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sparklrtrailrheaven

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Everything posted by sparklrtrailrheaven

  1. yessssss!!! this performance doesn't get mentioned NEARLY enough -- it's my go-to version of Lolita tbh
  2. exactly!!! and we love you back! one of the best mods there is
  3. @@Elle you're the best and we're lucky to have you as our admin!! majorly looking forward to where the site's headed -- i've been kicking around here for 5 years this month, and LB never fails to give me something great
  4. relevance, your honor??? i just want to know how this relates to anything besides the general subject of "cars"
  5. and now the anti-automatic transmission discourse starts
  6. it's everyday on LB in general lmfaoooooo
  7. if Azealia did it you'd be mad
  8. unleaked Kahne tracks.... CIRCULATING... what a time to be alive
  9. this would definitely make sense vis a vis many Bibles marking the words of Jesus in red (in case anyone didn't pick that up dkdfkfk sorry if i'm stating the obvious)
  10. I’m sorry but I still fail to understand why you keep talking about politics in the Azealia Banks thread It’d be great if we focused only on her music, but digressions onto her internet presence are understandable — however, I think constantly steering the conversation to politics is too far off-base
  11. the poetry videos have been cute thus far but this one... this one really grabbed me for some reason she looks fucking amazing and i'm so here for this vhs-honeymoon vid aesthetic -- violet the visual album is looking amazing
  12. i've had Used to Being Alone in my head for a hot minute what a moment
  13. I, for one, am very glad that the media finds more worthwhile things to report on than Azealia Banks causing drama on insta for the 10289394th time
  14. If you have to question why it's not racism when Azealia body-shames Lana but IS racially insensitive for Lana to call out a roster of primarily POC female artists, then... I don't know what to tell ya It doesn't have anything to do with what those women sing about or what kind of reach Azealia has, versus Lana's -- that's all totally irrelevant to the issue that's been brought up of race Azealia's a real shithead and says some totally problematic stuff, but claiming she's coming from a place of privilege bc she disrespected your fave is a bad look, not at all sorry bout it But why am I at all shocked that we're getting cold takes in the Azealia Banks thread on Lanaboards... disaster begging to happen right there
  15. when she said "you put mayonnaise on the grilled cheese... mayonnaise AND butter..." i felt that
  16. sparklrtrailrheaven

    Bartender

    Bartender always gives me Lizzy Grant vibes, and I wasn't sure why, for a while, but I think I've figured it out -- it's very much written in her Lizzy Grant mode. Excuse the following spill, but I'm an English major and I can't help myself The fact that the Lizzy Grant era fell between the very different writing styles of the May Jailer/Lizzi era and the LDR era makes it an odd mix of both -- it's partially slice-of-life, confessional lyrics, akin to a track like Blizzard, but it's also got a heightened, unreal edge, which Lana would ~fully~ embrace by the time Born to Die rolled around, where her lyrics became less about telling straightforward stories and more about loftier sets of ideas, imagery, and emotion. For example, take the trio of Drive By, Kill Kill, and Dark Paradise, all connected by the theme of the "dying man." Drive By is Lizzi telling us a story, with few frills and few digressions, but plenty of details -- K is her friend, K killed someone, and K is serving time. It's sung basically as it would be told, save for her questions posed to K in the choruses, and the rhymes between lines -- and that's part of the charm of the May Jailer recordings; for the most part, they're simple and unadorned and seemingly pretty apt documents of what Lizzi Grant was feeling and thinking in 2005. Skip ahead to Dark Paradise, and you see what's almost a full 180: the story is mostly to be inferred -- all the listener knows (context about Lana's larger body of lyrics and her life put aside) is that Lana's lover is ostensibly dead, and she can't deal with his absence. It's not not a story, but it's far from the detailed account given in Drive By, spelled out down to the number of years K is going to serve. Another striking contrast is that Dark Paradise brims with artistic lyrical devices, as opposed to the plain quality of Drive By -- so much so that it reads as pretty melodramatic, what with all the grandiose death metaphors and ghostly images. Then, you look at Kill Kill, written right in the middle of the two other tracks. There's still a defined sense of storytelling and a slice-of-life, confessional quality held over from the May Jailer era: Lizzy is "in love with a dying man," he "bounds up the stairs" while she's "in the shower," she asks her lover to "tell [her] about Ray and his girl," because "Ray is going to meet [him]." There's nothing inherently artistic about these lyrics; they could just as easily come from a conversation as they could from a song, just like in Drive By. However, Lizzy uses this grounded base to lay her more oblique and artful lyrics on, with lines like "stars fade from your eyes" or the cryptic bridge of "One, two/Make it fun/Don't trust anyone." There's definitely a story here -- the heroine is leaving her dying beau -- as there was in the May Jailer era, but it's as if we've only been privy to snippets of the story: who is Ray, and why is the dying man meeting him? Why is Lizzy leaving her lover? How does the bridge relate -- who mistrusts who, and who's playing the situation like a game? Therefore, a song like Kill Kill -- and much else of the Lizzy Grant canon -- succeeds because of this blend: the listener is given pieces of a story, modified by occasional cryptic phrases and florid lines, that creates lyrics that feel real, but also decidedly off-kilter and unreal. I think the best comparison really is David Lynch, who presents realities that are recognizable, but just strange and off-beat enough that an unsettling, unusual atmosphere is created. So, for a long time, I think Lana had mostly moved out of this mode of writing -- Born to Die through Lust for Life feel to me like they're in the same vein, with the balance moving more towards the emotion and conceptuality present in her lyrics, with little definite story -- hence the rise of Lanalysis that sought to attach more definite stories to her songs by making connections to her personal life. However, NFR!, I think, represents something of a return to form -- it's not identical to the Lizzy Grant style of writing, because the songs certainly feel somewhat more grounded in reality than her LG works, but it's much closer to that style than anything she's released in a very long time. It sees her acting as a storyteller again, first and foremost, and using those stories as a base for the larger emotions and ideas she wants to express, rather than flipping that around and using vague stories to connect her emotions. (Of course, this isn't to say that that means of writing isn't great -- it's responsible for Lana's golden age, and without it, we wouldn't have the same quintessential LDR persona and era.) This is all lead-up to say that I think Bartender is a track that exemplifies this matured form of the Lizzy Grant writing style: the story is present, based in reality, and has a confessional air, with Lana intimating her quests to meet her lover and avoid the paparazzi, along with day-in-the-life descriptions of her exploits with her girlfriends. However, as she did then, she modifies this story with an edge of surreality and drama: the "ladies of the canyon" are "dressed in black" or "dressed in white" and play "games of levitation," her conquests to avoid being photographed are framed as "the little game that we play," and she, somewhat sinisterly, compares the poetry she thinks up to a warm gun, resting inside her. It's all based in her real life, but is told with just enough unreality to be incredibly intriguing. In essence, she's once again balanced her songwriting bents: the straight storytelling she began with, and the grand melodrama she became famous with -- and what she's doing now is not at all unlike the transition period that was the Lizzy Grant era. And, did I mention how much I love that?
  17. I think I love this song a little more with every year that goes by -- it's gorgeous and such a slow-burner; definitely one of her best unreleased imo
  18. F - Big Bad Wolf M - Fuck it I love you K - Angels Forever, Forever Angels Scarface Maha Maha Go Go Dancer
  19. F - HBTB M - Bel Air K - Art Deco Million Dollar Man California The greatest
  20. okay the Lizzy vibes have caused me to re-stan Baseball Mom hat saved my life
  21. just added L'Officiel USA and C Magazine, thanks to the lovely @99centlips now at a grand total of 4 magazines
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