paradise27390

It's been one week and the thread is dying? I'm still on a high from this album! I play it in the car... I hear something different. I play it on my sonos... I hear the expansive production. I play at night in bed in my Head Phones and the quiet little background details come to life. I'm still not done processing it and yall have disappeared?

May I just say how damned hard it is to rank these songs! Each one of the following has been my favourite from the album in this first week of listening at some point: Paris, Texas (instant) Margaret (instant) Fishtail (instant) Sweet (instant) Kintsugi (instant) The Grants (instant) Fingertips (major grower. It clicked today ) And the rest are all solid 8s and above barring Juda Smith. Even Peppers has grown on me. I still think it doesn't fit the overall themes of this album but it's still a bop! The album is a stunner to play through from start to finish. She really poured everything and more into this. Like the art of Kintsugi ! Creating a whole from something fractured and broken. The reflections of life, love, family and the inevitably and tragedy of death. The mountains, the sea, the sweet north country. I just can't with her. Never been so proud to be a lana stan.

God this album. It just. I can't. The words are absent I'd be interested to know everyone's favourite vocal or production highlight from each track? For me it's hard to narrow down but to keep it simple: The Grants - "My Grandmother's last smile..." Tunnel - everything in the last minute. The soundscape is huge. The choral is enchanting. The "Don't forget me"'s. Gorgeous Sweet - children, marriage and marathons - simple and elegant production and light vocals. A&W - that transition. Holy f**k. So dark. The industrial electro effects on her vocals. Bliss. Juda Smith - Erm. I suppose the piano in the background would make a gorgeous instrumental. Candy Necklace - the jazzy piano bridge. Gives me tingles and I scream Chopin! Jon Batiste - actually love the vibes. The crescendo when he shouts. Kintsugi - the beauty of the melody of "Roadrunner Cafe" so beautiful, so sad and so very very relatable to me... and my mother. Fingertips - Christ. I've yet to get through it without getting misty. Theres so many build ups and come downs but the highlight is "Watch tv by my side" Paris, Texas - the bass during "went to SEE some friends of mine" gets me every time. Grandfather - "Deep sea fishing for all the things he's wishing" Light the Light in - the whole production! Her final chorus in falsetto is Divine. Margaret - "The Soul that you bring to the table" urgh there's magic on this track. Fishtail - "Skinny dip inside your mind" and that beautiful little tingle in the production. I adore this track. Needed to be longer. Peppers - the three "I'm in Love" 's Taco truck - maybe unpopular opinion but the synthetic trumpets on VB are everything. All in all I am really enjoying this era. The album is stunning and the highlights are career bests. As a cohesive body of work NFR! Still ranks top, but it is very close second for Ocean Blvd. Just a couple of niggles keeps it from the top spot; had juda Smith been 90 seconds long it wouldn't kill the momentum and Peppers would be alot more successful without the sample, along with the cheap production that pales next to A&W which sounds polished and expensive by comparison. Other than that I think we can say tracks like Sweet, Fingertips, Kingtsugi, Paris, Texas, Candy Necklace, Fishtail and The Grants symbolise Lana at her pinnacle of honest songwriting, exquisite compositions, beautiful vocal delivery and layered, profound production. She really does keep getting stronger and stronger every time she gets in that studio. Long may it reign!

Shux. Thanks

Hello my loves! Yall don't know me coz I pop up once a year to give my take and then I'm gone again (this is how to disappear ) But bloody hell do I enjoy these pre-release thread. Thanks for so much entertainment! My take:

Hi Lana Stans! Rearing my ugly head once again! What a mad couple of days it's been. Quite a rollercoaster! I've played it through three times now... the first time ceremoniously with my lover in the car parked on the beach. It's our thing when we play new music by our die hards ? I have bought the CD and vinyl so I'm paying her leccy bill! Neil Krug ofcourse. I have taste! Anyway I think I can say this without spoiling anything... I can see why this album will be polarizing to fans. If you take a look at her musical journey from BTD to now, it's almost not even the same artist anymore. And I say that as a positive! I'll be writing a review shortly to give my thoughts, but I think this record is one to digest over time, and in the right setting and mood could be the most inspired and magical work from her yet.

Question for you all... With this new album what do you think we can expect? Is it more than likely to be a NFR part 2? Her and Jack having such a chemistry that they created lots more tracks together? Or could be something different? Each album has been very much her "aesthetic" but always approached differently or produced/mixed differently. What would you want to hear from her? A return to BTD grandiosity or the more subtle acoustic surf vibes of NFR?

I actually think it's a dead cert!

She always has a hard time conveying her work. It's as if she lives it so much she can't explain it. It's always fuel for her naysayers. But her shy quality is what makes her endearing still

General consensus is positive! I dont think she's ever gotten this kind of reaction on this scale before. The guardian has always been an inflated pretentious wank mag. I wouldn't waste anymore breath.

She winds me up, this woman! Hibernates for eternity and BOOM! Think of how much we've been through in the run up to NFR... do I have the energy to jump straight back in again! I'm knackered... I'm off to dwell in VB for another year

Don't you just love it when things come crawling out the woodwork... HELLO! Well she brought me back again... just wanted this lanaboard dinosaur to chime in his thoughts... First thing... I don't think this board has ever had this much entertainment this past year. Your meltdowns have kept my lil part of the world highly amused! I live for your dramas, freaks! NOW... NORMAN FUCKING ROCKWELL. We had VB/MAC ... initially I was taken aback upon their release. It was Lana, alright, but not at the same time. Hard to convey but less layered, less grandiose, less hollywood sadcore... more raw, stripped, open, honest... and it worked. I went from being bewildered upon the first listen of VENICE BITCH to going as far as to say this psychedelic head fuck of a song is her greatest achievement this side of BORN TO DIE. Doubt plagued me when i heard the very LQ leaks of the newer songs. I thought maybe it was too stripped? too ballady? Had Lana taken away too much that made me love her int he first place? the strings, the drums, the synths, large soundscapes. bond theme powerhouse mind fucks!!!... it worried me and I kinda lost my excitement for the album... so when the HQ leaked i avoided it completely. I was daring to be proved wrong on my apprehensions picking that CD up from HMV and slipping it in my system and hearing it real for the first time as close and as tangible to Lana as I could get. I was PROVED WRONG. I cried. I actually cried. For the first time hearing Ms Del Rey swoon through the room on this brand new record I just embraced every second. No thrills. No drink. No pills. Actually at my restaurant, in our function room ironing numerous white linen table cloths for a christening for sunday. With an occasional sip of tea. What a beautiful hour of my life. Events coordinator and assistant manager can have some unexpected perks. I never considered ironing the cloths a perk until that day. Complete solitude. Complete Lana. An album so strong in it's structure, in it's track placements that it almost feels like pulling on Lana's hair and back handing her face to even dare to skip a track! That perfect wave (yes it is a wave!) from the title track, rolling into MAC and spilling into the saga that is VB is sumptuous. So so beautiful. "I'd like to think that you would stick around"...? my god, woman. What witch craft is this!!! these tears!!!! Love Song hit me hard. I wasnt expecting that having only played about 30 seconds of the LQ leak but blimey... this album takes on a whole new life in all of it's full resonance. Let's talk that 1 - 2 - 3 punch that is California, BAR, The Greatest - This was my Honeymoon/BTD nostalgic saga that I never knew I was getting! And despite these three songs being more grandiose/bombastic than the mellow surf/acoustic vibes of the the rest of the record the cohesion is palpable still. The Greatest hearkening to a Beatles/Eagles glory banger. The overwhelming emotions as she laments "Don't leave I just need a wakeup call". Shivers people. Remember i'm ironing. Now, are the original lyrics of BAR of such great importance we can't appreciate the dramatic change the song now delivers with the new ones? Remember this is the OFFICIAL VERSION. And guess what... the repetition of the word FAME is not missed by me. The slightly enhanced production really punches like that shattered glass! And I love it!! A highlight. California? Tame in it's lyrics and that's why it shines as probably the best song on the album. It's honest. It's real. Not dressed up in metaphors or aesthetics of golden hollywood. This is a lament for that man she'll always keep an eye on. She'll try and save. Is it Barrie? Probably. No doubt about it really. And what a heartfelt way to say I'll be here for you if you need a savour. I played it to my boyfriend today (a so so fan... he "likes her) .... he cried. Actually he sobbed and declared it his favourite song by her. There was something in the simplicity of what she was trying to convey that really stuck with him. This is her. The real her. Calling on an old flame. Desperate to save him from his depression. Come back to me and i'll make you see life the way it was again. I promise. I'll throw a party. We'll dance til dawn. Even writing that gets me moist in the eyelids. Ending the album on three beautiful piano ballads... the highlight of which HIAB sandwiched inbetween in all it's frailty, indeed like a butterfly, transformed in a matter of chords into a piano key slamming siren call "Hollywood and Vine, black rabbit in the alley I just wanna hold you tight down the avenue" ... It's just never ending... this magnificence! VB LOVE SONG CALIFORNIA BAR THE GREATEST HIAB I could gush on and on! Bathed in light, under a period vaulted ceiling, candelabras, wine glasses, with linens and Lana I experienced NORMAN FUCKING ROCKWELL. A departure and a return rolled into one. Calming, otherworldly, raw and sweeping, quiet and loud. A real trip and cohesive to a fault. What was the problem with Lust for Life? Some wonderful songs sprung from it's oh so bold take on absolutely fucking everything from modern pop to the beatles, to love and heartbreak, to american politics and equal women's rights, to soul searching and acceptance of inner turmoils... and then some. Maybe that was the problem. She had so many ideas and good ones at that but the album suffered overall from not having a strong structure and theme to keep it grounded. On NFR she has found her ground. She sings about what she knows and it shows. Lana is best when she keeps it real, and with a good producer in tow she can do wonders. And I am in wonderment. Thankyou guys. Thankyou Lana.

Ok.... so i've been a member on this forum for a few years and havent rejoined your lil cute club... until today! this album has brought me back to Lana and her world for the first time since Ultraviolence dropped into our teary laps. I've watched you all from afar getting messy as fuck this whole year in anticipation for this work of art, and even though I havent heard all the songs, this record has given me Born to Die butterflies! I've heard half the record... the rest I am saving for sunday night with my bestie and our boyfriends (who I've put on a strict no-Lana diet) and were gonna drink whiskey and gin by the campfire in her back yard under the stars. A night of stars, magic and love! I CANNOT FUCKING WAIT!! Love to you all!! p.s 13 Beaches? slain. dead. gone.

This is a toughy, but I think I got it right... It's bound to change! 16. The Other Woman 15. Florida Kilos 14. Is This Happiness 13. Guns And Roses 12. Money Power Glory 11. Shades Of Cool 10. Fucked My Way Up To The Top 9. Sad Girl 8. Cruel World 7. Flipside 6. Old Money 5. West Coast 4. Black Beauty 3. Ultraviolence 2. Pretty When You Cry 1. Brooklyn Baby ... But the whole album is...

That seems to be the appropriate motion for this record