Monicker

But...but...DYNAMICS are an essential and fundamental component of music, sorely lacking in so many popular forms of music that it's almost miraculous when we do get it. What, do you dislike melody too?

Oooh, i didn't know that she said this about Summertime, but it's not surprising. She must have hundreds of these from over the years. She is probably always recording little snippets of ideas as they come to her. This is a common way for how a lot of non-musicians work. And i bet there are many songs that have multiple snippets--variations of the same idea, a verse here, a chorus there, a bridge. Maybe she even has stuff where she's singing out parts for instruments. I bet that what's currently in the possession of people--whether it's traders, hoarders, family, friends, and ex-boyfriends, producers, etc.--is only a fraction of what she's recorded. Whether they all still exist or have since been lost to time is another thing.

I think it's great to have these opportunities to be a fly on the wall and get glimpses of the early idea stage of her process, as we do with these a cappella demos. What a treat these clips of her messing around on her laptop. This is the most unfiltered Lana Del Rey we will ever have. And what's wrong with y'all, those harmonies at the end, as is always the case with these a cappella demos, are great. I will be first in line to buy the laptop a cappella demos box set. Give me everything, every last scrap.

Yeah, aside from all the omissions, my other big complaint about the studio recording is that she repeats "I sing the body electric" too many times, especially toward the end, at which point it feels a bit exhausting, and where the song really needed to breathe and just surrender itself to that chilling, lyrical string outro. The vocals over that last section, i feel, really take away from the music and stifle it. I think she had it all right the first time around :/ I find it frustrating to trace the progression of this song, how it initially had a magic to it, some strange, ineffable quality, and then, i think, it just got overworked and they kind of botched it up. Hmmm, story of Lana Del Rey's art?

I think those drums stink. The low, menacing piano octaves are gone. The string arrangement in the second verse has since changed a lot (for the worse). The string outro has been truncated. She now sings the song in a very inhibited manner. All the magic of those details in the early version has been totally stripped away. I mean, melodically it's still there, but the current arrangement sounds like it could be a song off of In Utero. No thanks.

Body Electric, since the first time i heard the live performance from last summer, has always sounded to me like madness. Those first performances were tapping into something higher, something transcendent, even on a purely musical level--it's like encoded in those melodies. It was a shame that the album version didn't capture it.

But...the previous title was more descriptive and accurate, as this thread is about more than just proper nouns. Man, home on a Friday night debating thread titles on a music forum...

Lana and proper nouns.

Black Beauty

I just want to state that my only problem with this list--without actually having really looked through the whole thing (come on, let's be real, i haven't even heard of the people in numbers 3-15, except for Cheryl Cole [just because of this forum] and Taylor Swift)--is that Rihanna is not at number 1 I really don't get the Mila Kunis fascination at all. La dee da, back to my little rock.

He wrote the chord progression and the structure of the song. In addition to a Producer credit, Robopop should be credited as writers as well because they wrote everything else you hear in the final arrangement of the song, things that, in my opinion, exceed just arranging. You're confusing an engineer and a producer, although in this case, Robopop, the producer(s), was also the engineer(s).

I agree with that. Yeah, you're helping my point. That is, LANA IS HITLER. This is my ultimate Lana confession, you guys. MOAR Godwin's Law.

Oh my god, this is the first time she mentions any specifics on the Beach Boys. I knew it. I’m telling you, her favorite Doors song is Light My Fire.

For a solid two seconds i thought you were referring to prison. That has to make the list of top 10 most awkward things ever. They're in your pipes. But not under your sink, they're in the hard to reach pipes in the walls. I think you need to call a plumber. Let us know how that goes.

That is, verbatim, what i was trying to express. Thank you for expressing it so succinctly. Ha. I am going to get a kick out of seeing the collective reaction of this forum when one day it is revealed that the driving force behind Ben's iron fist managing was one Elizabeth Woolridge Grant and her desire for things to be handled in that manner. Have you guys thought about that one? What if all the shit that pisses us off about Ben is simply the result of fulfilling Lana’s requests? If they are as close as it seems, and she truly does regard him as highly as she’s indicated, why would their interests always be in conflict? Heroes & Villains

I personally wouldn’t. I think the topics and their aim are distinct enough from each other. I was just unsure where to put mine because it’s both an unpopular opinion and a confession of sorts (though neither directly about Lana). Also, remember that if you merge them, since the two threads have been running concurrently for a while, it’s going to turn into The Clusterfuck Thread Part 2 because all the posts would be ordered chronologically, so it would jump back and forth between posts from both threads, making it a very confusing thread to read through for those coming in late.

I don't know if that's the case for sure. I, in part, wrote what i did because i wonder often if there are some people who do take a lot of the Ben stuff as reality. Also, because i think that, in general, after time, it's easy for people to start seeing someone who was jokingly painted as a villain as an actual "villain." That kind of stuff has the tendency to become increasingly nebulous and gradually morph into something else after so much repetition. Also, we don't know much of anything about those specific people involved with the behind the scenes stuff, but we do know Ben's name and position, so it's an easy way to attach a name/face to all these things that we don't like, and dump it all on the one figure who we can easily point out. Anyway, i wasn't by any means calling for an end to this forum joke/meme, nor was i claiming that Ben hasn't done anything that warrants criticism...i was just quibbling more so about the nature of exaggeration and assumption in a thread dedicated to expressing these sort of not-so-commonly-expressed opinions. Oy, i am talking too much and annoying myself now.

While we're on the topic, i have absolutely no idea what "lel" is.

Yet you had an aneurism and meltdown when a few outtakes from old photo shoots were revealed in the tour programme? --- I don't know if this belongs here, in Lana confessions, or in Unpopular Lana Opinions, so you know what? I'm going to write half of it here and continue the second half in the ULO thread So, here is my confession/unpopular opinion: I know that it's used as a joke and a metaphor, but even still, to be frank, i'm getting weary of the Ben Mawson vilification. It’s just a very reductive hero/villain sort of thing, and i think it's gotten a bit out of hand, unfair, and somewhat baseless. I'm not singling anyone out here, i’m just referring to the consensus on the board. He has become the scapegoat for anything and everything negative in Lana's career, and the default culprit for any deterrent in fans' pursuit of her work (examples: when WMG blocks a video on her YT channel it is automatically attributed to Ben; lack of promo...

...tion is thought to rest entirely in his hands; when a music festival uploads 3 professionally recorded live songs on their YT channel and state that they only have the copyright to use 3 songs, it’s somehow because of Ben’s interference...i mean, what?) People are operating under the assumption that the guy has way more duties than mangers have, that he alone is responsible for all facets of the business end of things. Also, in cases in which he actually is responsible for a certain outcome, he’s just doing his job, ya know? I’m not saying i don’t see how he’s been a nuisance to fans, but come on, he isn’t to blame for everything bad. I should do like Finnegans Wake and loop this post back to the beginning, mid-sentence. Or write four paragraph long sentences with words like Bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk.

Uhm. Of the king, not king of. The king's wool.

It's an error. The tour programme was actually designed by a 13 year old kid in Japan using GEOCITIES. I read the correct information on the internet.

Come on, you know it is.

Sorry, allow me to quibble. That jazz arrangement of Y&B heard in that behind the scenes clip is not Swing. In fact, Swing didn’t even exist in the time in which The Great Gatsby is set, and F.Scott Fitzgerald himself would have just barely even been acquainted with the origins of the Swing style given the year he died. What’s heard in that clip is more like late Dixieland/early Chicago style but a kind of revisionist take on it. I wonder if it'll be heard as incidental music in the movie or if it was composed just for additional material like this clip. I'm going to dissent and say i really wouldn't be into her singing on anything resembling this arrangement. I feel like if she did something in that style it would undoubtedly have a hokey retro/novelty quality.