Ultraviolence Reviews: 74 Metascore (DISCUSS REVIEWS ONLY)

[mermaid12 125]

Just read a great review here:  http://www.muumuse.com/2014/06/lana-del-rey-ultraviolence-black-blue-beauty-album-review.html/

 

It seems like they really get it

[merman 28]

Responsible for what though? Getting annoyed at an unprofessional and biased idiot for writing a negative review purely to aggravate fans? We weren't involved in that stupid twitter fight, anyway he probably wouldn't have written any more glowing review had those morons left him alone. Also he was asking to get mauled, he insulted Lana's appearance and said himself he was going to hate the album before he even listened to it. But yes, this is CLEARLY all our fault.

He didn't say that, you all need to fucking grow up you're like a bunch of window lickers

[LiamViljoen 908]

He didn't say that, you all need to fucking grow up you're like a bunch of window lickers

1) Window lickers? Nice.

 

2) I'm pretty sure he did, I'm not returning to that land of hate so I'm not gonna check but a lot of other people made it seem like he did. Maybe I'm wrong. But again, it's clear this guy had a vile grudge against Lana since before all this and I don't really think it's fair to lay blame on us, none of us were involved.

 

Just read a great review here: http://www.muumuse.com/2014/06/lana-del-rey-ultraviolence-black-blue-beauty-album-review.html/

 

It seems like they really get it

BUT DOES IT GO ON MC?

[Kommando 3,264]

Yeah he always puts his indie LPs in the corner aha. Anyway up to now UV got plenty of accurate reviews, even the negatives one are interesting for the most part, so nevermind this guy

[mermaid12 125]

 

 

BUT DOES IT GO ON MC?

I don't think so

[merman 28]

1) Window lickers? Nice.

2) I'm pretty sure he did, I'm not returning to that land of hate so I'm not gonna check but a lot of other people made it seem like he did. Maybe I'm wrong. But again, it's clear this guy had a vile grudge against Lana since before all this and I don't really think it's fair to lay blame on us, none of us were involved.

I know who was involved so shut up.

[HEARTCORE 18,969]

@ everyone talking about the twitter thing: shut the fuck up do you really fucking want this thread to be closed again, take it to a PM or shut up, nobody wants to see it in public

 

ANYWAY

 

I don't think so

that sucks so much! that reviewer really 'got' UV and actually reviewed it as an album, not Lana herself!

[LiamViljoen 908]

I know who was involved so shut up.

See, that's not how you're supposed to reply to someone that's given a respectable reply to your argument, it makes you seem petulant and idiotic. Goodbye now.

[Kommando 3,264]

Just read a great review here:  http://www.muumuse.com/2014/06/lana-del-rey-ultraviolence-black-blue-beauty-album-review.html/

 

It seems like they really get it

The reviewer is clearly fangirling and shaking his booty to the sounds of Ultraviolence

[lafleursauvage 324]

BILLBOARD - 83 

 

After the critical drubbing she withstood from late 2011 through early 2012, Lana Del Rey would have been well justified in packing up her party dresses and heart-shaped sunglasses and secluding herself in some Hollywood mansion, "Sunset Boulevard"-style. Branded an untalented, anti-feminist, prefabricated fraud by scores of online haters, Del Rey told U.K. Vogue in February 2012 that she might never record a follow-up to "Born to Die," the album that established her as one of the most divisive musical figures of the digital age. Thankfully, she had a change of heart.

On "Ultraviolence" — her third studio LP and second since transforming herself from mild-mannered retro songstress Lizzie Grant into the hyper-stylized post-modern glamour queen we've all come to love and/or hate — Del Rey once again dives into the depravity of American culture. She sings about drugs, cars, money, and the bad boys she's always falling for, and while there remains a sepia-toned mid-century flavor to many of these songs, LDR is no longer fronting like a thugged-out Bettie Davis.

Instead, she hands the bulk of the production duties to Black Keys frontman Dan Auerbach, whose back-to-basics rock 'n' roll aesthetic serves these tracks well. Auerbach offers a more sedate take on the "Born to Die" template, lightening the orchestrations, ditching the hip-hop beats, and presenting Lana as a perpetually scorned pop-noir fugitive — part Neko Case, part Katy Perry. It's a delicious contrast that makes for a surprisingly great album. Read on to get our track-by-track take of this sublime summer bum-out.
 
"Cruel World": Lana goes Mazzy Star on this woozy, bluesy slow-burner about a self-professed crazy girl who's just removed herself from a destructive relationship. "I shared my body and my mind with you," she sings in a codeine haze, "but that's all over now." More relieved than heartbroken, she's wandering the desert in her red party dress, contemplating her next move. 
 
"Ultraviolence": Much like the book "A Clockwork Orange," where the term "ultra violence" originates, this song conflates sex and aggression in some thrilling and disturbing ways. The piano and strings are maudlin enough to suggest Lana isn't bragging when she describes herself as "filled with poison but blessed with beauty and rage," so feminist detractors might consider the possible presence of irony before deciding to pounce.

 

"Shades of Cool": On the previous track, Del Rey references the 1962 Crystals single "He Hit Me (It Felt Like a Kiss)." Here, she effectively updates another of that group's Phil Spector-produced gems, "He's a Rebel." The Chevy Malibu-driving dude she's pining for here will never, ever be any good, and as Lana laments her inability to fix this broken troublemaker, singing with uncharacteristic tenderness, the ghostly track builds toward a monstrous guitar solo. This Bonnie and Clyde love affair won't end much better than Bonnie and Clyde's.

 

"Brooklyn Baby": For much of "Ultraviolence," Lana plays used and abused women wearing brave faces. On this, the closest she comes to a summer jam, she's on roughly equal footing with the man in her life. "Well my boyfriend's in a band," she sings, "he plays guitar while I sing Lou Reed." It's a retro love song for outer-borough wasters, and while it ain't exactly a generational anthem, the characters are among the most ambitious -— and certainly the least damaged —- on the record.

 

"West Coast": No one symbolizes sexy Southern California self-destruction quite like Stevie Nicks, and here, Del Rey and Auerbach cleverly evoke fragments of the legendary singer's 1982 solo hit "Edge of Seventeen." As always, Auerbach keeps the instrumentation spare and rootsy, but he gives this one a sexy swing not found elsewhere on the disc. When Snoop Dogg makes his alt-country album, he should start here.

 

"Sad Girl": On the album's most affecting ballad, Lana talks a big game, attempting to justify her status as some guy's "bad bitch on the side," but the chorus suggests she's having second thoughts. "He's got that fire," she sings, deeply hurt yet still a little turned on, unsure of how much longer she's willing to get burned.
 
"Pretty When You Cry": For as steely as she can sound, Lana sure knows how to switch on the childlike vulnerability. On this dark and twangy dirge about a man who always lets her down, Lana goes searching for sunshine and comes up with nothing. The best she can tell herself: "I'm pretty when you cry." That's something, though beauty might have gotten her into this mess in the first place.
 
"Money, Power, Glory": Done being the doormat, Del Rey pumps real venom into this seething slow jam. "You should run, boy, run," she sings, delivering that warning with deadly seriousness a dash of sex. It's like she's painting her nails as she prepares to squeeze some rich dude for all he's worth. It sounds cold, calculating — "Dope and diamonds, that's all that I'm about," she tells us — but hey, this slimeball probably has it coming.
 
"Fucked My Way Up to the Top": Yet again, Lana's on the attack, using her feminine wiles as high-precision weapons. She's also baiting her feminist foes, though she recently told The Fader about a seven-year relationship she had with a label exec, so lines like, "I fucked my way to the top / this is my show" might be her way of responding to gossipers. Either way, it's another complex song about the perils of being a pretty young thing in a world run by old moneyed men.
 
"Old Money": Speaking of old money, much of the controversy surrounding Del Rey has to do with her background. She's the daughter of an Internet entrepreneur, and she attended private school in Connecticut, so immediately, people had her pegged as a rich girl working connections. On "Born to Die," she approached upper-middle-class society with over-the-top cynicism, singing about drunken debutantes and tawdry gold-diggers. On "Old Money," she goes too far in the opposite direction, turning in a subtle ballad whose ambivalent lyrics just read vague.
 
"The Other Woman": The moral of the "Ultraviolence" story: being a sexy plaything for powerful men ain't all it's cracked up to be. Del Rey closes the album by saying so explicitly and covering an old standard famously recorded by Nina Simone in 1959. Lana has a knack for recontextualizing vintage ballads — her restrained "Blue Velvet" wasn't the Lynchian creep-fest it could have been — and here, she lets her voice quiver like that of a lonely old homewrecker taking stock of her life. If you still don't feel sorry for her, just wait for the true-blue doo-wop sax.

[ilovetati 15,297]

The Boston Globe's highly positive review (should be at least an 85 on MetaCritic):

 

Now it all makes sense: She simply needed time to develop, time for the music to catch up with her vision. When Lana Del Rey catapulted to pop stardom in the summer of 2011 with the song “Video Games,” her debut, “Born to Die,” arrived six months later in a blaze of buzz, but ended up sounding rushed and unfocused.

At least that was the criticism from those who loved the ideaof Lana Del Rey (this critic included) but had higher hopes for her first full-length. It’s gratifying, then, to discover that “Ultraviolence,” her new sophomore album, is a staggering improvement over that initial release. Slavishly downbeat, it burrows even deeper into Del Rey’s torchy sensibility and rarely breaks its spell.

Working mostly with the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach as producer, Del Rey imbues this record with a narcotic resonance that gives the singer and her songs room to exhale, to swell and swirl into the stratosphere. “West Coast” has a noirish sensuality, which opens into a chorus that mimicks the heady rush of a first toke.

Elsewhere, Del Rey relishes her role as the patron saint of the broken-hearted (“Pretty When You Cry,” “Sad Girl”). She even pokes fun at her detractors, keeping her tongue firmly in cheek on “[Expletive] My Way Up to the Top,” while “Money Power Glory” lampoons the perception that that’s all she wants.

As an opener, “Cruel World” is the album in miniature: a 6½-minute spiral into the ornate, emotional decay where Del Rey seems to thrive. It unfolds in slow motion — that way, every joy, every sorrow is even more intense. (Out Tuesday) JAMES REED

 

 

ESSENTIAL “Cruel World”

[Limelight 4,707]

Just read a great review here:  http://www.muumuse.com/2014/06/lana-del-rey-ultraviolence-black-blue-beauty-album-review.html/

 

It seems like they really get it

Love the review! STAN!

Just read a great review here:  http://www.muumuse.com/2014/06/lana-del-rey-ultraviolence-black-blue-beauty-album-review.html/

 

It seems like they really get it

Love the review! STAN!

[Adrift 4,813]

The 405 reviewed Ultraviolence today, and instead of focusing on the music, they, not surprisingly, focused on her authenticity.

http://www.thefourohfive.com/review/article/lana-del-rey-ultraviolence-140

 

The music fares little better, being fashionably retro with few nods to modernity. Everything has a big band feel; dramatic strings fade in and out of the mix, while the drums are often caressed with brushes instead of sticks

That's what they say about the music. You'd think it'd be a positive review, right?

 

Nope. 

 

this album - and Lana Del Rey - is not really about the art, or the music, at all. ...It's a project that screams "synergy" and "brand reach", hence the recording of classics for H&M, and soundtracking a Jaguar ad; clearly, there's a great deal invested in her success. Most ironic of all was a contribution to The Great Gatsby soundtrack, that novel's depiction of empty decadence and the excesses of the rich serving as the perfect metaphor for her expensive, hollow work.

 

Yet, of course the driving force through here was this: 

Where in fact does Elizabeth Grant end and Lana Del Rey begin?

 

It netted the album a 3/10, a Metacritic score of 30, Ultraviolence's worst review yet. 

[viagra 1,642]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/ultraviolence-is-the-set-of-songs-lana-del-rey-was-invented-to-sing/2014/06/16/4e3d6e3c-f558-11e3-a3a5-42be35962a52_story.html

 

"Next to Del Rey, Selena Gomez is Gloria Steinem chairing a National Organization for Women meeting."

[Rem 2,392]

I'm not sure what metacritic will give UV with that Boston Globe review.

 

 

The writer said it's a 90 personally.

 

https://mobile.twitter.com/GlobeJamesReed#tweet_478691065331871744

[primadonna_teen 20]

I've noticed with Ultraviolence that if you don't understand Lana as a person, then it's difficult to enjoy this album. And I think that's why the reviews differentiate so much; this album is much more in depth, and requires more of a comprehensiveness towards Lana's persona and past in order to make sense, in comparison to BtD.

[naachoboy 7,993]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/ultraviolence-is-the-set-of-songs-lana-del-rey-was-invented-to-sing/2014/06/16/4e3d6e3c-f558-11e3-a3a5-42be35962a52_story.html

 

"Next to Del Rey, Selena Gomez is Gloria Steinem chairing a National Organization for Women meeting."

not them calling her an invented singer... I really dont get how is "Lana del Rey" SO unauthentic with the kind of popstars out there (old ones and new ones).

[ilovetati 15,297]

We should be getting a lot of heavy-duty reviews at midnight or early tomorrow, so get ready. The MetaCritic score could change very quickly. Rolling Stone, Consequence of Sound, New York Times, AV Club, The Telegraph, NME, etc, etc. I'm holding out hope that LDRO was correct about Consequence of Sound's review calling UV a "game-changer" and that the NYT will continue their extreme positivity towards Lana. I would be stunned if Rolling Stone is anything above a 3/5. 

 

MetaCritic still needs to add:

Boston Globe-Around 80-90

Billboard-83

Mojo-60

Chicago Tribune-50

[viagra 1,642]

not them calling her an invented singer... I really dont get how is "Lana del Rey" SO unauthentic with the kind of popstars out there (old ones and new ones).

Its ironic that especially american critics are obsessed with authenticity thing.

[viagra 1,642]

We should be getting a lot of heavy-duty reviews at midnight or early tomorrow, so get ready. The MetaCritic score could change very quickly. Rolling Stone, Consequence of Sound, New York Times, AV Club, The Telegraph, NME, etc, etc. I'm holding out hope that LDRO was correct about Consequence of Sound's review calling UV a "game-changer" and that the NYT will continue their extreme positivity towards Lana. I would be stunned if Rolling Stone is anything above a 3/5. 

 

MetaCritic still needs to add:

Boston Globe-Around 80-90

Billboard-83

Mojo-60

Chicago Tribune-50

It really depends on critics themselves. Thats why The Independent gave BTD two reviews (100, 40) or Sputnikmusic (80,50). Look how these scores are so different from one magazine.  Some magazine scores are the collective scores of editors of the magazine, thats why sometimes review is good but the score is bad.