Monicker

Essay! Four short paragraphs? Lawd 
 
Look, i was feeling things while making my sandwich last night, alright? 

I was just listening to this song while making a sandwich. Gosh, it’s such a good song. It’s so tender and heartbreaking. It’s an especially great song for nighttime. I love the loose quality it has, how it sounds like it was just a quick and spontaneous thing, recorded one night in a sudden flash of inspiration, like it just needed to come out. I love how understated but unique the backing track is with that incongruous drum machine and the little weird noises. I wouldn’t change a thing about it. 
 
These lyrics, i think, are some of her most heartfelt. It’s just chock-full of such simple yet powerful and poignant lines that i think a lot of people can relate to. I especially love the line “the panic and the fear.” Anyone who suffers from panic attacks knows that it’s one of the worst feelings in the world. 
 
Doesn’t the chorus sound like something you’ve heard before in another life? That melody seems to perfectly capture the song’s sentiments, that sense of feeling trapped and that realization that you have to do something, make some sort of change in your life. Your dead-end relationship has sort of become your comfort zone. You think you can change the relationship or even the other person, but you know you’re just lying to yourself. 
 
Her falsetto in this song has a strange quality to it, it’s almost hysterical. And at the end when she abruptly comes out of it back into her lower register (as she’s repeating that she’s done being afraid), it makes me think of, like, when you’ve been crying for hours and you just suddenly snap out of it because you just physically cannot cry anymore.  
 
What a fucking song.

Jesus. I'm sorry. Wow. I forgot (momentarily? thanks for the reminder...) that it's 2013. I thought we were in 2012, haa. You're right. Feb. 2012, not 2011. That's what i meant. I was thinking 2011 was last year... What is wrong with me? 
 
What a way to destroy my own joke. 

Liz can't wait 2 B back at Ruby Tuesday in 2011, at the height of her career. But the pressing question: Waiting/hosting for old times' sake? Or just droppin' in for that amazing salad bar? 

This is some of your best work yet, oh humble narrator of ours. I really like this one.
 
While we’re on the subject, does anyone know the origin of the saying that you can't have your cake and eat it too? It makes no sense. What else is one supposed to do with their cake if not eat it? Make it levitate by concentrating really hard? Here, have your cake, go on, take it. But don’t eat it, okay? Just sit there and look at it and think about how much you want to eat it, but i swear if you lay a finger on it... God, you always want everything. So greedy, so insatiable! I mean, look at you, you want your cake AND you want to eat it too? Who do you think you are? Ingrate!
 
 
 
SitarSlut, watch out, i’m going to flood your mind with SEXXX anecdotes from my life, like the one time i had sex to a Mister Rogers record (oddly enough, it wasn’t really an odd experience at all).

One time i was going down on my then-girlfriend while she was eating a piece of chocolate cake. It wasn't, like, "food play" or anything like that, she was just sitting there eating it casually and was actually a little more focused on the cake than anything else, but something about that was really erotic to me.
 
I'm going to change the subject now. Here's a picture of two lions fighting:

I was actually just wondering about this yesterday--if Emile Haynie already had your sounds prior to the recording of BTD or if he made them specifically for the record. I wonder if he even made them or if it's some stock shit that he manipulated. And did he show Lana and she liked it, or did he just add it to a song on his own and showed her later? Also, i wonder who is responsible for the repetitive use of it--did she hear it on one song and insist that he use it more because she liked it so much, or was it completely his own doing to slather the entire record with it? Is anyone familiar with his productions for other people? That might provide answers.

I was actually just wondering about this yesterday--if Emile Haynie already had your sounds prior to the recording of BTD or if he made them specifically for the record. I wonder if he even made them or if it's some stock shit that he manipulated. And did he show Lana and she liked it, or did he just add it to a song on his own and showed her later? Also, i wonder who is responsible for the repetitive use of it--did she hear it on one song and insist that he use it more because she liked it so much, or was it completely his own doing to slather the entire record with it? Is anyone familiar with his productions for other people? That might provide answers.

I think bridges are one of the things that really set Lana apart musically. Her bridges are very strong, and usually more memorable than the chorus in other people's songs.
 
 
ASSHOLE.
 
 
Thanks for that interview, i hadn't seen it before. I wonder if that's the same John Calvert i knew in high school. As sad as it may be to consider this, i really do think that Lizzy wasn't too happy with the results of the AKA record.
 
 
Ha, i was actually thinking that as i was initially writing that. Yeah, i'm full of shit, what can i say. So, let me revise: One of the best moments in pop music, in my limited exposure But i mean, also, come on, i'm not totally clueless, and i've yet to hear anything that comes even close to that section in MM. What's a contender? Fill me in. FILL ME UP.

Farting synth bass! I bet Kahne has an amazing collection of vintage analog synths. LET’S GET THAT PETITION GOING, GUYS.
 
 
...vocal track sloppily coming in?
 
 
Best thing anyone's said on this forum ever. Seriously.
 
 
The sounds of gambling?
 
 
Sounds to me like a free reed instrument, something like an accordion, bandoneon, or harmonium.
 
 
Lolita is G_d.
 
And don't worry, BIll, i'm with you on Lucky Ones. People are just, i don't know, smoking crack or something?

This is a GREAT thread topic <3 I have dozens and dozens and dozens of these moments. This is the kind of shit i live for. I’ll come back later with a list of moments, but...
 
 
YES YES YES! Well said. This is my #1 moment too! I wrote about it once on LDR.FM, how that part is otherworldly, on another level entirely. I sincerely believe that it’s one of the best moments in pop music of the last, oh, 15 years. MM is what i use to first introduce my friends to Lana.
 
I’m honestly really terrible when it comes to harmonic theory and analysis, so i’m not exactly sure what’s going on there. She’s obviously changing the melody of the chorus, but there’s more going on. I used to think the song changed keys there from its home key of D minor, but now i realize there’s no modulation there, she’s just flatting the fifth (in this case the A become an A flat) which makes a tritone (the interval that was once viewed as the devil in music, its use prohibited by the church!) and creates some diminished harmonies, introducing some really nice dissonance. That’s as much as i can tell you, if you know theory at all this tells you almost nothing, and if you don’t know theory, then this tells you nothing at all. Any musicians here? Anyway, this section is FUCKED and totally, totally, totally, totally, totally brilliant. Sitar, to say that it sounds “turned inside out” is a very keen and intuitive observation because the tritone is the most unstable interval in music and is always looking to resolve; it's used mostly to create musical tension before a release/resolve.
 
Let’s start a petition for Lizzy to work with Kahne again even though she probably doesn’t want to! Give Emile the boot!
 
 
 
YES.
 
 
Highest note she's hit on record, i believe. Lana enters the false register.

I should be clear that i was making fun of two people on this thread.

Tee hee, i'll just nonchalantly mention something that indicates that i've been in possession of the song before it leaked, then everyone will know...

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? 

This is a GREAT thread topic <3 I have dozens and dozens and dozens of these moments. This is the kind of shit i live for. I’ll come back later with a list of moments, but...
 
 
YES YES YES! Well said. This is my #1 moment too! I wrote about it once on LDR.FM, how that part is otherworldly, on another level entirely. I sincerely believe that it’s one of the best moments in pop music of the last, oh, 15 years. MM is what i use to first introduce my friends to Lana.
 
I’m honestly really terrible when it comes to harmonic theory and analysis, so i’m not exactly sure what’s going on there. She’s obviously changing the melody of the chorus, but there’s more going on. I used to think the song changed keys there from its home key of D minor, but now i realize there’s no modulation there, she’s just flatting the fifth (in this case the A become an A flat) which makes a tritone (the interval that was once viewed as the devil in music, its use prohibited by the church!) and creates some diminished harmonies, introducing some really nice dissonance. That’s as much as i can tell you, if you know theory at all this tells you almost nothing, and if you don’t know theory, then this tells you nothing at all. Any musicians here? Anyway, this section is FUCKED and totally, totally, totally, totally, totally brilliant. Sitar, to say that it sounds “turned inside out” is a very keen and intuitive observation because the tritone is the most unstable interval in music and is always looking to resolve; it's used mostly to create musical tension before a release/resolve.
 
Let’s start a petition for Lizzy to work with Kahne again even though she probably doesn’t want to! Give Emile the boot!
 
 
 
YES.
 
 
Highest note she's hit on record, i believe. Lana enters the false register.

This is a GREAT thread topic <3 I have dozens and dozens and dozens of these moments. This is the kind of shit i live for. I’ll come back later with a list of moments, but...
 
 
YES YES YES! Well said. This is my #1 moment too! I wrote about it once on LDR.FM, how that part is otherworldly, on another level entirely. I sincerely believe that it’s one of the best moments in pop music of the last, oh, 15 years. MM is what i use to first introduce my friends to Lana.
 
I’m honestly really terrible when it comes to harmonic theory and analysis, so i’m not exactly sure what’s going on there. She’s obviously changing the melody of the chorus, but there’s more going on. I used to think the song changed keys there from its home key of D minor, but now i realize there’s no modulation there, she’s just flatting the fifth (in this case the A become an A flat) which makes a tritone (the interval that was once viewed as the devil in music, its use prohibited by the church!) and creates some diminished harmonies, introducing some really nice dissonance. That’s as much as i can tell you, if you know theory at all this tells you almost nothing, and if you don’t know theory, then this tells you nothing at all. Any musicians here? Anyway, this section is FUCKED and totally, totally, totally, totally, totally brilliant. Sitar, to say that it sounds “turned inside out” is a very keen and intuitive observation because the tritone is the most unstable interval in music and is always looking to resolve; it's used mostly to create musical tension before a release/resolve.
 
Let’s start a petition for Lizzy to work with Kahne again even though she probably doesn’t want to! Give Emile the boot!
 
 
 
YES.
 
 
Highest note she's hit on record, i believe. Lana enters the false register.

This is a GREAT thread topic <3 I have dozens and dozens and dozens of these moments. This is the kind of shit i live for. I’ll come back later with a list of moments, but...
 
 
YES YES YES! Well said. This is my #1 moment too! I wrote about it once on LDR.FM, how that part is otherworldly, on another level entirely. I sincerely believe that it’s one of the best moments in pop music of the last, oh, 15 years. MM is what i use to first introduce my friends to Lana.
 
I’m honestly really terrible when it comes to harmonic theory and analysis, so i’m not exactly sure what’s going on there. She’s obviously changing the melody of the chorus, but there’s more going on. I used to think the song changed keys there from its home key of D minor, but now i realize there’s no modulation there, she’s just flatting the fifth (in this case the A become an A flat) which makes a tritone (the interval that was once viewed as the devil in music, its use prohibited by the church!) and creates some diminished harmonies, introducing some really nice dissonance. That’s as much as i can tell you, if you know theory at all this tells you almost nothing, and if you don’t know theory, then this tells you nothing at all. Any musicians here? Anyway, this section is FUCKED and totally, totally, totally, totally, totally brilliant. Sitar, to say that it sounds “turned inside out” is a very keen and intuitive observation because the tritone is the most unstable interval in music and is always looking to resolve; it's used mostly to create musical tension before a release/resolve.
 
Let’s start a petition for Lizzy to work with Kahne again even though she probably doesn’t want to! Give Emile the boot!
 
 
 
YES.
 
 
Highest note she's hit on record, i believe. Lana enters the false register.

Oh my god, haaa, this is hilarious. So, i kept looking at this picture--in a way similar to when i'm fixated on the gruesome image of a roadkill carcass--because he looked so familiar to me. It was the sort of familiarity that is disturbing, where you just have to figure it out, otherwise it's going to drive you nuts. And i knew it wasn't just a case of someone looking like someone i know, but rather that it's a person i actually know. Remember that i don't know shit about pop culture. So i did a reverse image search and i see that this is Perez Hilton. Sure, i've heard the name before and i have a vague idea that he's some sort of internet asshole who does nothing. Something involving a blog and celebrities and bullshit? Then, as i looked through pictures of him on Google, it became absolutely certain that i know that smarmy face from somewhere. Then i realized i went to school with him. I remember this asshole. He was a grade ahead of me. I looked him up on Wikipedia and, sure enough, all the info matches. Gawd, what terrible memories returning to strangle my brain, please return from whence you came. Nearly everyone in that school was a bigoted, racist, homophobic (of course half the school was gay), vacuous dick. Ugh. I only went to that school for 7th, 8th, and half of 9th grade before i told my parents there was just no way i could go back, so i transfered to another school. I don't remember anything at all about this guy (just his face), but if i had to guess, he probably called me a faggot, along with the rest of the school, like every other day. Who knows though, maybe he was one of the few decent ones! Oh, i know, i'm gonna ask my friend (actually, the person who introduced me to Lana) who went to the school with me. He'll probably remember. Oh god, but he just looks like such an asshole, do i even have to ask?

I can agree with that to an extent even though i'm very wary of binaries, especially as absolutes, or absolutes of any kind, really. We're on the same page with the piano analogy, but not for the same reason that i imagined was your intent in making the analogy: the piano and its black & white keys are a human construction--not rooted in a natural phenomenon--much like the social construct of reducing being down to these polarizing masculine/feminine "fundamentals." BTW, the harpsichord and some fortepianos, which both predate the pianoforte, have the black/white key scheme inverted.
 
 
 
What i was referring to is bolded in the following:
 
 
Also, a lot of this soul/ego duality is sexist and too reductionist and essentialist. Why should these ontological attributes have to be tied to gender? Does that have any real value? Is it not dismissive of our complexities and ambiguities? I mean, integrative = feminine and separatist = masculine? I find that rather insulting. What do those qualities really have to do with the socially constructed ways in which men and women have been segregated throughout history? And what about those who don't fit into a gender binary? I just don't get why this stuff has to be described in terms of a male/female dichotomy.

 
 
P.S. I do enjoy reading your posts, so i hope you don't take any of this "the wrong way."

I see a lot of the traps of binary thinking (ontology is more complex than a set of binaries, no?) in these interpretations, along with complementarianism, social constructs passing off as "truths," dogma and moralism. Also, don't you think we should be moving away from the kind of language that uses he/him/his to represent all peoples?

I see a lot of the traps of binary thinking (ontology is more complex than a set of binaries, no?) in these interpretations, along with complementarianism, social constructs passing off as "truths," dogma and moralism. Also, don't you think we should be moving away from the kind of language that uses he/him/his to represent all peoples?

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. 

It was intentionally condescending and i was including myself in the group being condescended to. Call me presumptuous, but i just heavily doubt that anyone here really knows about the complex web that makes up the various sects of the Illuminati throughout history. Even speaking very generally, what do we really know about it? Discussing it in the context of this forum is absurd. Can we really have a meaningful conversation about it? I would say not considering that the thread opened up with the OP asking us if we believe that Lana Del Rey is in the Illuminati (which, by the way, he offered no explanation whatsoever as to why he believes that she is).  
 
Re: Catholics and Masonry: Speaking only for myself here, look at the tense of what i wrote: "Lots of Masons were Catholics, by the way. A lot of that stuff was just white men getting together to drink and be assholes." You're talking about very recent Catholic doctrine. What is Masonry these days anyway? Widows of Masons gathered at the local library to play checkers? A compass and the letter G obscured on the facade of the theater in the center of town? 
 
EDIT: I just saw your edit and you're right--18th Century. That's what i meant, 1700s...dyslexia of sorts 

By the way, lest my first post gets misunderstood, i was including myself in that--i don’t know shit about the Illuminati. My point was that, being that it is a rich culture and huge area of study that spans centuries, covering religion, government and politics, social class, war, history, etc. i sincerely doubt anyone here truly knows much about the actual Illuminati--not "the Illuminati" as it’s understood today in popular culture/conspiracy theorist circles--to "speculate" on anything about it.  
 
This thread just screams of trolling to me and there’s been an overwhelming amount of this shit around here lately. I’m sure i’m not the only one who’s tired of it.