Blue Banisters - Post-Release Discussion Thread + Poll

[ByDayAnother 1,920]

28 minutes ago, Vertimus said:

I think there's a lot of sketchiness in Lana's vocals and music, going back to BTD. Sometimes, her music comes across more like American folk art than professionally-produced music, especially in terms of her vocals, and I hear that again on some of the OC tracks. 

 

Lana has a lovely voice, and it is one of the two things that most draws me to her (especially her 'siren' voice), but she can 'sing' the same way Debbie Harry and Stevie Nicks can 'sing': in the studio, with all the technology, her voice is great, but live, at least in stadiums or large halls, she struggles. She doesn't have that Whitney Houston, Beyonce, Linda Ronstadt, Anne Wilson, Shirley Bassey, Aretha Franklin, Mariah Carey, Nico, Tina Turner  kind of voice that can shatter glass at 50 yards. 

I agree - as much as I love her, and would love to meet her briefly just to thank her for soundtracking my life, I’d be pretty at peace if I never saw her live. I’m all about the internal experience her studio recordings produce in me. The screaming fans would drown out her barely-there live vocals anyway.

[Vertimus 9,673]

1 minute ago, ByDayAnother said:

I agree - as much as I love her, and would love to meet her briefly just to thank her for soundtracking my life, I’d be pretty at peace if I never saw her live. I’m all about the internal experience her studio recordings produce in me. The screaming fans would drown out her barely-there live vocals anyway.

Yeah--and she seems to have the audience sing most of the songs anyway. I've seen a lot of artists live, and can testify that Stevie Nicks and Debbie Harry cannot sing live, almost at all. 

 

I also feel that gratitude, and she seems very open to meeting fans, which is rare with such a successful artist. 

[#FreeCandyNecklace 562]

I saw her on the NFR tour at the Hollywood Bowl, and I was happy to see that she sounded great live where it really counted - she delivered "Hope Is a Dangerous Thing" perfectly, pretty much exactly like she sounded in the studio. I know she uses playback a lot and doesn't always deliver live, but what matters to me is that we've seen enough evidence that if she's feeling comfortable she can deliver (another example would be her posting all of the videos of her Change take with Rick in the studio where she also sounds exactly like the album). I think I'd be more annoyed if she was clearly completely unable to deliver vocally without any technology whatsoever (I won't name names...), but since it's obvious she's just more comfortable in the studio, I accept that.

 

Re your point @ByDayAnother, as beautiful as it was seeing her sing Hope live, the fans' behavior was atrocious. I couldn't believe how annoying they were being. I understand certain songs, but something that emotionally intense where you can tell she also is really FEELING the song, it's so obnoxious to listen to a bunch of dumbasses try to be cute. It didn't ruin the experience for me but it reminded me how annoying and awful a lot of her fanbase can be lol

[13beachess 7,620]

ummm... the fact that Violet For Roses has more streams than Black Bathing Suit on Spotify......?????? what

[Lasso 13,304]

5 minutes ago, 13beachess said:

ummm... the fact that Violet For Roses has more streams than Black Bathing Suit on Spotify......?????? what

 

I think it went viral on Tik tok or something

[13beachess 7,620]

1 minute ago, Im a ghost now said:

 

I think it went viral on Tik tok or something

ohh that explains it. No hate to VFR but BBS deserve so much better  I guess ppl forgot about it, like the tunnel under Ocean blvd...

[TrashMagiq 58,958]

Blue Banisters is my least favorite Lana album and Ocean Blvd made me realize that even more, but here is my song ranking split into tiers (songs per tier sorted in no particular order):

 

Tier 1 (favs)

Black Bathing Suit, Dealer, Thunder, Nectar of the Gods, Living Legend

 

Tier 2 (good songs)

If You Lie Down With Me, Cherry Blossom

 

Tier 3 (duds)

Blue Banisters, Arcadia, Sweet Carolina, Text Book, Wildflower Wildfire

 

Tier 5 (HATE)

Beautiful, Violets for Roses

[WhiteHot4ever 637]

2 minutes ago, TrashMagiq said:

Tier 5 (HATE)

Beautiful, Violets for Roses

The Picasso line… 

[violentvioletsky 1,431]

Here is my personal ranking for Blue Banisters. Although it's not Lana's strongest body of work, it has quite a few gems. This album came during a period of time where I needed it the most, it's very comforting to me 

1. Living Legend
2. Nectar Of The Gods
3. Dealer
4. Thunder
5. Cherry Blossom
6. Blue Banisters
7. Wildflower Wildfire
8. Text Book
9. If You Lie Down With Me
10. Arcadia
11. Black Bathing Suit
12. Violets For Roses
13. Sweet Carolina
14. Beautiful
15. Interlude - The Trio

[13beachess 7,620]

I am REALLY glad that Nectar, Cherry Blossom and Living Legend got their home on this album.... To release them was the right choice. (Sadly they're really underappreciated on spotify though...)

[50s baby doll dress 372]

Omg I am very curious to why VFR is so hated. Tbh it's one of my favourites on BB  I would really like to hear some opinions about it from others !

[American Bore 818]

5 minutes ago, 50s baby doll dress said:

Omg I am very curious to why VFR is so hated. Tbh it's one of my favourites on BB  I would really like to hear some opinions about it from others !

VFR is one of my absolute favourites on BB, as well as BBS, the title track and thunder. I don’t get what’s so offensive about it to some people? I get that it sounds a bit flat at first but the emotion comes out of it the more you let it grow. It definitely took a while to get to the top of my list but now it’s there I don’t see it going anywhere!!

 

My favourite part is definitely the ‘ah ah’ on the last chorus, the way it’s mixed into the background as if she’s screaming it from the other side of a door or something (or with a mask on)

[GeminiLanaFan 49,404]

On 3/16/2023 at 7:25 PM, 13beachess said:

ummm... the fact that Violet For Roses has more streams than Black Bathing Suit on Spotify......?????? what

even though I also prefer BBS to VFR, many of her albums have songs that are considered « the best » by LB, and yet not doing so great on Spotify.

california, from NFR, comes to mind : and yet, it doesn’t have the 100M stream mark. Which only proves that LB isn’t the gatekeeper of what’s good and bad or what she should do for the next albums 

 

[Eugene 26,672]

not Beautiful is Aaron's favorite song on Blue Banisters. 

 

 

[God&Monster 1,092]

5 hours ago, margaret soty said:

not Beautiful is Aaron's favorite song on Blue Banisters. 

 

 

 

Was just about to post this too. 

 

Daddy has flawless taste what can i say?

[Poor Stacy 12,095]

1. Blue Banisters

2. If You Lie Down With Me

3. Black Bathing Suit

4. Violets For Roses

5. Dealer

6. Text Book

7. Arcadia

8. Cherry Blossom

9. Sweet Carolina

10. Thunder

11. Wildflower Wildfire 

12. Nectar of the Gods

13. Living Legend

14. Beautiful

15. The Trio - Interlude

[Louise 1,473]

On 3/22/2023 at 8:54 AM, God&Monster said:

 

Was just about to post this too. 

 

Daddy has flawless taste what can i say?

Aaron ForWhateverReason enjoyed Chemtrails . . . It seems Chemtrails is an unlikely fav for Lana fans and received a high metacritic score.

[revadece 1,436]

On 10/31/2021 at 9:53 AM, Violets in Your Eyes said:

07. Hallucinogenics [by Matt Maeson]

my suggestion is to get that shit out 

 

edit: i didn’t notice this post is from 2021 i’m sorry 😭 just randomly found myself on that page and thought it was recent posts

[Vertimus 9,673]

I still love BB the album and haven't tired of it in the least, a year and a half or so on, though I tend to skip the leaked tracks, which I've known for years. 

 

For me, BB is better than COCC, which I also like and haven't tired of, and much better than NFR! 

 

And for me, BB is better than OB too, though I recognize that with OB Lana was trying something different on some of the tracks, 'broke the mold,' and went out on a limb creatively, which I appreciate. But I find myself already bored with it--if the songs come on while I'm shuffling through almost 10,000 songs, I play them, but I don't seek the album to play.

 

And I prefer the clear vocal production on the new BB tracks to the more distant sound on OC. 

[Lindsay Lohan 10,783]

Enough time has passed.

 

This album was absolutely terrible and it's astonishing how this was even approved to be released. There is quite literally 0 redeeming qualities about this album besides Dealer which is an obvious filler song... This should have been an EP at best 

 

Song rating + tiny review for each song)

 

Spoiler

 

Text Book: 2/10 (one of the worst songs of her career)

Blue Banisters: 5/10 (Sweet but extremely boring, I can never finish this song because it drags half way through)

Arcadia: 4/10 (Worst vocals of her career and simply uninteresting) 

Interlude - The Trio: 7/10 (Useless but a good break from those 3 extremely draining songs above)

Black Bathing Suit: 3/10 (Horribly produced song about being fat and being rich so you don't care about the haters yet a song was made about it.. sloppy)

If You Lie Down With Me: 5/10 (Doesn't stand out in her discography but it stands out in this album even though I can not remember what this song sounds like at all)

Beautiful: 5/10 (Stupid song but I really like the melody)

Violets For Roses: 3/10 (Stupid song)

Dealer: 9/10 (Good song, very enjoyable and the streams how that in comparison to everything else off the record)

Thunder: 5/10 (It's fine.. I prefer the surf beats of the unreleased version honestly but I never really cared for this song even when it was unreleased)

Wildflower Wildfire: 6/10 (I like it)

Nectar of the Gods: 5/10 (When I said I wanted this released I meant I wanted it reworked... not a YTtoMP3 concept demo being released in horrible quality)

Living Legend: 4/10 (Why was this put on the album?)

Cherry Blossom: 6/10 (Underrated song on the album that needed a rework)

Sweet Carolina: 6/10 (I like it)

 

Lyrical Rating: 5/10

Productional Rating: 2/10

 

Overall rating: 5/10

 

Top 3 songs: Dealer, Wildflower Wildfire, Sweet Carolina

Bottom 3 songs: Text book, Violet For Roses, Black Bathing Suit