Monicker

That's not the same sample.

 

Yeah, I agree. If for no other reason than that sampling Pink Floyd would probably cost too much, um, money.

 

Yeah, it would probably cost a fortune to sample Pink Floyd. I remember reading once how many millions of dollars it was estimated Paul's Boutique would have cost the Beastie Boys just in clearing samples alone (there was something like over 80 samples on the album if i remember correctly), had that album been recorded after the copyright/sampling laws we have today were implemented. Luckily for them, when they recorded the album, samples didn't have to be cleared and paid for in the same way they do today. The laws then were a lot less strict than they eventually became.

Taken with some small to large portion of salt, yes, but also:

 

1. I don't recall the issue on .fm over her claim to have written Axl and Elvis at 16/17. Who was skeptical and why? Does the fact that the claim was met with skepticism on the old forum necessarily mean anything on its own?

 

2. What's the context of PSB being the first song she wrote? Who did she say that to? I think sometimes we have to consider the audience, that is, who she is talking/responding to. She probably treats questions differently depending on who is asking. I don't mean to imply that she lies to certain people and not to others, but that maybe the picture she paints for certain people is a little less complete because they are not as knowledgeable on the subject and so it wouldn't affect them as much to give them incomplete answers or answers that require less thought and backstory. Also, what if she wrote the PSB lyrics first and then recorded the demo years later, and that's what she means?

 

3. Yayo could have been written years before any demo was recorded. Or how do we know that one of the two Yayo demos we have don't date to seven years ago? Or how do we know there aren't other Yayo demos that we don't have, and have never even heard of, that date back to seven years ago? Or what if--because few people know the timeline of their own life with precise accuracy--that she misremembered and that it was really six years, not seven? Does the one year discrepancy totally disqualify her word? Let's keep in mind that it is very common for artists to have songs around for years, sometimes even DECADES, before doing something definitive with them, and in that time the song could morph in so many ways and be demoed many times or not demoed at all, etc.

 

4. The touring outside the US for a period of three years...are you referring to the Ride monologue or something else? If it's the monologue from the video, that is not to be taken as fact.

Axl Rose Husband and Elvis are way advanced compared to Sirens, so I don't think it's likely that they were recorded before that album.

 

You crazy, boy. Other way around, by a long shot. Sirens is the peak of her guitar playing, in terms of technical abilities.

 

Lana's not exactly a reliable source in matters concerning her age...

 

Yeah, by one year. Don't think there's a need to be so pedantic when it comes to the age thing. If she said she recorded something when she was 16 or 17, then okay, give or take a year, no big deal. It's not as if she is absurdly trying to pass for many years younger.

 

My educated guess, based on guitar playing and her voice, is that Axl Rose Husband and Elvis are among the earliest recordings. They were undoubtedly recorded during the same period and were recorded on the internal mic of her laptop whereas Money Hunny and Fordham Road weren't. Who knows what that means. Did she start off recording with the internal mic of her laptop and eventually upgrade her equipment as "logic" might dictate? Or did she have decent equipment at first and, say, she had to sell it, or she got rid of it for whatever reason and then started recording again but took a step down in equipment? Maybe she had to sell her microphone for drug money? Maybe she moved and got rid off all her possessions. Did she borrow equipment from friends at one point or another? Did one of her friends record her with their own equipment, as is a common thing to do? Who knows. I don't think there's anything we can really extract from this because anything could have happened in any chronological order. Sirens is a studio recording though, that much we know. She is likely to have amassed some home recordings prior to going into a studio for the first time, though that, of course, is not a set in stone rule. I believe, stylistically, Fordham Road is closer to the period of Sirens.

 

So my educated guess based on observation and the little that we do know is, chronologically:

 

Axl Rose Husband

Elvis

Money Hunny

Fordham Road

Sirens

 

I'm just using the songs that have been mentioned in this thread, i don't have the energy right now to recall other possible contenders.

 

EDIT: Then again, take the example of John Frusciante. If you didn't know any facts about him and only had his solo recordings to go by to try to piece together information, there was a time when his guitar playing actually worsened and became noticeably simpler because he was strung out on heroin while recording AND the equipment he was using at that point was a step down because he had either gotten rid of all his shit or lost it or it was stolen or he had sold it for drug money, etc. Again, "logic" would dictate that the less advanced playing and more primitive recording equipment would be an indicator of these recordings preceding the stuff that exhibits the more advanced playing and better sound quality, when that actually isn't the case.

I'd say it's basically pop music. It just doesn't seem like pop music nowadays because everyone correlates pop with generic, but that doesn't have to be the case at all.

 

Bless you. This bears repeating.

Listening to this sort of thing makes you question some of the fundamental aspects of music like time, duration, rest, rhythm, pitch, timbre, etc.

 

What the hell is time? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

 

Do you feel as if your brain is being stretched out like putty?

 

This feels like Phillip Glass in that unrelenting repetitive sense. It also makes me feel a bit of the sort of mind-fuckery that happens when you listen the music of the whacko Italian composer, Giacinto Scelsi, who developed a style of composition where pieces were based entirely around one single note. Somehow, even though there is no fundamental relationship between the two, there is a similar feeling going on in these things people upload to YouTube where they significantly slow down a song, except the sound texture here is more reminiscent of modern "ambient" music.

 

I love this shit.

 

I remember that Rebecca Black Friday song slowed down, like, 800% sounding remarkably like Angelo Badalamenti, and how weird that is that something could inadvertently turn out that way like that. Messing with the tempo but not with the pitch always messes with my mind. I guess Rebecca Black on her own messes with my mind. What sort of life is she going to have? Is she dead?

 

Speaking of changing the tempo without changing the pitch, for a good example of the inverse of that, i.e. changing the pitch but not the speed--in the analog domain no less!--the song She's Goin' Bald by The Beach Boys, who in 1967 used cutting edge (and very expensive) technology to achieve the effect of gradually speeding up the pitch without altering the tempo, which you can hear starting at 0:50. It is yet another example of the Beach Boys being at the forefront of new ideas in pop music without really being recognized for it

 

Sounds like the sort of thing that nowadays people do with a single click in 2 seconds on their laptop in the bedroom.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ix1-Coa7qQQ

 

Please excuse my tangent.

Yayo simply because the old version is 100 times better and the new version killed the song.

I cant even listen to it with out skipping it, why did she have to go take something so brilliant and raw and make it so .......

 

However we choose to define the quality of being "raw" as it relates to music, i think most people would argue that the new Yayo fits this description more so than the AKA recording, no?

The song & video are masterpieces. For any of you proposing she should have censored herself(pinball machine scene, the headdress), you people are the enemies of ART.

 

Says the person whose point of reference for bangs is Katy Perry? I believe you have entirely missed the point of the contention with her use of the headdress. And i also don't think anyone was proposing self-censorship of her art.

 

Art with a capital A, d00d.

I think I'm remembering now. I believe the ambiguity resulted from the track being labeled "Put Me in a Movie" on Amazon, and probably iTunes as well, but the actual back cover (which appears to be legit) shows it as "Little Girls", and you used to be able to download it directly from the 5 Points Records website where it was also labeled "Little Girls" (and the ID3 tags listed the album name "Nevada Master Ref 1"). See more information here. It's also noteworthy that she uploaded the video for it as "Little Girls".

 

Edit: Kahne also called it "Little Girls" when he was interviewed.

 

Yeah, my guess is that it legitimately (or "officially--because people love that term and feel reassured when it's used ) goes by both titles. Or that she changed it to Put Me In A Movie when it came time to sell the record digitally, which had been hitherto known as Little Girls.

 

Also, on a kind of related note, the 5 Points site, as well as the alleged back cover posted above, suggest (pretty much irrefutably) that the title of the first record is simply Lana Del Ray.

 

*kinda wants a copy of this faulty album*

LOL, maybe it has collectors value in a couple of years? Ya never know

 

It definitely will. But i don't think it'll be a particularly big/appealing/highly sought-after one.

I'm gonna hold you to that Lana.

 

#DirtyOldManPost

 

Get off the internet and go to bed already, evil.

I don't hear anything unusual or horrible on the vocals. Singing behind a wall of paper, eh? I'll keep an ear out for it though.

does anyone by chance know what resources lana uses for her videos, other than youtube? this is random (and a serious long shot) but i'm looking for the footage from diet mtn dew (v.2) with the hot, shirtless mechanics smoking cigarettes haha

 

http://vimeo.com/35468849

 

(at 0:41, and 1:41) =)

 

i dunno how she managed to find so much beautiful archival footage ughh

 

Anytime i've heard her speak on the subject, she has only ever mentioned YouTube. You can see it too in the footage, the compression artifacts are very visible, in varying degrees, in all the found footage in her videos. I've always found that interesting, how that places her in the current era, she is a product of these times, the generation that grew up online. And that little detail, the fact that shitty video compression is a big part of the aesthetic of her videos, is another reason why i classify Lana Del Rey as a postmodern artist, and shun all those labels that suggest that she's merely a throwback to a bygone era.

 

I don't know where that footage that you're asking about comes from, but i just noticed that in the Diet Mtn Dew video she used footage from that

! Which i still haven't ordered but intend to. It looks so, so great.

 

 

 

I'm gonna ask this again: How much time did Lana stay at Kent and did she ever formerly study metaphysics?

 

Re: studying metaphysics, Maru wrote the following in THE CLUSTERFUCK THREAD:

 

Lana claims to have graduated by correspondence -- apparently her professors were v. understanding of her pursuing her career as a singer. I'm just thinking about all the hoops you'd have to jump through at my university to complete in-class courses via correspondence and it's making my head spin... and it kinda makes me inclined not to believe her, but I don't know the protocol/professors/deans at Fordham. It could be true. :shrugs:

 

If she graduated, she has a philosophy degree. Her focus, or major research paper may have been focused in metaphysics if she did graduate, although the requirements for a philosophy degree at Fordham don't mention a major research paper or having a particular focus. I'm inclined to say metaphysics was her favourite out of the branches/doctrines/movements in philosophy in her studies, but she didn't have any formal, intense study in it.

 

Then again, what do I know?

 

I personally don't think she graduated...

So, in the spirit of Lizzy's lyrical blunders (Summer of Sam, anyone?), the lyrics of American refer to the wrong singer as the king! Come on, Liz, Springsteen is the boss. It is your boi Elvis, your main obsession in life (hello? ) who is the king. And you even mentioned him later in the song!

 

Or is it that she's implying that the American doesn't know these common things?

Um, please talk about Burning Desire and it's use of a sitar I was building up to that review the entire time I spent reading and then...nothing.

 

You know, i momentarily forgot about Burning Desire. I had been waiting to see if somehow it would be available in lossless, and then i just forgot about it because i never liked it. Undoubtedly my least favorite of the bunch--she's just singing the In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida melody throughout the entire song. I don't even have it. Someone wanna hook me up with a copy?

 

Anyway, doesn't belong in the review/rating for the record, as it's an iTunes only bonus.

 

 

Ride [4] Lana Del Rey sounds as worn and weathered as she did in Born to Die and maybe a little more like Marianne Faithful this time around. I'm glad to hear the Mermaid Motel vocal stylings in the background of the chorus. Listening to the song makes me want to explore wide and open spaces.

 

American [4] Lana is singing in her sweet spot in this song! The brief guitar riffs in the beginning of the second chorus are exquisite. Lana Del Rey reminds us that she is at her best being with someone who is tall, tan, and avant-garde. This love songs gets a little personal in the bridge when she lets us in on her prayer life.

 

Cola [5] Lana Del Rey's mythos escalates in this track. Lana, with all her gravitas, declares the very specific taste of her pussy over the throbbing bass. The close harmonies of the bridge are topped off with Lana Del Rey scat singing like an electric guitar in the climax. What more do you want?

 

Body Electric [3] I think the album version was recorded for those who were offended by the live performances of this song which is unfortunate for those who fell in love with the live performances. Lana Del Rey comes across as too composed here when I wanting a more unhinged delivery. I get the impression of a ghost town in a desert wasteland.

 

Blue Velvet [3] My favorite part of this song is the undulating sigh in the beginning of the song. Yep, Lana's love for all things retro-Americana is undeniable.

 

Gods & Monsters [4] I love that gravelly tone in Lana's voice in the beginning of the song and the scream in the second verse. This song has the strongest images and the best story. The powerful statements made throughout the song are eclipsed by the weakest bridge of the album. A fallen angel who seizes ownership of her soul and her destiny and sings of a dead God ends up pandering to the aethetics of her lover, but that's LA for you. This track touches on obsession and the production with the AT-L and the slick strings highlights the forboding energy of the song. Lana Del Rey isn't the other woman this time, but taps into The Other.

 

Yayo [4] This song is cast in a sepia glow and is the sonic equivalent of looking at an old photograph. Even in Paradise, the past is part of the present. The homage to the past reflected by the cover of Blue Velvet is echoed eeriely in Yayo.

 

Bel Air [5] A moody and beautiful song. Lana ascending and descending a vocal scale. Think Active Child meets American Beauty score.The song has Gothic imagery complete with talking gargoyles and a quiet, rumbling storm that picks up in the second verse. The string arrangements sound great as the feel for the song switches from musical theatre to chamber music culminating in the benediction of a rose idol making Bel Air the most fantastical LDR song to date.

 

Burning Desire [3] Carefree and catchy song full of anticipation, the only bop on the album is the bonus track. It is perfect for driving down the highway. I am grateful for the blippy-bass in the song to bring us back to reality after our poor souls have been wrought out by a vision of paradise as sung by Lana Del Rey.

 

 

Average: 3.89

 

I really loved this review!

Oh my god, it’s kind of awesome to scan through this thread from the beginning, as it makes everyone seem like they’re totally out of their mind, like mental patients sitting in the hospital common room, blurting out non sequiturs or, like, trying to carry a conversation with the wall.

WHAT THIS THREAD IS FOR:

 

General and fact-based Lana-related questions that are easily answered and not intended for their own discussion.

 

Examples:

 

“Which interview was it where Lana mentioned being a fan of David Lynch?"

"What performance was it where Lizzy did the cover of The Happiest Girl In The Whole U.S.A.?"

“What’s Lana’s brother’s name?”

“What was the name of that boarding school that Lana attended?”

 

You know, stuff like that.

 

 

 

WHAT THIS THREAD IS NOT FOR:

 

--Any questions about specific discussion topics that already have a home somewhere on the forum, such as individual songs in the Lyrics section, past photo shoots in the Gallery, unreleased/demo songs in the Audio section. Questions pertaining to specific subjects such as these can still be directed to those existing threads.

 

--Discussion type of questions that are a matter of opinion. Eg: “Who do you prefer, Lana or Lizzy?" or “What do you think would happen if Lana went on SNL again?” Those are opinion-based topics for on-going discussion that are not appropriate for this thread, and are better suited for their own thread.

 

***Before you ask your question, have a look here at the thread dedicated to rumors and debunked myths about Lana Del Rey, as the answer to your question might very well already be there.

WAIT

 

Perhaps i should have said a few more things about the idea for a thread like this when i made my initial suggestion. First of all, i myself have never liked the “Insignificant” part of the title, so i wouldn’t be opposed at all to removing that. Maybe “Smaller” Questions rather than “Insignificant” questions? Or “General” Questions? Second, i think a thread like this could only work for the sort of one-off questions related to Lana that will either yield a quick answer (if anyone has it) or will just fall by the wayside (because it has no answer), making one less dormant thread just sitting around. The point is to just have a place to drop in for quick little GENERAL questions that have probably been answered already and are unlikely to create a long discussion. I guess some discretion would be required there.

 

Examples:

 

“What was that interview where Lana mentioned ______?”

“What’s Lana’s brother’s name?”

“What was the name of that boarding school Lana went to?”

“Does anyone know where Lana recorded Sirens?”

 

You know, stuff like that.

 

Things that wouldn’t really work for this thread:

 

--Any questions about very specific topics that already have a home somewhere on the forum (for example: each song has its own thread in the lyrics section; photo shoots have their own threads; unreleased/demo songs have their own thread, so questions pertaining to those things could still be directed to those existing threads).

 

--Open-ended type of questions that are a matter of opinion. Eg: “Who do you think has the stronger voice, Lana or Adele?” or “What if Lana went on SNL again?” Those sort of questions spark long, on-going discussions, and have nothing to do with anything factual and have no place in a thread like this.

 

I don’t know, perhaps a thread like this doesn’t even make much sense with an artist as relatively new as Lana, who doesn’t have that much info even known about her. I took this idea from a forum dedicated to a group that has been around for 50 years and has a slew of actual historians who are walking encyclopedias of knowledge on the subject. So my bad, maybe it's just a half baked idea for this forum.

 

I just wanted to make a suggestion for the kind of thing that happened yesterday, and that i see happen a lot from time to time, where a new person just comes into the forum and starts creating threads for minor questions that HAVE been answered here before, and then the forum just ends up cluttered and unmanageable. Also, i don’t want to be held responsible for this thread being created too hastily, and for having a bunch of wayward threads suddenly dumped in here and pissing people off because HDB is thread-merging-happy

 

EDIT: Also, merging existing threads is clearly not working because it's mixing up different posts from different threads so that this thread doesn't have any flow!

So i’ve had some time to really sit with the record and i’ve jotted down many thoughts. I tried to keep this short (really!) but who am i kidding, this shit is long as hell, so my apologies (hey, you don't have to read it ). There are already some good critiques on the more conceptual/thematic/lyrical overarching stuff, so i’ll mostly leave that alone, as i probably couldn’t comment on that stuff any better than some of you already have, and i’ll focus more on...surprise, surprise...the “technical” stuff.

 

 

 

Wait, was that a reference to The Golden Palace that i just came across? Hellion, you have a very particular way of speaking (writing? is this how you converse face-to-face in everyday life?) that is oddly poetic and which i often find myself on the verge of just barely understanding.

 

Also, i too have anxiety issues with lack of control, which also explains my fear of flying.

Gosh, what a presumptuous load of shit that first question is. What does this guy know about her to make that sort of an assertion? This whole interview was lousy.

 

Yeah I've been really touched by artists like Whitman and Gainsbourg

 

Ha, Ginsberg. Are the French just predisposed to hearing Gainsbourg, Myriam? I don't blame you.

Sounds like this performance is mostly augmented by the album backing track (including some of the backing vocals at the end). I'm guessing the producers of this show wanted it that way.

Ha! Nice.

 

But wait, shouldn't this be in the "Lana Thoughts" section? Also, i think it would be a good idea to have Madrigal's Debunked Rumor thread linked to on the first post of this thread, and if we ever do a FAQ, we can link to it on the first post of this thread too.

 

EDIT: Oh wait, is this going to be questions of ANY topics or just Lana-related? I meant Lana-related questions.

I am not saying this to be passive aggressive, but as a sincere suggestion for what i think would benefit the whole of the forum, seeing as how things have been getting kind of unwieldy around here lately. On another forum that i frequent there is a long, on-going thread called "Thread for various insignificant questions that don't deserve their own thread" and it works nicely. It's a place for these sort of smaller questions that pile up but don't really lend themselves to a whole thread. Anytime someone has one of these questions they can just pop in there and ask it, and it most likely gets answered because the thread as a whole tends to be of interest to most people, given the array of general topics. Just a thought.

 

To answer this question, there was a small run of copies of the AKA album that were intended to be sold at shows. Kahne says he has about ten copies himself.

I suspect that if she had never had a name change, we wouldn't look at her as two separate, distinct personas, but rather as a person who has simply evolved over the last six or so years.