Monicker

^ I don't think that's right. I believe it's: 1. For K 2. Next To Me/River Road 3. A Star For Nick And then the rest is tracks 2-13 of what you have above.

Like furniture?

The only thing i’d be opposed to is the nonsensical title “The Leaked Sessions.”

Don't let the old man get you down, he is way too liberal with the groundhog

Is that NEAL?

The Grammys lost their credibility in 1966. Ha, singing a bar of music during a radio interview is not relevant. That is not a "release" in any way, shape, or form. Don't sweat it on that front. However, if Y&B wins one of these awards i am going to bash my head into a table. And then cry. And then laugh. I'm not sure in which order though.

Carole King and Gerry Goffin are gonna be pissed.

I am totes here 4 TPD's shit. You know, before cuts were made, the original cut of the film had that scene starting with Prince Randian rolling that fucking cigarette. With his mouth. You know, because he had no arms or legs. Which leads to another moment in film: Happy Friday, Lana Boards. Hai Lana!

What the fuck is 14? Also, this is great. Her facial expression in that photo really seems to be appropriate to what i imagine she looked like (yeah, it already happened long ago, obviously) when she first came upon this here lil forum and she went through the emotions of shock, confusion, anger, sadness, hopelessness, back to anger, back to sadness, rage, and finally apathy. I've been saying it forever: she fucking hates our guts. If the entire worldwide Lana Del Rey community were a traveling circus, we would be the freaks from Tod Browning's Freaks. Who the fuck is evilentity?

Ha, i wasn't massacring you. Incidentally, i was contemplating the term "surf noir" just the other day and listening to that trve kvlt surf stuff on youtube, and i wanted to generally speak on the topic anyway. I think i may have even considered starting a thread. I like the term surf noir, and i have since i first heard it. I even like it applied to her in that same way that i like other things about her that i don't take too seriously, despite it not actually fitting musically. I feel like it's more of a conceptual thing than anything.

The pedant in me needs to weigh in here on the terminology (and i will suggest things that i think are truly befitting of the genre). “Surf Noir” as related to Lana Del Rey is bullshit. I think there are very little to no surf elements in the Lizzy Grant stuff. It’s always seemed to me like it’s just a catchy, grabbing name she came up with that ultimately is meaningless. Let’s look at the term SURF from the genre of music and NOIR from the genre of film. Integral to surf music is a very straight, driving 8th note, fast 4/4 rhythm, though there’s definitely slower tempo surf stuff, and, of course, heavily reverberated electric guitars with lots of vibrato. There are other elements but those are the main, essential attributes, the telltale characteristics of surf music. And then there’s Noir, characterized by: darkness, shadow, bleakness, grit, mystery, and action. Carried out in ways that are expressionistic, gothic, off kilter, and even brutal. That said, i don’t think there’s much music that actually fits the conflation of these two descriptors. I think that specific coalescence of surf and noir most likely has to come in a modern context because most surf music/other styles that incorporated surf elements from the late ‘50s/early ‘60s tended to be rather “lightweight.” The idea of surf + noir seems like a pretty postmodern one to me. But, again, i don’t think there’s much out there that is truly fitting of that mostly imaginary genre, especially in the way of vocal stuff. Here are a few things that, while having nothing really to do with the sound of the AKA album, are the closest to something that i think could be described as “surf noir.” Some of this stuff is a kind of natural evolution of Exotica: A surf style cover of a song by the black metal band Burzum. Truly as surf noir as it gets: Actually, if you look up “trve kvlt surf” on youtube, you can find a lot of stuff in this style. Don’t fall for the joke in the description though--this stuff isn’t really from the ’60s! Secret Chiefs 3 do a good amount of dark sounding surf stuff: I couldn’t find this song on youtube, but it’s on grooveshark: http://grooveshark.com/#!/s/Book+T+Orbital+Ballroom+In+The+Hall+Of+Resurrection/4kZK13?src=5 There’s a certain tension and some dark undertones in The Chantays version of Pipeline that i think can loosely fit a noir aesthetic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omG-hZfN6zk John Zorn also has done a good amount of surf related stuff in a kind of modern Exotica context that has a darkness and mysteriousness to it: There’s this too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ybz7kHdmi1k I’m sure i’m forgetting stuff but that’s all i can think of at the moment. Maybe try some Man or Astro-man? too and some Stereolab. Joe Meek often had elements of surf and he produced a ton of girl groups and singers. Possibly try some Vincent Bell too. Check out Jerry Goldsmith’s score to the movies Our Man Flint (1966) and In Like Flint (1967), they definitely have some elements of dark surf, and they’re both some of the best film scores of all time to boot! But, again, this stuff isn’t in a Lizzy Grant pop vein. Oh! Maybe some Julee Cruise: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uq_ix7nfkc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dINbJL9HoII By the way, on an indirectly related note, i saw recently on wikipedia that Kill Kill is being described as having elements of... ELECTRONICA? Who writes this shit?

Excuse you, but i was the very first member in the history of Lana Del Rey forums to have had my own emoticon. Do you not recall the iconic Monicker emote on ldr.fm? I AM A LEGEND

PB is walkin' on the wild side again.

Are you sure your brain is not just doing: Gods and Monsters = Green, Body Electric = (dark) Blue, Bel Air = (light) Blue? And Body Electric is a "dark" song, while Bel Air is "airy" sounding, i.e. light/sky blue. And G&M mentions a garden, which = green. Not that there's anything wrong with that!

Oh you guys. I never started this thread because...i don’t know, you know when you have too much to say that you’re just better off not saying anything at all? What would i even say here, Hey, i love The Beach Boys, they’re great? How much would i say? How could i ever keep it at a reasonable length? Would anyone even care? Where would i even start? (Don’t sweat it, Erik, you’ve written this out in your head a hundred times before). What would i say about the music that, even after the wealth of different stuff that i’ve been exposed to throughout my years, has changed my life more than any other, the recordings that have taught me more about music than anything else, the subject that i’ve, seriously, probably studied more than any other?

Matt! It’s nice to have you back . I’m glad to see a cinephile such as yourself praising Spring Breakers as much as you did. I’m especially glad that you singled out the last shot and that it impacted you so much. That last shot, man. I’m still thinking about it. It’s not hyperbole when i say that it's one of the very best last shots of any film i’ve ever seen. Gosh, i can just go on too long about this movie. And i think i'll do that because i have nothing better to do at this hour... I recommend Mister Lonely, Gummo, and Julien Donkey-Boy in that order. I haven’t seen Trash Humpers yet so i can’t comment on that one. I still think though that Mister Lonely is his most fully realized project where, even more than any of his other movies, he really develops a unique film language. The movie has its own internal logic that dictates a very different world and kind of reality. If i had to rank his films it would go: Mister Lonely Gummo Spring Breakers Julien Donkey-Boy Kids (which he only wrote, not directed)

Who was fucking with whose emotions? Aaron LaCrate, by being a dork on Twitter and people taking the bait, was fucking with said people’s emotions? I don’t really know what to say if what he did is considered fucking with people’s emotions. That sounds histrionic to me, but hey, we all have vastly different reality tunnels, and we can't dictate to each other what is and isn't a suitable reaction. I would try to put yesterday’s incident in perspective though, and examine how a big portion of this fan base gets when a leak is on the horizon. It seems to me that this isn't even about the music anymore, and that it hasn't been for a while now, but rather more about an obsession with a celebrity. If you sincerely think that this guy was fucking with our emotions, i would maybe spend more time away from the internet. I don’t mean that in a patronizing way at all, as i often give myself this same piece of advice.

Ahem... Allow me to quote myself from just a few pages back: Some of you become fucking vicious and completely blinded by a sense of entitlement when the mere prospect of a leak arises. Jesus christ, it’s just a fucking recording. Take a step back and look at your shitty, childish behavior.

I wonder if some of these smaller producers who worked with her in the past realize how crazy Lana Del Rey fans are.

And K is just a pony. All right, mystery solved. Reality pales in comparison to the fantasy. Next. Ponies, for some reason, always make me want to cry.

But i wonder what she's doing here. (Just kidding)

There aren't . From what i can tell it’s: full string section, (prepared) piano, celesta, tube bells, bass drum (though i don’t think it’s a real one--i think it’s programmed), and i think there’s some sort of synth bass, as well as some soundscape stuff. It’s funny because not only do they show the french horns where they’re not heard, but they also show timpani (interestingly, there are timpani in the other version of the song), and from 1:25 to 1:34 they spotlight violins in a part of the song where it's just the cellos and basses, and the violins and violas are tacet (not playing). Music videos are an illusion Also, just to be pedantic, the other version of Y&B is just as “orchestral” as this one, it’s just that they’re specifically calling this arrangement the “orchestral version.”

Damn, i’ve been looking for diamond stick-on tears for so long to do a photo shoot, and i haven’t been able to find them anywhere. Claire’s sort of had something that might have worked but they, of course, looked so cheap. Where the hell can i get some like these? TPD, you’re good at finding this kind of thing online...HELP ME?

Who else is tired of seeing the girls dress up while the boys dress down?

I love Radio, especially the demo, which is the version i will talk about. That opening is like an explosion of Skittles shooting up into the sky--that silly fake harp, the digital finger snaps, that bass drum that drops, and the drone that sounds like you’re warping through a happy wormhole--and you just know that the next three and a half minutes are going to be blissful. I think the album version really dropped the ball by changing the way the songs starts. Anyway, this recording just has such a perfect feel, something that i think is hard to capture in songs, but once you have it, it’s like you can do no wrong with a song. It’s like if the song was half a BPM different or one instrument was mixed a tiny bit too loud or too low, it might all come crumbling down. But fret not, because it’s perfect. That chorus is pure gold. It’s so airy and light, that must be the music that plays when you’re skipping on clouds. The double tracked vocals are like an auditory candy bar. And the vocoder is amazing, let’s throw a fucking vocoder on here and have it panning back and forth, Lizzy, this song needs to be even more perfect. I love the little cheap sounding 8th note hi-hat rhythm throughout the song--it sounds like something a kid sitting in their bedroom would have playing from their battery powered Casio in 1991, trying to make a great song. And, finally, those counter melodies on the synth during the last chorus are like flying into the sunshine. But, like ataraxia mentioned, there is an underlying sadness that pokes through a little, and that is one of my favorite qualities in pop music. I still like the album version (which is built around the basic tracks of the demo) but you-know-who fiddled around with it too much and, i think, lost some of that feel from the demo. Still though, probably his least offensive reworking. R A D I O