Lana Abandoning "Dreamy Ballads"

[Strangelove 1,546]

With the recent Poetry In Motion and Come With Me leaks, I have been wondering: what do you guys think of Lana deciding to abandon what we have understood as "ambient", "dreamy" and "ethereal"? These songs mostly consist of long piano, organ keys and guitars. They are absent of any beats resembling hip hop or trap and seem to be appear in demo form. The following list are the leaked songs that I would consider to fit into this theme in no particular order:

 

Ave Maria 

Crazy For You 

If I Die Young 

Come With Me 

Poetry In Motion

Valley Of The Dolls

Serene Queen (demo?)

 

As evident with the release of Honeymoon and Lust For Life going forward, none of these songs ever made it into the released catalogue. The closest thing we have released to this in my opinion is Best American Record which is a reach.

[Embach 21,744]

Too personal probably for her then, can't think of any other reason to be honest

[lanaismamom 11,198]

what i think is that lfl b sides was meant to happen only because how much it changed and because of constant change of concept she had to scrap those heaven like songs, so justice for more lfl leaks, i really think we are only yet to witness best unreleased songs (mind u how much of a miracle songs we have now - dragonslayer, come with me etc)

 

personally seated for la who am i to love you (2016) and silverlake they are giving exact those vibes

[twinkletoes7 5,163]

i do believe lana has a soft spot for these kinds of songs, and i think it might be her team discouraging these kind of songs for whatever reason. i imagine the demos for fishtail would have been quite similar, and although it’s definitely a lot of hip hop trap influence you can grasp a lot of the ambience still in my opinion,

 

and when ocean blvd came out, i remember seeing a fan interaction on tiktok or twitter (lmk if u remember) where they told lana fishtail was their favourite song on the album and she said she was surprised and was under the impression that wouldn’t do well from her team. (i’m paraphrasing) does anyone remember this? could be fake i guess but idk.

 

it’s so sad because i love these songs and i hope they get their chance

[Ultra Violet 18,432]

I think they were mostly concepts she didn't develop further. I don't think those songs as a final would have remained that dreamy and ambient. It's just an easy production for her producers to throw together when she has ideas.

I think(?), and correct me if im wrong, but were most of these also made before she had realised what she wanted each era to be like? If so, in that way, they come from the heart and are more personal, like @Embach said.

But I would love to hear more early LFL and Honeymoon, and even NFR demos, if they sound like that too. I can imagine Groupie Love's earliest demo sounded like that because it starts with a similar strings sound.

[Strangelove 1,546]

25 minutes ago, lanaismamom said:

what i think is that lfl b sides was meant to happen only because how much it changed and because of constant change of concept she had to scrap those heaven like songs, so justice for more lfl leaks, i really think we are only yet to witness best unreleased songs (mind u how much of a miracle songs we have now - dragonslayer, come with me etc)

 

personally seated for la who am i to love you (2016) and silverlake they are giving exact those vibes

Honestly, it might be ironic but it's likely those songs all "sound the same". There's not much of a difference between many of them already (not a negative thing). So I'm almost wondering if it was never meant to be a seperate project. Also, does the LA song have a trap beat in it? 

[Strangelove 1,546]

41 minutes ago, lanaismamom said:

what i think is that lfl b sides was meant to happen only because how much it changed and because of constant change of concept she had to scrap those heaven like songs, so justice for more lfl leaks, i really think we are only yet to witness best unreleased songs (mind u how much of a miracle songs we have now - dragonslayer, come with me etc)

 

personally seated for la who am i to love you (2016) and silverlake they are giving exact those vibes

I forgot to mention the LFL demos. 

 

I wonder if Max Martin produced any of these. 

[Aeryx 2,302]

.

[lanaismamom 11,198]

25 minutes ago, Strangelove said:

Honestly, it might be ironic but it's likely those songs all "sound the same". There's not much of a difference between many of them already (not a negative thing). So I'm almost wondering if it was never meant to be a seperate project. Also, does the LA song have a trap beat in it? 

i consider the stuff that we have all the bottom of the barrel, like the ROCK bottom like earliest concepts/drafts/worktapes (serene queen - oct 2015, lfl demo - sept 2015, of i die young and cry killdie are like her trying the new direction while being in honeymoon), songs like serene queen, sugary sweet, poetry in motion, if i die young, lfl demo, its all same because its all concepts and ideas of that LFL sound and while telling about best unreleased i bet there are a good bucnh of finished songs from lfl sessions of a sound that those concept do represent to us, we know la who am i to love you was being worked on for months yet it left on a cut floor, and we do know neother the description of it nor snippets, the one that was shared is a strange rework of a song from 2018 that barely has anything familiar with OG song

i dont know what sound wouldve had a lfl b sides but i think it wouldve been concntrated around this sound, anyways its rare lana doing and extras to her albums and knowing that this project was in consideration for a long time i tjink it means something

[Strangelove 1,546]

Just now, Nightcall said:

I love these type of songs along with the Untouchable 5 and would love to have seen some of these songs reworked and/or finalized. I find this collection of songs by Lana very mysterious and intriguing.
 

I think they are just as much “Lana Del Rey” as Ultraviolence or NFR are for some fans…

That's an interesting comparison to the Untouchable Five. Perhaps it could be replicated with these songs? I like this direction of the topic. 

 

What songs could constitute as a competition to the U5? I would refer to it as "Witchy [number]". 

 

 

If I Die Young

Come With Me 

Serene Queen

Crazy For You

 

And possibly...

 

Dead To Me

Paradise 

 

They'd have to share both the same producer and project. 

[lanaismamom 11,198]

i also don’t think come with me lays in the category, i think it’s THE honeymoon outtake melody of which was later used for new songs concept, while if i die young has no relation to honeymoon already despite being made still during hm, as i said earliest trying for the next music direction

[Strangelove 1,546]

35 minutes ago, lanaismamom said:

i also don’t think come with me lays in the category, i think it’s THE honeymoon outtake melody of which was later used for new songs concept, while if i die young has no relation to honeymoon already despite being made still during hm, as i said earliest trying for the next music direction

If I Die Young, that is a LFL song or for Ultraviolence? 

[lanaismamom 11,198]

25 minutes ago, Strangelove said:

If I Die Young, that is a LFL song or for Ultraviolence? 

that is really nowhere, made in 2015 but u can tell it sounds different from honeymoon

[The Siren 29,150]

3 hours ago, Strangelove said:

If I Die Young, that is a LFL song or for Ultraviolence? 

It's from 2016 last I knew

[DinahLee 5,601]

Hell it posted before I even started writing nn.

 

Lana's too caught up with the "Folk/Americana/Songwriter" vibe, that's why. She wants her quick piano chords and acoustic guitar to do the heavy lifting instead of cooking up with the synths, pads, heavier guitars to wash the sound. I do miss it. I've always wanted a full on synth-y dreamy record in the vein of the original Lust For Life demo and these great cinematic soundscape, but she keeps doubling down on taking percussion out and stripping the songs away.

[Vertimus 8,947]

I'd like to see her change course, whatever we call the course she's on right now. I'd love to see her go 'full pop' for an album, like Meet Me in the Pale Moonlight, Ride, or Bel Air, not the half-hearted pop of 'Margaret,' with its needless chatter at the end, that only breaks the song up. Sometimes it is better to have a producer making a good deal of the decisions. look at what a great job Rick Rubin did on Ride. I miss the perfection of tracks like Wait for Life—certainly including the production. 

 

It's ironic, not iconic, for me that OB has received 3 Grammy nominations when it's such a scattershot effort, with a lot of poor production and though overall album cohesion doesn't matter a great deal to me, I see little on OB. Maybe the academy feels it's a sort of lifetime achievement nomination for Lana; I don't think those are fair. If an artist is considered for such an award, then let it be an outright 'Lifetime Achievement' award.

 

(Look at Joni Mitchell's crappy new 'Live At Newport' receiving a nomination because she's a legend and has had a hard last two decades. She only does what amount to backup vocals on most tracks, while younger singers take the lead.)

 

As far as the dreamy ballads go, it's hard to say, because everything since Honeymoon has been such a mishmash in terms of song styles and/or quality. We don't know if there's actual logic behind her final choices for an album or if it's done more like, "Well right now I feel this way, I just wrote and produced this song and I'm really excited about it." I tend to think the latter is closer to the truth. I don't think she's very objective about the choice of tracks she places on an album. It's a truism that most artists are poor judges of their own work, and I think that applies to Lana to some definite degree.

 

Since Tori Amos has had a long career in some ways similar to Lana's, and Tori was the artist I listened to the most before Lana and 2012, I know Amos constantly left her best material on the cutting room floor and instead placed often-cringy tracks on albums instead. The best material, which she would often discuss in media, al la 'Yosemite,' was either saved and released on a 'career retrospective' or other compilation project, or on the flip side of the release. As a result, these songs haven't entered broad American culture, are known by almost no one outside of the Amos Stan base, and will no doubt be swept away into the dustbin of history. Which is a shame. 

 

I think Lana will make a mature album, but certainly not necessarily a commercial one, when she takes her time to make and think an album through, limits her advisors, and sticks to some kind of conception of what she wants the result to be. The general public may not want an album of dreamy ballads, but her Stans do, I think (as opposed to tepid piano ballads). Things do change midway, plans and conceptions change, but maybe if she really takes her time before she starts recording, she can stick to some sort of a schedule or overall conception and the result won't be a compromise. I don't see Lana as an album artist because of the poor choices or compromises she has sometimes made lately. 

 

I am thrilled it's been such a big year for her. That she deserves. 

[Cult Leader 2,461]

7 hours ago, twinkletoes7 said:

i do believe lana has a soft spot for these kinds of songs, and i think it might be her team discouraging these kind of songs for whatever reason. i imagine the demos for fishtail would have been quite similar, and although it’s definitely a lot of hip hop trap influence you can grasp a lot of the ambience still in my opinion,

 

and when ocean blvd came out, i remember seeing a fan interaction on tiktok or twitter (lmk if u remember) where they told lana fishtail was their favourite song on the album and she said she was surprised and was under the impression that wouldn’t do well from her team. (i’m paraphrasing) does anyone remember this? could be fake i guess but idk.

 

it’s so sad because i love these songs and i hope they get their chance

I remember this! I think it was Jen's sister? or related to her, but I think Lana replied something along the lines of her team telling her the last 4 weren't doing as well and like why do they give her bad direction I cannnnnttttttt

[twinkletoes7 5,163]

31 minutes ago, Cult Leader Under Ocean Blvd said:

I remember this! I think it was Jen's sister? or related to her, but I think Lana replied something along the lines of her team telling her the last 4 weren't doing as well and like why do they give her bad direction I cannnnnttttttt

I can't find the original but here's some sort of edit of it 

Spoiler

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGe1XhuLC/

also in my search for that I have seen so many fishtail haters. fishtail is my fav song off ocean blvd and one of my fave songs ever. wtf 

[GrenadineGrass 4,047]

i get your point but its not been a long time since she made a song like that, she released blue banisters title track which plays in this kind of genre, the instrumental sounds absolutely ambient and dreamy

[Embach 21,744]

5 hours ago, Strangelove said:

If I Die Young, that is a LFL song or for Ultraviolence? 

 

2 hours ago, The Siren said:

It's from 2016 last I knew

If I Die Young is a Honeymoon outtake, recorded somewhere between January 2015 - June 2015