Monicker

I have never understood this being surprised with celebrities being like "normal people" because they dress casual and, like, eat at a cafe or something.

Oh. My bad. I just took a cursory look and they appeared to be the same. Thanks.

What? How is this a second version of the Lolita video? This is the same video. ???

Hello Twin Peaks. Easily one of her very best songs. MORE HARPSICHORD, ELIZABETH, PLEASE.

He absolutely was, but he didn't write Moi Je Joue. It's written by Gerard Bourgeois/Jean-Max Riviere, who wrote nearly every song on her second record, B.B. from 1964, which is where Moi Je Joue comes from. Gainsbourg wrote some of the songs on her first record, Brigitte Bardot Sings from 1963, which is, by the way, ONE OF THE BEST ALBUMS OF ALL TIME.

Was she using symbolism in Ride? I guess all we have is the dubious screenshot from twitter of her explanation, so maybe we can't comment on any of this yet with certainty. However, even if that was legitimately a response from her, i think the symbolism is hard to pick up in the video (maybe that's my own shortcoming though). There's also the fact that it happens in conjunction with her brandishing a gun and drinking in the desert, while saying she's fucking crazy, which, needless to say, doesn't paint a good picture. In Ride, she's a white girl, she's basically herself, and then suddenly she's in the desert with the headdress. In Summertime Sadness, there's nothing about her and her character that couldn't make her a lesbian. Anyone can be a lesbian. It's used in the video as a vehicle to tell a love story, something that is as universal as anything can be. It's not as if she was in blackface in SS or donning a kimono in an attempt to be a Japanese character. She wasn't stereotyping gay women. There was no symbol or badge of gayness that was used in the video to either make a point or simply look pretty. She wasn't taking something recognizable and in the process representing an entire group of people.

Haa, terrible point! Is she playing a Native American character in the Ride video? Is homosexuality exclusive to one culture?

Did anyone really think that if there was going to be any sort of Lana participation in the Grammys that it would be anything other than VG? By the way, these are not nominations. An artist has to first vie for even a nomination. Record labels send in submissions. It costs them money to do so. The committee receives the submissions (plus their money), reviews the submissions, selects final nominees, and then the awards take place. And, all along the way, there are SO MANY politics involved that influence and affect all the decisions along the way. It's a pretty weird world. Blarghghhdtg

I can relate to this. Both of my parents are Cuban, i am ethnically 100% Cuban. Though i was born in America, i was raised in a Cuban household, learned Spanish before English, was immersed in a specific Cuban community, but i really haven't felt any connection with Cuban culture since i was very, very young. I have essentially had an American experience, that is, i am culturally American. And i have certainly gone through times when i didn't necessarily feel American either. When it comes to identity, for me personally, the truth is that, as a white, middle class, heterosexual, cisgender male, it hasn't been important, it's not really an issue. Of course that's because it's not a necessity to me, being that i belong to the demographic that holds the most influence and power around the globe. I am of the dominant, privileged group. It's often an uncomfortable thing to negotiate and reconcile with myself. Fortunately, i don't feel the need to blame myself for these things that i was born into, and i'm still figuring out the different ways in which to think about my position in society, in the world. It would be insane to believe that the world is only what i see and experience. Despite the amount of time i spend on it, i really, really, REALLY dislike the internet. It depresses me, it overwhelms me, it makes me feel hopeless, etc. One of the biggest factors in my feeling this way is seeing how homogenous things have gotten and keep getting, and the way that it all becomes so oversaturated, and so rapidly. Sometimes it seems that everything is melting into one, that the same things reach everyone, that everyone thinks the same, that everyone is the same person. Then i remind myself that there are always specific things--ideas, places, people, etc. that i gravitate toward, which are contributing to and shaping my limited reality. I am only exposed to a very small facet of culture and life. Most of us are. Humanity is so diverse, the human experience so varied, that it makes my head spin. What's the point of all this? To all of us: get the fuck off of tumblr.

Hear, hear.

Is that what they need to realize? I take it you don't think this is a very limited, typically American-white-privileged view, right? You really think that what you experience on your youtube screen at home is fully representative of the multitude of cultures, values, traditions, ways of living, creeds, politics, economic systems, art, etc. that exist AROUND THE WORLD? Maybe in your reality tunnel culture is dead and "we" live in one, big bubble of sameness, but that certainly doesn't warrant the kind of misinformed, sweeping generalizations you've made here. Were you trying to make an incendiary and sensationalistic statement or is it just ignorance? You've traveled the world and seen the homogenization of culture in every pocket of the globe? You've fully investigated and exhausted all modern art, huh? You've only ever met people with experiences similar to yours? Imagine ANYONE else of ANY culture besides yours making the same presumptuous statements you've made here.

Wait, is this racist?

I'm sorry. That's very bleak. But not too long before things change, so hang tight.

THAT SHIT IS GONNA BE EVIL TOMORROW, SON.

Literally? What did they say about it, if you don't mind me asking?

You know, i never read that thread. I always intended to but just never got around to it, and well, i put it off for so long until it was too late. I've always thought that, if anything, she was a craigslist prostitute, only because one of my closest, dearest friends, who reminds me so much of Lana in many ways, did that for some time, so i can't help making that connection.

So now we know Sitar sits naked in the dark with his headphones on singing give me the brite lights just like me. Fuck it, wanna touch dicks in the dark sometime?

1. Yes 2. There are only self-imposed ones (which i personally advocate) 3. No

This may seem counterintuitive, but i really don't see why a producer would know the lyrics.

Guis, cum on, use your deduction skillz. Lana was buying the horse topiary for the front of the Laurel Canyon mansion we're using as the studio for her next album that i'm producing with her. Duh! :love:

It’s cool that this video is way more “Lizzy” than it is “Lana.” Also, it’s nice to see that it’s always a family affair with Chuck being around.

I certainly don't hear freak show and i barely hear beat ya. I guess i hear: Come on little Tommy with his tattooed-ass feature. Does that make sense? I don't know.

Since we're on the subject of trying to interpret what she may have meant by what "America used to be"...Smething that has always bothered me about the usual comments i hear about LDR is the lumping her into a "1950s/1960s" ethos, because those decades, from an American perspective, are so distinct from each other. Eisenhower Post-war prosperity and all that that entails, and then the Civil Rights movement/the counterculture/Vietnam/the political assassinations/Rock & Roll, etc. Nearly everything about those two decades was in such opposition--the culture, the values, the general spirit, the music, the fashion--the mid-to-late '60s were a reaction to the tenets of the 1950s. I know LDR is a walking contradiction, but i find if lazy and misinformed to use the '50s/'60s thing as a descriptor. #PostmodernLDR

Always an interesting perspective from you, PrettyBaby I find the stuff you said about your relationship with beauty to be really interesting. Also, i really agree with the idea of giving people some breathing room so to speak, and allowing each to embrace what they embrace, to value what they value, for is that not what sets cultures apart from each other and what makes the human experience so diverse? This is all off-topic at this point, but so be it... Music, essentially, is math. Though, of course, it’s so much more than that. But if you wanted to examine it from its fundamental core and a theoretical stance, it’s strictly math. It's no wonder that in ancient Greece, music, math, and philosophy were considered inseparable and, really, part of the same larger field of study. The magic and transcendence of just being pure math comes from that ineffable, unique quality that results from the creative combination and ordering of sounds, that which moves people emotionally. It's near impossible to determine why exactly you like something and dislike something else, and therein lies a lot of music's power. "Math Rock" is kind of a misnomer and a bit of a silly term, i think. Why is it that playing in “odd” time signatures and shifting quickly between different time signatures is considered mathematical as opposed to music that stays in 4/4 the whole time? It’s like “Emo”--what music isn’t emotional? Instead of singling out a style of music for its heightened emotion, maybe there should be another term for denoting the few exceptions where emotion is deliberately avoided. Anyway, i digress from the digression. I simultaneously believe that all music is experimental and that no music is experimental. It’s all experimental because isn’t that what anyone is doing when they sit down to write music--trying out ideas to see how they work? Some hired gun who comes on board to compose a song for Britney Spears--isn’t that person experimenting with different ways to construct something within a desired mold with a set goal, just as much as, say, Krzysztof Penderecki is experimenting when he sits down to write a crazy symphony with his own compositional goals in mind? They just have different functions and end points. But, on the other hand, isn’t everyone also following some general guide and pre-established framework when writing music? Experimental as a term to define music i think is hokey anyway, it’s more often than not (as is the case with Math Rock), more about having a certain sound and style than it is a general approach to constructing music. The great 20th century French composer Varese once said, “I do not write experimental music. My experimenting is done before I make the music. Afterwards, it is the listener who must experiment.” I love that quote. As you may imagine, the consensus considers his music to be wildly “experimental.”

I'm not sure i'd like that because i often find her videos to be a little too literal. Even the homemade ones, she'll often find a clip that corresponds literally to what she's singing about in that very moment. My personal preference would be for her to lay off a little with that sort of thing, though it's not that big of a deal, just a minor complaint. Anyway, i'm glad this surfaced, but the internet being what it is, i have to wonder if this is real or fake.