes in her work: escapism to nowhere and from nothing specific, being desperately in love and lonely after the inevitable disappointment. In my opinion the critics gave HM a better evaluation that it deserves. This is maybe due to their ridiculous negative overreaction during the BTD era and they are compensating here. I would gave HM a 6/10 for the lyrics but in the same time I’m convinced that she cannot put out an album with the same lyrical pitfalls and be taken seriously. The sonic wall. Many critics and listeners are saying that all LDR songs sound the same and they are boring. If we analyze the melodies or the genre variety on her albums we can objectively say that they are surprisingly varied. I don’t know many artists who have on the same album rock, blues, pop and jazz (UV) or jazz, pop, trap (HM) songs. I think that the problem resides rather with her delivery. Lana is capable of a wide variety of vocals ranging from operatic highs to low contra-alto warbles. The problem is her disaffected tone in her voice, like she is so bored to sing that song. You don’t know, for example, if watching the boys is boring or sexy (probably both which is awkward). There are no sustained emotional highs on HM despite some songs are clearly demanding it. It’s like she’s afraid or restrained to sing emotionally which is disappointing. This coldness in her delivery makes HM a difficult listen and is diminishing the beautiful sonic constructions she came up with. I give HM 7/10 for the sound. I think that she reached another wall here because this type of singing is not enjoyable for longer periods and she needs to change it for her next albums. I have to say that I changed my opinion on HM after several listens and I think that UV is better than HM. HM had better potential but falls flat mainly because of her cold delivery (sadness with no emotion is off-putting). The video and imagery wall. We discussed here how after Tropico her videography became lackluster. Tropico was a huge mistake which highlighted both her unchecked artistic freedom and her limitations as a video artist. In my opinion, her best videos were BTD, BJ, NA and Ride, beautifully shot with cohesive stories and imagery. But Tropico was a mishmash of ideas, frankensteined together, too much even for trolling purposes. Her last good video was SOC, but the emphasis on that old dude just didn’t make any sense when you’re considering who her audience is. Her videos just don’t add lately anything to her artistic appeal, they are just dismissed as awkward or surreal by the critics (see MTWBT video) and they don’t have any significant commercial impact. She needs to let the reins of her videos in the hands of people who understand her vision but who can execute it rightly (like Woodkid did). I never really cared about or liked her album imagery tbh. BTD cover is iconic with that steely stare but UV’s sad boring look cover is forgettable and the HM cover is just bad while suggesting the disconnection between her and the listener. Moreover, her public image slowly became uncool, especially when we count her numerous subpar public appearances and photo shoots. These things are not directly related to the album but it affects the perception of it. Her image is tired and boring. She needs to brake this sad potato meets Priscilla Presley image which will be very difficult because she’s so entrenched in it and there is a chance that people will not be into the new image. The likability/hype wall. “I wish I was dead”, “I fucked my way to the top”, “I’m not interested in feminism”, “I make everything for myself” these statements did an irreparable damage to her career. Her words were twisted by the journalists for sure but what counts is the end result which is tragic for Lana. I will put here the Gaga diss also which was another terrible blow for her, turning against her the majority of one of the most numerous and compact fandoms in pop. She was perceived as a threat by many fandoms whose faves have no chance when comparing them with Lana’s voice, beauty and music. Many Lana fans contributed to this with their obnoxious behavior on twitter and forums and now there are many stans rooting for her to fail. She became isolated from the GP which has no information about her and whose perception about her is rather negative and she became limited to her small fanbase who is following her activity on the internet. Let’s face it, the hype is dead and she has a very low likability factor today which explains the crumbling interest in her album. Likability is a subjective thing and is very easy to destroy it and is very hard or next to impossible to regain it. There is always other artists ready to pick up your audience (Lorde, Martinez, Halsey, Banks, Day, etc.). If we are taking in account her lack of confidence and her inability to perform live there is practically no chance that she can turn this situation around. The next bad thing for her will be the lack of interest in her tour which is closely related to her sales (who would pay 50$ for her ticket and not buying an album for 15$?). The promotion wall. Depression is a hard sell. First, you have to do it right and with high artistic credibility. Secondly, the way you’re presenting the album will have a great effect on how people are perceiving it. If you put the album out without any promotion there is a good chance that people will not take notice or that they will judge it on their own terms. I’m still not over about her assessment that UV and HM are basically words that have a cool sound to them. Really Lana, that’s all you’re saying and you’re trying to sell me your 1 hour of disaffected depression? One of the most annoying things regarding the album and the promo is the length of the songs. They are dragged indefinitely with purposely slow vocal deliveries and with endless repetition of some lyrics (GKIT). Well, I suspect that she did this on purpose so that no songs will fit the radio formats. But why would any artist in their right mind do that when hits are moving records and keep the interest alive? I would say something about BTD here. BTD sold continuously in relatively small numbers, except for the opening weeks in Europe. The momentum was kept by her high profile in the mainstream media and fashion in 2012 and by her only hits in the US, YB and SS. I hate that SS remix, but I have to admit that a large part of the sales after 2012 are due to these hit songs which were played relentlessly on the radio. She had 4 hit worthy songs on BTD: BTD, BJ, VG and SS which were enough for a buying decision. She went hitless on UV and HM and the consequences are dire: her albums are off the radar in 2-3 weeks after the release. Why wouldn’t she have a hit? My opinion is that she’s afraid to perform live in the mainstream media and hits would put a huge pressure on her to do so. I speculate that she had taken a decision to not do live TV anymore. No TV performances and no radio? Let’s be real this is an insurmountable wall regarding her promotion which will push her towards irrelevancy sooner than later. The drop in interest regarding her music from album to album is huge and I would be curious how many stans will be on this site after 3 years from now. Go to the MarinaBoards to have a taste of that. Sometimes I bashed her management for not doing enough or doing stupid things regarding her career. Well, I don’t like that Mawson guy a bit, but I have to admit, looking back with more objectivity, that is a miracle that they made out of Lana a relatively big name in music on the strength of one good song and an awkward video. None of the songs on BTD were close to the artistry of VG, and she was terrible performing live (that’s why I will never understand how could Interscope take the decision to put her on SNL). If I had been an executive, after watching her live performances as Lizzy Grant I would never gave her a contract tbh. From her attitude while singing I would never felt that she wants it badly and she’ll do everything what it takes to shine her work. She’s talented no doubt, a good songwriter and a very good studio singer and I will be ever grateful for her beautiful music (included HM) but lately, for the first time since I’m a fan of hers, I felt that there is a possibility in the future when I will not care about LDR anymore. And this is the biggest wall for any artist: when they are starting losing their hardcore fans. But she probably doesn’t care. I would have liked her more to perform confidently for her fans, on some improvised stage, new songs from HM, televised for the fans who will never have a chance to see her performing live, than kissing on lips some deranged fans who thinks that this is appropriate.

The video is forgettable. No story, is basically a collages o images and ideas without anything cohesive. I don't get what the girls are doing in the video but she needed to put her mildly talented sister in it somehow. Why didn't she let the BW parts in color? She would expressed magnificently her inner campy, white trash trailer park persona that she so carefully curated so far. I miss her boldness from the National Anthem and Ride videos. The siting with closed eyes in a coma, staring languidly to nowhere and singing like a heavily stoned person ala 60-70's shtick is getting so boring Lana. But she's working so hard guys...to fuck up her career

I feel the same. HM is a good album but her delivery is so cold, detached that is hard to listen to it. I don't understand Lana, she's a puzzle of contradictions. Jon Caramanica wrote about her that she "has a bad, maybe even terrible, attitude underneath the pristine exterior" after watching on of her first shows in NY and I'm starting to agree with him. My theory is that all of her problems are starting with her stage fright and her inability to sing live properly. None of the authenticity debate would ever existed if she would sing her songs live well. But without convincing performances this amount of sadness that she's putting out is just piling up and becomes less and less appealing without the emotional connection to the artist. I didn't have the opportunity to see her live but, form what I saw on Youtube, her shows are far from the level of artistry and emotional involvement that her material demands. Her shows kind of worked with the more campy BTD and Paradise but for performing UV and HM she needs to improve a lot. The problem is her attitude: she won't do it.

Well, I didn’t expected that I will have to witness to her career crumbling so soon. Many of you will say that’s nothing wrong with selling 200k globally in the first week: “music not the bling”. I would respond to you that by December HM will be off the charts everywhere and will struggle to reach 750k in global sales (and I’m optimistic here). If this numbers become reality she went from selling roughly 6 mil. in the BTD+Paradise to 750k, she’ll shrunk roughly 8 times in just 2 years. I don’t have the exact figures from her streaming data but my impression is that her streaming is also in the pits. But not the numbers are bothering me really, they are just symptoms of a bigger change in Lana’s perception lately. From what I saw from the internet, the HM launch was practically a non-event. No one cares about her album. Everybody is polite, fans and critics alike, but in 2 weeks no one will talk about the album. She has no hits, no radio play, no good videos, no performances, nothing. I sense in Lana lately a certain giddiness about HM, maybe she’s happy that the album was relatively well received by the critics. She seems ready to communicate more with the fans. But soon she will have to face a new reality that her music isn’t ignite to much interest in people anymore. It will be a big hit for her and I don’t know how she’ll take it. I’m surprised by this because I (and many others) always had the impression that she has a lot of dedicated fans and she’s immune to promotion because she’ll be able to produce certain numbers. Well, it seems that this perception of her was a collective delusion. The latest delusional piece is from one of the rare stans of her music in the American media, Sasha Frere-Jones who called her “ice queen of pop”. While I’m agreeing with the ice part, I have to laugh when he calls her “queen of pop”. How is Lana a “queen” when she’s afraid of performing her music before the GP? She was/is less a star, in the traditional sense of the term, she was more a hyped curiosity on the internet. She lived well of this situation until the internet hype slowed down: in 2015, LDR has become an afterthought and her album launch a non-event. The hardcore fans will keep her in the charts for the 1-2 weeks but beyond them is a big empty space and it’s sad because her music it’s better than that. But how she got in this place anyway? We live in a world where perceptions can quickly change because of the internet and you can ruin your image in a short amount of time (see Iggy).Well, Lana did everything in her power to ruin her career in 2014 with this “it’s my party and I crash it if I want too” attitude which resulted in random behavior, trolling, canceled shows, irresponsible interviews and a total neglect of her material. At that time I didn’t thought that this will affect her to much because I liked UV but for the GP and for many casual fans she became quickly annoyingly boring. Honeymoon continued the trend with the depressive music and a total carelessness towards presenting her material. She did nothing besides that promotional stint with UO which didn’t helped the promotion of the album, on the contrary. Regarding the music, without the campiness of BTD, UV and the ice cold HM are just incredibly difficult listens and she doesn’t have the artistic credibility to pull them off. If she’s fantasizing about a career like that of Bjork she’s deluding herself, remember what Auerbach said about her in the RS interview that she’s not respected in the business. But her biggest problem is that, at 30, she still cannot sing live properly and this is so off-putting even for a long time fan as me. I’m depressed because I don’t see how she can turn around her career. I don’t see her improving dramatically live or investing more in her artistic output. I think that she’s heading towards the Marina category of artists but I don’t think that she’ll take it well: from Glastonbury to Sziget it’s a huge demotion even for someone like Lana who doesn’t seem to care.

I want to share some thoughts that I have about HM. I listened only 3 times in full since the album came out. The songs are humming in my head but it’s kind of hard for me to listen to the album in its entirety. It’s just wears me down emotionally. I still think that it’s a better album than UV. But while being just as depressive as UV, HM ads a layer that makes it a very difficult listen: the detachment in her delivery combined with the permeating sadness just numbs me emotionally. This detachment is strangely doubled down by the cover art (and for some reason and can’t get it out of my head) and creates a distance between me and her that is hard to gap while listening to the album. I think that HM is the final stop on a journey of expressing her depression. It has to be, because I cannot imagine another album from her in the same vein that will gather any interest and I’m convinced that will kill her career for good. I didn’t read the reviews in the first few days because I didn’t want to spoil my experience with the album. I read all the reviews now and I have the impression that the scores are better than the actual evaluation of the album. I have a feeling that HM will be quickly forgot and will not be on the best album lists at the end of the year. UV had a better evaluation despite the lower score. So HM appears to be an album that is in the wrong middle section: dismal sales and mediocre reviews that will hasten its fade. Everybody, critics and fans alike, are polite towards the album but they are basically bored. I preferred the passionate bashings of BTD to these non-invested pieces about HM. From her public appearances she seems like someone who woke up to some harsh reality, she’s cute and kind with her fans, ready to please them, but she totally lost her cool factor, that specific glamour that made her so intriguing from the beginning. When I saw her wearing them same ugly sandals in LA, I remembered all the public occasions from the past 2-3 years when she seemed to be in a competition for the worst dressed every time. This “I don’t care attitude” unfortunately translated in her interviews and music too and created a bad karma around her that translated in indifference towards her, reflected in the bad sales of HM. I have the feeling that she didn’t appreciated enough that 1% of magic that the music gods blessed her with, that differentiates her from the 99% of the musicians who live their life and art in obscurity. If you lose that you lose everything and even if I don’t think that she lost that magic yet she’s on route to lose it if she doesn’t change something. So, I listened again to her performance at the BBC1. HBTB was bad and the rest was mediocre. Her voice is trembling and weak, she’s still unprepared and afraid to perform live. She even lost her voice for a moment during TLY. Her stupid smoking shtick is affecting her vocals and this is a part of that “I don’t care attitude that is becoming so jarring now. Her songs are lushly produced and half of them have layered vocals so she needs to rework them to be viable for live singing. It’s doable but she needs to put more effort in to it as she clearly needs a vocal coach. She’s not a natural performer but after 4 years at this level it’s imperative for her to have at least some stage presence and to be able to express emotionally her music on stage. She has no excuses anymore in that department. The only way that she can reverse this negative trend it’s by performing her music boldly. In this way she may reconnect with her fans and with a wider audience. This strategy of throwing out albums on yearly basis and not doing anything significant with your material will not work for her in the future. Sorry for the length

In the UK she's officially a niche artist: Born To Die sold 116,745, UV 48,028, HM 28,391 The numbers are bad (and not only in the UK) because she's a front-loaded seller, after this week she'll drop like a rock on the charts. Her streaming numbers are weak except maybe the video of HBTB. She has no hits and no radio play and there is nothing yet to sustain HM on a longer term. She's fading globally commercially harder than I expected and I don't see a way for her to come back. She doesn't have the desire and the ability to do that tbh. This is partly the consequence of her attitude in the UV era: no performances, BS interviews, canceling events, new artists emerge and people are moving on. Some are blaming the sound of UV for flopping but I think that not performing your music is just a way to kill your career. The second reason of HM flopping commercially is that, despite the fact that she already did more promo than in the entire UV era, Honeymoon had a poor promotion starting with the awful choice for singles and the lack of performances. I guess that half of the potential buyers don't even know that her album it's out yet. Plus, she has piss poor management, Interscope did for her just 10% of the promo they did for the flop Jepsen album and for the soon to be flop Gomez album. She has no good videos for sometime now which obviously doesn't help to spark the interest in her music. But because she doesn’t care of these things neither should we. The only question for me as a fan is if she can stabilize her fanbase enough on a long term that will assure her career going forward. I'm really impressed with HM and I'm here for more.

This albums just sucks you in. There isn't a bad song on it. There are many highlights on the album, especially regarding the vocals and the production, but they rather occur in parts of several songs. I like this more than singling out some of the songs. I even made peace with HM the single but I would rather wanted her to end HM with SS. On a critical note I think that she used to many cliche-isitic lyrical references and she needs to stop alluding to the critics because no one gives a fuck about what they are saying about her anymore and she looks on a defensive and trolling them.(That's why I don't really like the ending with DLMBM). I feel that she's happy and energized compared with the UV era but she needs to perform boldly now because her commercial appeal is diminished and there are many new pretenders for her fandom waiting for her to fade. The songs are amazing and she needs to prove wrong all the "HM is boring" naysayers out there. The BBC performance was great (besides the HBTB part), but she needs to up her game regarding her performances. There is no excuse anymore for her to not perform anywhere Freak, Art Deco, The Blackest Day, Religion or GKIT because she's a 4 year veteran with many tours under her belt.

Because of the melodramatic tones and slowness of the album and the length of the songs some critics have difficulties to even listen to it properly. She's not everybody's cup of tea and I'm fine with that. She had good reviews back to back from Pitchfork tho which is quite a feat. If it remains above 70 it's fine tbh, 75 would be nice and I'm agreeing here with Pitchfork: HM is marginally better than UV and both of them are clearly better than BTD.

It stuck in my mind, from the BBC interview, that she will probably read some reviews. I hope that she knows who is worth reading and who's not because some of the shit is outright offensive like that Zoladz piece about her in Vulture. I don't want her to go back in a depressive state and hiding again from the public. I'm so happy that she performed on the BBC show and I'm looking forward to more performances

They are incredibly boring in dissing Lana's music they aren't even funny anymore. The HM reviewing is becoming predictable. The UK writers are staning because they can better digest the slower pace and the US critics are yawning about slowness, sameness and they are nitpicking on lyrics (they don't know about her Billie tattoo ). If you want to learn about some sleeping pills read their stupid pieces but you will not find anything thoughtful about Lana's music. Don't dream about anything close to 80, I hope for a 75 at the end because I like HM more than UV

With all respect for your effort there is no need to post any irrelevant ramblings about Lana's music.