Norman Fucking Rockwell - Pre-Release Thread

[Wynwood 19,966]

I have a horrible feeling that one of the songs we lust for is not on the album. I’m betting HIAB. Because of the way she re-used the video for it and was supposed to drop it s a year ago.

no song is being dropped or added. the album is done but its just sitting on a shelf

[bored 7,832]

a bloated album will flop by design. the actual only way she can make the wait worth it is if she pulls through with a GOOD cohesive album periyad. wanting 20 tracks is like asking for bad songs

 

Hmmm, I'm 50/50. Ultraviolence and Lust For Life are her longest records, both at 16 songs and one of those is a cohesive masterpiece and the other not so much... If the cover is on the album and she had 13 songs finalised in January then I wouldn't mind 14 or 15 songs.

[BreadKing 332]

Omg a fellow Zelda fan! ... Can we be friends?

 

yeah!!

[MoonAgain 872]

anyone else still thinking about how she said hope took her 3 years 

[PARADIXO 31,608]

yeah!!

 

then listen to my song, Napalm Death

[Charlottexseax 7,605]

How To Disappear is cute, but if all the songs on the album are gonna be piano ballads it’s a no

Also it kinda has the same structure as Hope which, not necessarily bad, but it could use a bit of color/ character

[Vertimus 8,925]

for anyone who thinks "blue collar Lana" is not a core part of her music and experience -- pls queue up my go-to Lana playlist for when im pissed im broke:

 

-Velvet Crowbar

-Children of the Bad Revolution

-Queen of the Gas Station

-Trash Magic

-Money Hunny

-Elvis

-Pawn Shop Blues

 

the good sis used to push a "trailer park princess" shtick. she has spoken candidly ab poverty / addiction / living on the road / beer / etc in her songs since before Born to Die.  are we talking about the very same "Pabst Blue Ribbons on ice" Lana?

 

i dont think she's being disingenuous with this. i think it's part of who she is.  but hey, fuck the poor right?  let's all just keep worshiping wealth and celebrity while the world burns! _{who tf am i kidding im on a lana del rey forum}

 

 

But with those songs, she's commenting on what she sees of lower economic class life, entering into the stories she's presenting as a persona, and sometimes satirizing them, exploiting them or using those elements--gas stations, trailer parks, drunken young men--as a kind of creative novelty or lyrical fantasy. As she is in many cases, she's sincere and insincere simultaneously, to varying degrees, which a lot of critics misunderstood and attacked her for with BTD and called her 'inauthentic.' I thought then, and still think, that that balance of the genuine and the artificial is her genius. 

 

But with HTD, she's singing a straight-forward, one-level, no-subtext, apparently sincere ballad to blue collar life, a la Springsteen ('Racing in the Street,' etc.) or some eras of Billy Joel, though she again places herself directly within the story.

 

I understand people have varying tastes, I'm just sharing that that isn't a LDR I'm interested in. The way "crack another beer" is used as a recurring motif and refrain seems coarse and almost a caricature of what it seems to me she's attempting. The emotions seem common and mawkish---to me. 

 

I appreciate that others feel differently and I'm glad others like or love the song, and are anticipating it. The more satisfied people In the world, the better a place it will be. 

[PARADIXO 31,608]

anyone else still thinking about how she said hope took her 3 years 

 

It's not that she spent 3 years of her life on that song. It simply was 'there' for 3 years and wasn't able to finish it properly. Like an idea, concept, etc.

[Vertimus 8,925]

honestly, this. her entire early career is "blue collar" - not only that, she actually embraced white trash as an identity for quite a long time. (there's a lot to be said about that, of course: a privileged white girl basically slumming it & "experiencing" the poor life from the cushioned position of someone who'll always be able to run back to mom and dad if things *really* get rough, but that's kinda beside the point here - almost as moot a point as questioning bruce springsteen for still singing about the blue collar working life now that he's a famous millionaire. but i digress.)

 

i think that's definitely a part of her identity now, and even a big part of her more glamorous styles usually include trashy / kitschy signifiers like the stripper nails, chola makeup, hippie-looking floral dresses, all the americana references, glittery/bejeweled stuff etc., which weren't unintentional coincidences. i might be completely mistaken, but i actually think she identifies more with trashiness than with genuine, earnest glamour - by that i mean that her persona often depicts someone trying to ooze glamour from an "underdog" standpoint (stripper, housewife, prostitute, struggling artist, addict etc.) rather than adopting the role of the unattainable, perfect music star. even the insta baddie / vloger thing hints at that same thing, in the sort of meta way of a famous pop singer basically role playing a person aspiring to get famous via social media.

 

edit: also, she covered *sublime* of all bands lmao, arguably one of the most uncool, trashiest bands of the 90s... i mean!

 

I know those older songs, the photos and the 'looks,' and I feel she was just exploiting those elements--the cutoffs, cheap nails and tube socks--having fun, playing with them, fantasizing, using them, playing 'blue collar dress-up' for the day, just as she played 'Mafia princess' for a while, 'stripper,' and 'international glamour queen.' 

 

With her several enormous homes, sports cars, many millions of dollars and recent photographic legacy, nothing will convince me that she's essentially 'blue collar,' nor does she come from that economic class. She may sympathize or be drawn to blue collar life, because, as one female writer said, "poverty is the great reality, that's why artists seek it," and maybe she finds blue collar men attractive, as many do. I think most Americans are sympathetic to 'working class life,' so-called, as we all struggle, especially economically, especially since 2008 and the financial downturn. 

[Dominikx4 25,024]

It's not that she spent 3 years of her life on that song. It simply was 'there' for 3 years and wasn't able to finish it properly. Like an idea, concept, etc.

haha thats funny because it still sounds like an unfinished idea

[PARADIXO 31,608]

haha thats funny because it still sounds like an unfinished idea

 

Why?

[GeminiLanaFan 45,806]

I mean she has to have delayed the album for some fucking reason so don’t mind me over here hoping she’s been working on more amazing tracks and that we get a long tracklist xo

Jack is working on something else. Don’t think « not-Jack » songs will be included on NFR.

She probably wanted to have the poetry book ou first, but as usual, she is shit with time and it took longer. Now it’s summer, the albums out have to have a summer / lighter side and NFR sure ain’t in that vein.

[bored 7,832]

The fact that Change was a last minute concept and recorded pretty imminently to meet a deadline and then Hope took three years and had time for the production to be ammended and perfected says a lot about her consistency.

[GeminiLanaFan 45,806]

haha thats funny because it still sounds like an unfinished idea

I honestly don’t think so. It’s a « simple » song for sure for its production, and yet, it works perfectly when you live something in your life that is similar to the emptiness/ despair of the song. The piano chords and her voice become haunting.

However, only one song with that kind of production would be enough for an album.

[PARADIXO 31,608]

The fact that Change was a last minute concept and recorded pretty imminently to meet a deadline and then Hope took three years and had time for the production to be ammended and perfected says a lot about her consistency.

 

The production didn't take 3 years for fuck's sake oh my god you guys really love to hate on that song

[bored 7,832]

The production didn't take 3 years for fuck's sake oh my god you guys really love to hate on that song

 

I never said it did, i'm just saying that the song still could've been produced better and doesn't sound that different from Change considering the difference of time in creation.

[TrashMagiq 55,328]

hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have - but i have it is gorgeous, y'all just lack Taste, not an opinion, just facts.

[GeminiLanaFan 45,806]

The fact that Change was a last minute concept and recorded pretty imminently to meet a deadline and then Hope took three years and had time for the production to be ammended and perfected says a lot about her consistency.

Is it consistency (or lack of)? Ok, Change could have had a bit more editing, but the deadline kinda got in the way.

I see her songs as « I will give them the production they need to convey the right emotion »; if a simple production works, fine, why add something else (a bit like Joni Mitchell’s Blue album: acoustic and yet efficient)? I love Hope as it is, though it’s not meant to be listened to each day I think.

[bummersummer 2,217]

I know those older songs, the photos and the 'looks,' and I feel she was just exploiting those elements--the cutoffs, cheap nails and tube socks--having fun, playing with them, fantasizing, using them, playing 'blue collar dress-up' for the day, just as she played 'Mafia princess' for a while, 'stripper,' and 'international glamour queen.' 

 

With her several enormous homes, sports cars, many millions of dollars and recent photographic legacy, nothing will convince me that she's essentially 'blue collar,' nor does she come from that economic class. She may sympathize or be drawn to blue collar life, because, as one female writer said, "poverty is the great reality, that's why artists seek it," and maybe she finds blue collar men attractive, as many do. I think most Americans are sympathetic to 'working class life,' so-called, as we all struggle, especially economically, especially since 2008 and the financial downturn. 

 

"exploiting" is definitely something that can be said about it, for the reasons both you and i mentioned. it's never satirical or metaphorical though, she actually identifies with and is drawn to all kinds of outsiders / people on the margins of society, and that (+ a fair amount of misogyny, too) was the reason why the whole debate around her authenticity happened back in 2012. she adopts those identities as personas, but of course she doesn't live her own life accordingly - because she doesn't have to; she's not trying to *really* be trailer park poor, or a prostitute, stripper, mafia princess, heroin addict or what-have-you, she's essentially glamorizing the white trashiness and danger of it all while safely taking what fascinates her & applying it to her music. i think that's the one valid reason to criticize lana & i'm absolutely open to that pov, but at the same time why NOT explore something that fascinates us safely via music/whatever art form? does art need to be - or even should be - morally responsible and "authentic"? and, you know, all the usual questions.

[Vertimus 8,925]

I am not objecting to her or anyone else drinking beer in any manner or amount, or of any brand. 

 

It's the expression, "crack another beer," specifically, as a sort of sign of their hopelessness, that I don't like, and the way it is used as a refrain in HTD. 

 

That's all. 

 

I wouldn't like it if she used "hold my beer" as the refrain to a song either. 

 

Parody and exploitation are both approaches she's used to blue collar themes in the past (as she has with other subjects), as well as some slight sincerity on the subject, as I see it.

 

As I said above, HTD is a straight-forward, apparently sincere song about lower economic life, and I don't see any vision, revelation or genius in it, any insights, I just hear a sort of pathetic, pitying and self-pitying attitude, and a tacked-on 'happy ending.'