Norman Fucking Rockwell - Post-Release Discussion Thread + Poll

[singintheblues 935]

a want to see the pop up to see if theres new merch

[bartenders 1,206]

when the instrumentals leak im gonna fix some tragic production moments on here 

[ChicaCherryCola 1,393]

Were the orders from the UK store shipped already? Anybody has the signed copy laying around somehwere so I can see how it's like?

[MoonAgain 872]

California is so UV i can't explain how much i love this song...

[realclosetojesus 1,383]

I don't know what you're talking about but I'd like to understand. Can you give some examples (with timestamps) please? And what makes you say they are issues and not creative/stylistic choices?

Cinnamon I talked about in the previous post.

Start at 0:16. On "all the pills that you take" she's using mic 1. On "violet blue green red to keep me at arms length dont work" her vocals are layered but THE MAIN VOCAL is still with mic 1. Then on "you try to push me out" she comes back using a totally different type of mic, the quality of the vocal is different and it breaks the continuity of the track, sounds like a different room, different ambience.

I know it's not that big of a deal, but once you hear it you can't unhear it and everytime I hear this little things I'm reminded that Jack and Laura (the audio engineer) didn't make that big of an effort to make a PERFECT record, which is kinda inconsiderate to Lana. It's annoying.

[Pink Champagne 8,935]

HtD would have been totally fine without these fucking bells I’m sorry I can’t get past it. Is it possible to edit them out.

[fantascination 1,308]

Happy album day!

So I listened to the leaks, but I wanted to hold my opinions until we got to the post-release thread and I had a chance to listen to them more than once. Now we're here so here we goooo

NFR: Not going to lie, I was a little underwhelmed by it on first listen. It's a cute song, but it didn't blow me out of the water or anything. I've listened to it 3 or 4 times since then, and it's starting to grow on me a little more. I can appreciate the magnificence of it and some of the Disney-ish vibes it gives, especially at the beginning.

MAC: Still a gorgeous, emotive song. "'cause even in the dark I feel your resistance/you can see my heart burning in the distance" gives me goosebumps every single time. 

Venice Bitch: Still one of my favorites on this album. Hazy and dreamy and perfect for the summer.

Fuck it I love you: Love love love it omg. I said this in pre-release, but it's so surprisingly dark and reminiscent of her AKA stuff, and I LIVE for Lana's darker works. I prefer the single version, but I thought the alt version was nice in its own way. The outro gives me feelings.

Doin' Time: I think it's cute and a good bop for the summer, but I've heard it so much over the past few days with all the interviews she did that I'm a little burnt out on it. I think she did the original song justice while still giving it her own unique Lana twist. Also the video is the best thing I've ever fucking seen.

Love Song: This song is sooo beautiful I think it's one of the purest, most emotional love songs (no pun) that we've heard from her. It's so warm and cute. I read somewhere in the pre-release that it plays like a more mature Video Games, and I completely agree with that assessment. It feels a little like VG pt. 2 to me.

Cinnamon Girl: Holy shit. HOLY SHIT. This was definitely one of my most anticipated songs on the record, AND IT DID NOT DISAPPOINT. The lyrics are simple, true, but THE BEAT AND THE OUTRO. I'M FUCKING SCALPED. I can already tell this is going to be one of my favorite Lana songs ever.

How to Disappear: I don't know how to feel about this one. I was a huge fan of the Apple version, and I don't necessarily hate the album production of it - I actually really like it, in some parts. But I do feel it's a tad over-produced, and at some points the production drowns out her voice. I'm also NOT a fan of the Christmas bells. I think it would really be wonderful if they'd drawn the production back just a tad.

California: This was my other super-anticipated song, and I was NOT READY FOR IT. I was not prepared for the UV vibes it served, and the overwhelming melancholy of it. California had me out here missing exes that I haven't seen or interacted with in YEARS. It's so beautiful and fantastically produced and OVERWHELMINGLY sad. "We'll do whatever you want/travel wherever, how far/we'll hit up all the old places" gave me literal full-body chills. Also an instant favorite. What a fucking masterpiece.

The Next Best American Record: The demo version of this song is among the most-played in my Lana collection, so the change of lyrics was jarring, and I feel changing the chorus takes away the inherent meaning of the song - and the meaning of that song would have fit wonderfully with NFR's themes. The new version is a cute lil bop and I love finally hearing it lossless, but I think I'll always feel a little conflicted because of the demo.

The Greatest: Superb song. I listened to TG for like three days straight after she dropped the single. Gives me classic-rock vibes in a way most of her music doesn't. The last few lines of that song always get me, emotion just drips from her voice. Absolutely fucking love it.

Bartender: I definitely get what she meant by this one being "weird" - I get Rufus Wainwright/Tori Amos/Regina Spektor vibes from it, if that makes any sense. I think the minimalistic production works in this song's favor, and really allows her voice to shine through. It wasn't an instant favorite, but I keep finding it stuck in my head, and it's growing on me really hard. BAR-T-T-TENDERRRRRR

Happiness is a Butterfly: I completely expected to not like this song, going in - I wasn't a fan of the snippets. And I wasn't really overwhelmed by it on first listen. Like most of the songs on this record, it's growing on me the more I listen to it. I actually really really like the "DONT BE A JERK DONT CALL ME A TAXI" part, and even if I'm passively listening to the song I usually screech that part, if it's socially appropriate.

Hope: I adored this song when it came out, and related to it on a personal level almost instantly. Like Bartender, the simple production works in its favor, and really emphasizes the emotion and melancholy of it. I feel like this is one of her most vulnerable and raw works yet, and I love it so so much.

[Wynwood 19,966]

now that im off the stupid modqueue, i can defend HTD

 

 

 

 

 

cheap instrumentals??? go listen to Coachella and then come back and tell me HTD has cheap instrumentals.

 

the song has this warm feeling and its a fucking bop, next person to trash HTD is getting reported

[MoonAgain 872]

1. i love whatever effect they put on lana's voice when she says "we play eagles" in TNBAR

 

2. bartender is such an interesting and gorgeous song omg. HOWEVER...the bar-t-t-t-ender part is nails-on-a-chalkboard painful .

[electra 20,631]

I'm a singer-songwriter and producer for a living. There's a lot of technical issues with the mixing + the master is weak for some songs. But if you wanna deny it idc, whatever helps you cope lol. I love the record by the way, but I'm not deaf.

i think lana likes a more rugged or untouched take - kind of prevelent in lfl. it just seems to be the way she produces work now. i think too many people are obsessed with btd being flawless they can’t seem to stand her career taking new or more experimental directions. that’s kind of the tea, albeit more sweeping.

[sparklrtrailrheaven 8,390]

I listened to Norman Fucking Rockwell! last night as soon as it dropped in the US, and as badly as I wanted to write out a review immediately, I realized I needed to wait 'til morning But, regardless, here's some thoughts -- I haven't read anyone else's thoughts yet, or given it a second listen, so this is working off all my first impressions:

 

I'm SO impressed with this album. I don't know quite how to express that, but I'm really really really floored with the maturity of her sound and songwriting here. I've been so tempted to start drawing comparisons between NFR! and her previous albums, but the only thing comparable, imo, is AKA -- this doesn't feel like the same artist that produced the string of releases from Born to Die to Lust for Life, this feels like we're picking up at a place where AKA dropped off: of course, the classic references established by the LDR persona are still hangin' around -- party dresses and California and such, but those go back further than Born to Die and the birth of the Lana Del Rey persona, anyway.

 

NFR! is like the sound of a grown-up Lizzy Grant who left New York for Laurel Canyon, and I couldn't be more pleased with it. It's got a distinct *weirdness* at times that we haven't seen since Lizzy, along with unapologetically sweet love songs and emotional honesty that haven't been seen in her catalog in ages. Even the songs are structured differently -- I recall reading someone here say (after the leak) that the songs "never go anywhere" -- but just because she's done away with the dramatic and doom-laden wind-ups of BtD and Ultraviolence doesn't mean these songs are any less potent -- you've just got to let go of your preconceived notions of what an LDR song is supposed to do, and enjoy it exactly for what it is. 

 

I think that's key with this release: let go of what you've come to expect from Lana, for once in her career. Since her takeoff with Video Games, she's been an artist working with (and rarely against) her own hype, her own mythos. With BtD, she established a canon that would come to shape her music for years, creating a highly distinctive aesthetic and style that I believe she got stuck in -- it became too easy to use her own shorthand to create a "Lana Del Rey album", and now she's breaking the formula for the first time since her very *first* debut. And, I think this is a change that's going to stick -- "Get Free" was our first clue that a transition was coming, and now a song like "The Greatest" makes it clear that something's different these days -- and I think that difference is that Lana Del Rey, as a persona and a project, is gone, for the most part. I don't imagine she'll change her name back, but I think we've seen the last of the character that appeared with BtD. 

 

Anyway, I didn't mean to write quite that much, but, again, I'm so, so, so, happy and impressed with this release, and I think it's the most special thing we've heard from Lana in a long time. For what it's worth, I think my favorite track on the record is Bartender, at least after a first listen -- I couldn't keep a smile off my face the whole time I listened. California comes close, though, and I was incredibly impressed with Happiness is a Butterfly. There were very few misses for me -- Cinnamon Girl didn't quite live up to the hype, although it's not a bad song, by any means, and while I actually really dug Jack's production on How to Disappear, it drowned out Lana at some points (which I decidedly did *not* dig). Also, while I get the lyrical change on The Next Best American Record and I think the shift she was going for is really cute, it just doesn't work as well as the original did. Even still, these are tiny, tiny minuses from what I'll say with confidence is in the running for my favorite LDR album -- I couldn't be happier with what she's created, and I've never been more excited for what's next. 

[Marius 12,357]

There are so many good songs that I don't know what should I listen to. 

[realclosetojesus 1,383]

i think lana likes a more rugged or untouched take - kind of prevelent in lfl. it just seems to be the way she produces work now. i think too many people are obsessed with btd being flawless they can’t seem to stand her career taking new or more experimental directions. that’s kind of the tea, albeit more sweeping.

Yes, I'm not talking about that "raw" quality she has been incorporating since UV, and it peaked in LFL (and now on NFR more than ever). I think that's so cool about the production of her songs and I believe it's how she likes it and it totally works. Her vocal takes are SUPER RAW, like when she hits a note slightly wrong (not criticizing, this is NORMAL to every fucking singer, after all we're humans) they don't bother correcting it digitally, because it sounds so natural and reminds us that she's a real person. But I'm talking about something else.

[Cacciatore 19,346]

I'm now used to the jingle bells in HtD but I'd love to listen to a version of the song without them. Maybe when the steams leak, IF they leak someday 

[Marius 12,357]

Ok Camila Cabello has taste as well. Whew. Look at her story on insta.

[SuperMegaStan 9,666]

Norman Fucking Rockwell is what i expect for Honeymoon... the piano, the jazz elements... 

[realclosetojesus 1,383]

now that im off the stupid modqueue, i can defend HTD

 

 

 

 

 

cheap instrumentals??? go listen to Coachella and then come back and tell me HTD has cheap instrumentals.

 

the song has this warm feeling and its a fucking bop, next person to trash HTD is getting reported

Coachella sounds cheap as fuck too, but those strings on HTD scream $0.99 to me lol. And it doesn't go at all with such a Dylan-esque high-level poetry that those lyrics are. But I think that was just a weird choice, wish it turned out differently but this is what they wanted I guess.

[Fingertips 72,117]

I will defend HTD until the day the White Hot Forever pre-release thread shuts down and after.

[GeminiLanaFan 45,825]

About HTD and TNBAR...

 

HTD doesn’t sound that bad, except for the jingle bells.

TNBAR sounds good with the new lyrics. The only line that feels forced is « something new I Wan-teddd! »

[Downtown Baby Doll 5,309]

I can’t stop listening to Cinnamon Girl. It’s perfect.