Norman Fucking Rockwell - Post-Release Discussion Thread + Poll

[theweightofthehours 1,836]

I-

Venice Bitch a weak song? Wtfffff. Lyrically it's not her best by any means but that is not the point of the song imo. Even without the outro VB is beautifully crafted and the melodies are gorgeous. I'm not an Antonoff stan and when I heard she was collaborating with him I was like "hmmm idk about this" but they gave us her most candid album to date. There's just something palpable in her voice that sounds more real. Like she finally let go of the persona she created. That's why I barely listen to Honeymoon, some of the tracks in there are among her best, like the title track, SoC, TLY, but in retrospective it feels like it was Lana Del Rey making a self parody. I don't know.

 

I'd still make NFR shorter though, she needs to start to filter out songs that don't add to the cohesiveness of a record. And stop sharing fucking snippets.

 

Anyways, that's just my opinion

[mkultraviolence 5,832]

^ I guess maybe that is part of the reason NFR feels less cohesive. There is less of a planned, thought-out persona so it's more bland and shifty.

[Jared 3,131]

You're not wanting Lana to stick to certain sound/style yet almost every post you make complains about the lack of drama and mystery and production of her previous album/s.

 

And this notion that critics randomly woke up and decided to shower NFR with universal acclaim and put it on decade-end lists is a conspiracy theory.

 

There's a very simple reason why NFR is so universally acclaimed: because it's a masterpiece. Better, stronger (from start to finish), more mature, evolved and complete album than her previous ones.

 

[West Coast 45,795]

Every single post I make are about the absolutely atrocious production and mastering of this lackluster record and how the lyricism isn't nearly as mature and groundbreaking as some of you Stroganoff stan make it out to be AND how much the very same critics now crowning Lana as a musical genius for this record completely disregarded her entire discographby since she hit the scene. Which retrospectively, them eating shit as we speak is downright absurd and hilarious. But go off 

 

I'm also legit curious about some of you guy's opinion about her past albums at the time of their release? Like did you agree with all the negative backlash and the critique of character they made? And also how little they actually critiqued the music itself in these now so called revered musical reviews, but championed vicious and personal attacks? Like all of a sudden what they write about Lana is literary gold and factual, but back then, I'm pretty sure most of you guys jumped off and were ready to go for the jugular with some of these musical reviews. Genuinely curious.

 

 

Ps: An album that has "fUcK iT i lUuUh yaAA!", "How To Disappear" as well as other obvious production and mastering flaws, cannot seriously be considered a masterpiece or better

a magnum opus   

 

[Dark Angel 202,370]

Unpopular opinion but Bartender is amazing. Probably my current favorite from the album.

[13bitches 6,176]

Like to me Venice Bitch... I like the song, but I definitely feel like the hazy/dry musical outro basically exists to beef up what was at the beginning a pretty weak song. The "Oh god miss you on my lips, it's me your little Venice bitch" and "woah woah for-ever", it might be 10 minutes long, but I don't see it as being career defining like some other fans.

Finally someone else says it

[poetic jess 2,340]

The Greatest, Happiness is a Butterfly and Norman Fucking Rockwell are my holy trinity of this album, but I still can’t listen to one song without listening to the others. This album is really holding up well for me.

[softcore babyface 4,376]

I hate jack, but if you can't see that the production flaws are intentional, you have worms in your brain and lack critical thinking skills outside 'ooh pretty music' and 'ew ugly music'

[West Coast 45,795]

I hate jack, but if you can't see that the production flaws are intentional, you have worms in your brain and lack critical thinking skills outside 'ooh pretty music' and 'ew ugly music'

Agree, but at the same time it just sounded cheap rather than charming. Even on the title track the piano sounds tinny... comparatively to HIAB on which it doesn't, might've been intentional, but that's not so cohesive, is it? Also, How To Disappear is probably the perfect example of a track that sounds more like an experimental demo rather than a finished and properly mastered tracks.

 

I'm all for achieving a low-fi type of sound and making the songs sound not too perfect, but there's a line between leaving intentional flaws to add "charm" to a song and creating a cohesive sound, and making a song just sound cheap.

[FallingCherry 7,731]

Are we still discussing whether this album is a masterpiece or not and if the flaws are intentional or not? No wonder why this thread is so dry now, and the only people that are posting 90% of the time are the same 3 frustrated people that can't admit that NFR is amazing

Oh, and for the last time, Lana decided what to do with the production of the album, she wanted it to have flaws and make it more raw, so stop saying it's because of Jack. That makes no sense when he can produce flawless albums like Melodrama and Masseduction.

[daphnedinkley 13,487]

I find the discussion about Lana's lyricism on this album pretty interesting. I'm kinda torn on it???   

 

Some of her writing on NFR! is BRILLIANT - Mariner's Apartment Complex stands out a lot for me lyrically, it's this great balance of rawness/honesty ("I fucked up, I know that, but Jesus, can't a girl just do the best she can?") and metaphors/imagery (all the lost at sea type stuff) that makes it feel so candid and honest but also considered and, for lack of a better term, not lazy. You can tell a lot of care went into writing the song imo, yet it's not too complex (ha no pun intended) so it's simple enough to feel classic.

 

Then of course you have Hope which, although a lot of the fanbase don't like it, is no doubt some of her absolute greatest lyricism yet. Possibly her best ever tbh. The song tears me apart. You can tell that song was carefully constructed and probably went thru multiple drafts, it's unbelievably perfect.

 

How To Disappear, Norman and Bartender are all very gorgeous lyrically too!!

 

But then you get songs like Love Song. Rhyming 'chest', 'party dress' and 'mess'? 'It's the best' and 'passed the test'??? C'mon   Lana should've moved on from that by now. It's lazy and probably the first sort of rhyme scheme you'd think of if you were just freestyling a song in the studio. I know Love Song is very beloved by fans and I understand why, but a song with such a delicate and minimal instrumental should probably put a little more thought into its lyrics, right??? California has some genuinely lovely moments (the first pre-chorus stands out to me), but "faster than my fastest cars" and "brighter than the brightest stars" are.....   so thoughtless and cringe. The Greatest is one of my favourite Lana songs ever and I think it's really well written mostly, but the way she randomly repeats phases thru the song does make me question why she couldn't just think of more lyrics. The Next Best American Record is  another song that could've had a lot more thought put into it to really elevate it, but that wasn't the case.

 

I think there are some unbelievably high highs on NFR!'s lyrics, but strangely the lows aren't horrendously low - they're just lazy and careless.

[slang 1,532]

It does seem like critics finally caught up with her on NFR, though there is a very clear increasing trend in metacritic scores across albums, and importantly she had more metacritic reviewers on NFR than LFL (28 vs. 26 -- though both are less than HM at 31). I think the album is not a magnum opus, but just normal good for her: i.e., better than others contemporaneously, and different from what she's done before, which is enough for me to say Bravo (or is it Brava, idk).

 

Favorite songs: NFR, VB, TNBAR, FIILY, with quite a lot of near misses on favorite (HTD, HIADT, C, MAC), and everything else was enjoyable. The (non-fucking-reverberation!) production did not seem attrocious to me, but I'm not an audiophile.

[Psychedelic Pussy 30,109]

I can't believe its been 2 months since release and everything still sounds so fresh and enjoyable. Tbh im sure by this time after HM & LFL's releases I was barely listening to them (bc why listen to them when UV exists.......literally why do anything when you could be listening to UV) , but this album is so carefree and easy to chill out to

[LanaBoi 1,810]

Jeez there is a lotta hate for this album on here. 

 

I still can't say how much I enjoy this album. Honeymoon is the only one I've enjoyed as much, however it took a while for it to grow on me, where as NFR was instant. Perhaps it was the snippets or the early release of MAC, VB and HIADT... 

On another note.. time is ticking for the NFR/HIAB/Bartender music vid... 

[bunoner 5,726]

Every single post I make are about the absolutely atrocious production and mastering of this lackluster record and how the lyricism isn't nearly as mature and groundbreaking as some of you Stroganoff stan make it out to be AND how much the very same critics now crowning Lana as a musical genius for this record completely disregarded her entire discographby since she hit the scene. Which retrospectively, them eating shit as we speak is downright absurd and hilarious. But go off 

 

I'm also legit curious about some of you guy's opinion about her past albums at the time of their release? Like did you agree with all the negative backlash and the critique of character they made? And also how little they actually critiqued the music itself in these now so called revered musical reviews, but championed vicious and personal attacks? Like all of a sudden what they write about Lana is literary gold and factual, but back then, I'm pretty sure most of you guys jumped off and were ready to go for the jugular with some of these musical reviews. Genuinely curious.

 

 

Ps: An album that has "fUcK iT i lUuUh yaAA!", "How To Disappear" as well as other obvious production and mastering flaws, cannot seriously be considered a masterpiece or better

a magnum opus   

 

Okay we get it. You don't like NFR and the production and the mastering is not as mEtIcuLoUs as you'd like. Your opinions aren't facts, get over it!

[TrashMagiq 58,574]

Why is it that everytime someone thinks their shitty opinion’s a fact they repeat it over and over again, like, we already heard it before, nothing wrong w sharing diff opinions but whew stop we get it you don’t like the album we already got that 16 posts ago

[necessary sacrifice 8,865]

Back to the lighter side, what song(s) on the album did you initially not listen to much or not really care for that you find yourself listening to a lot more now?

[West Coast 45,795]

Sorry to bother anyone with that. I'm still a fan, like the rest of you guys. It just happened that this record just doesn't do or bring out much out of me... Don't mean to sound petty or pretentious, I'm just a fan and an audiophile. I just feel very passionately about Lana and it just happened that I haven't really been as into her albums in their entirety after Honeymoon. I just happen to think that Lana has released more interesting records in the past, lyrically, melodically and also from a production standpoint. That's it. Not trying to push my opinions as facts, I'm fully aware they are just that: opinions.

 

I still think that NFR! was a great release this year, believe it or not there are actually songs on this record that I love. I'm glad she finally got a well deserved round of applause for her work, I just wished she got it sooner and for other record/s, that were also deserving of this level of praise, again, in my opinion even more so.

 

I understand that what I say might sound harsh, but I'm just a passionate fan, there are things I appreciate and others not so much. Also, I guess after being Lana for seven years now and after listening to five drastically different albums from her (and an EP) as well as countless other albums from her contemporaries and albums that were released way before. I get to know more about what I like and what I don't. 

 

I'm still a fan, that will never change.

 

Peace!

[Creyk 11,699]

You're not wanting Lana to stick to certain sound/style yet almost every post you make complains about the lack of drama and mystery and production of her previous album/s.

 

And this notion that critics randomly woke up and decided to shower NFR with universal acclaim and put it on decade-end lists is a conspiracy theory.

 

There's a very simple reason why NFR is so universally acclaimed: because it's a masterpiece. Better, stronger (from start to finish), more mature, evolved and complete album than her previous ones.

 

 

This kind of thinking is so dumb. NFR is a great album. Yes. But it is in no way better than HM, UV, BTD. And if you want to come with "BuT ThE CrItIcS"!!!!!!

Well guess what, critics are biased as fuck and echo each other in a big way, it's more about the public perception of the artist than the music itself. If they actually evaluated the music itself, BTD would not have received all the criticism it did. But they dragged her for "being inauthentic and having fake lips". Because that is what many inept critics focus on. Now as time passed and Lana proved herself by continuing to not make commercial music and being relatively non-controversial, the critics are actually open to praising her because she is seen as an artist, rather than a corporate money making machine. But it is not primarily about the music. It's about their opinon of her public image. Beyonce is another great example of this. You think anyone would care about Lemonade? No, but because it was released by her, suddenly it's this god-like work in the critics eyes.

[daphnedinkley 13,487]

Sorry to bother anyone with that. I'm still a fan, like the rest of you guys. It just happened that this record just doesn't do or bring out much out of me... Don't mean to sound petty or pretentious, I'm just a fan and an audiophile. I just feel very passionately about Lana and it just happened that I haven't really been as into her albums in their entirety after Honeymoon. I just happen to think that Lana has released more interesting records in the past, lyrically, melodically and also from a production standpoint. That's it. Not trying to push my opinions as facts, I'm fully aware they are just that: opinions.

 

I still think that NFR! was a great release this year, believe it or not there are actually songs on this record that I love. I'm glad she finally got a well deserved round of applause for her work, I just wished she got it sooner and for other record/s, that were also deserving of this level of praise, again, in my opinion even more so.

 

I understand that what I say might sound harsh, but I'm just a passionate fan, there are things I appreciate and others not so much. Also, I guess after being Lana for seven years now and after listening to five drastically different albums from her (and an EP) as well as countless other albums from her contemporaries and albums that were released way before. I get to know more about what I like and what I don't. 

 

I'm still a fan, that will never change.

 

Peace!

for what it's worth, i think differing opinions are really important and this thread (and any kind of NFR related discussion) would be totally dead without them; i understand where you're coming from, agree with many of your points and enjoy reading what you have to say! i'm sure you're not truly bothering anyone. discussion is what we're here for after all 

Back to the lighter side, what song(s) on the album did you initially not listen to much or not really care for that you find yourself listening to a lot more now?

at first i thought HTD was kind of drowning in its own production and while i still feel that way, i'm enjoying it a lot more now!