Monicker

Did you guys hear the ~talk~ from lanaexposed tumblr saying Lana was working on an entirely different album with Interscope and it was scrapped and the direction was changed? It's not at all a credible source (nor do I think it's true) but it's interesting to think about.

This is an interesting thought. A Born to Die more like the demos? She's a weird one, who knows what's ever going on with her. While i believe she's a totally self-contained artist with her own vision, i also get the impression that she gets pushed around a bit by record labels, managers, and producers. What bothers me is that it really seems that she and others hold this (silly) belief that one direction/sound/style--and only one--had to be chosen and adhered to and presented to the public at large. But why? We all know that she is an incredibly diverse recording artist who does well in many genres and approaches, so why this seeming rigidness in one musical direction? What's wrong with embracing disparate influences and approaches? Was most of her old stuff only the result of trying out different things because she truly didn't know what she wanted and then realized that she wasn't into most of it? Maybe the decision comes entirely from her being eager to move away from certain things toward something more unified, but i wonder if it has to do with marketing and

wow, there is a really REALLY tiny weird bird on the tree right outside my window, this is great, bye!

The song reminds me of this one:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_6x3EW3FC0

Yeah!

What a great synth sound.

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.

Serge Gainsbourg was a master in song writing.

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.

Anyone realize there wasn't nearly this amount of backlash when she was pretending to be a lesbian for an entire video?

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 struggle with cultural identity issues because I don't feel like I really have one.

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.

perhaps i'm wrong, but i interpreted that fluorine meant that this type of appropriation that strips things of their true meaning is rampant in this tumblr day and age, not that it's OK for it to be so. it's fundamental that we question everything and not accept the status quo and and just give up and shrug and think "that's just how things are". no way! this is a great discussion because it helped a lot of people transcend their individual, possibly uninformed perspective on this and other matters. lana herself has appropriated images just because they're beautiful to her and by changing their context gives them a new "artistic" connotation. her glamorization of the mob is terrible, for example, when you think of the people who are subjected to the tiranny of the mafia in italy (and worldwide). i think it's worthwile to debate and give things real thought. that's what i love about this forum: through themes that stem from lana-related discussions, everyone reflects on important issues and shares their views and in that, we are mutually enriched by other's outlooks and personal experiences and sometimes reconsider previous stances. hopefully all of this can lead to broadening our horizons and transcending the limitations of our geographical and mental locations

Hear, hear.

...those types need to realize that individualized "culture" is dead in our globalized society and the future is just one big blender. All modern art is appropriation, especially in the post-internet age.

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?

They're very... er. I'm not even sure how to explain it. But they're worried about my sexuality since I like female artists and am not an athletic boy, so any female artist I like - they automatically assume their material is for gays and gays only. I asked if I could go to the Fiona Apple concert next week in my town - and they refused since they said she's for lesbians. I brought up Lana once, and my mom watched the first minute of the National Anthem video and she said "Do gay guys love her? Since she's trying to be like Marilyn Monroe right, and gays like Marilyn Monroe?" She then told my father about how I like gay music and whenever they hear me listening to Lana they look at me weird and ask why I'm listening to her and they once asked me if I was gay because the "music I listened to kinda seems it"

 

So yeah, my life in a nutshell. But I really wish I could buy Lana's album, physically, but they kinda barred it. But It's my money so I really want to do what I want with it, and I would just love to have a Lana album, in my hands, it'd feel so special. So hopefully I can get Paradise Edition physically. If not then another Amazon or iTunes download behind their backs I guess.

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.

My parents won't let me buy a copy since they think it's gay.

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

Can we bring the discussion of Lana being a prostitute again? It's pretty clear on the video

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?

That's actually brings to a philosophical question: should artists be able to express themselves freely without boundaries. Where/what is the limit to art? Should art be censored because it's subject?...

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