Honeymoon Reviews and Metascore

[ilovetati 15,298]

We can discuss the reviews as they are published and the album's score on MetaCritic here.

[a11111 528]

Good reviews: Honeymoon is haunting, ethereal, ghostly, mesmerizing, beautiful, lush, cinematic. 

Bad reviews: Honeymoon is boring, slow, "limousines" and "soft ice cream" lyrics are ridiculous, it's the same from Lana, the shtick it's getting old, she mumbles the lyrics.

 

After being obsessed with Lana pieces I arrived at the point when I don't give a shit about the reviews because they are incredibly boring and cliche-istic. From some time I have the feeling that I read them before. I'm beyond the cringe worthy status when I'm reading some clueless writer's discovery of her story, having the big "revelation" that her real name is not LDR   or babbling about her non-authentic persona. I uber cringe when they are misspelling her stage-name to RAY (I always wondered if that is intentional) or calling her, in a patronizing mode, Lizzy Grant or mentioning SNL    . 

 

I expect something around 60-65 (there will be 3 or 4 scores in the 30-40 range Jim Farber NYD, Chicago Tribune, AV Club and a random idiot like last year 405 reviewer of UV Derek Robertson (Carl Williot from Idolator hates HM and the Baeblemusic blog has a negative campaign against her lately but I don't think that they count towards the MC score). Most of the reviewers will wash their hands with a 55-65 score and there will be some stans who will even out the hater scores. Really,"the same old" accusation it's more fitting to these writers than to Lana's music. I almost forgot that Youtube buffoon Anthony Fantano who will give Honeymoon a 0 score while singing mockingly the chorus of Salvatore.

 

Have "fun" I guess reading that BS, mostly the pieces where you have the clear impression that the critic didn't even bothered to listen to the album properly lifting out a word or a sentence to trash the entire lyrical content of the album. Most of the writers are misogynistic pricks, failed indie musicians who are jealous of her "undeserved" success or feminists who are cringing at her music and I'm frankly amazed, given the divide between her and the critics, that she has a respectable overall score on MC.

[letsescapelizzy 672]

Good reviews: Honeymoon is haunting, ethereal, ghostly, mesmerizing, beautiful, lush, cinematic. 

Bad reviews: Honeymoon is boring, slow, "limousines" and "soft ice cream" lyrics are ridiculous, it's the same from Lana, the shtick it's getting old, she mumbles the lyrics.

 

After being obsessed with Lana pieces I arrived at the point when I don't give a shit about the reviews because they are incredibly boring and cliche-istic. From some time I have the feeling that I read them before. I'm beyond the cringe worthy status when I'm reading some clueless writer's discovery of her story, having the big "revelation" that her real name is not LDR   or babbling about her non-authentic persona. I uber cringe when they are misspelling her stage-name to RAY (I always wondered if that is intentional) or calling her, in a patronizing mode, Lizzy Grant or mentioning SNL    . 

 

I expect something around 60-65 (there will be 3 or 4 scores in the 30-40 range Jim Farber NYD, Chicago Tribune, AV Club and a random idiot like last year 405 reviewer of UV Derek Robertson (Carl Williot from Idolator hates HM and the Baeblemusic blog has a negative campaign against her lately but I don't think that they count towards the MC score). Most of the reviewers will wash their hands with a 55-65 score and there will be some stans who will even out the hater scores. Really,"the same old" accusation it's more fitting to these writers than to Lana's music. I almost forgot that Youtube buffoon Anthony Fantano who will give Honeymoon a 0 score while singing mockingly the chorus of Salvatore.

 

Have "fun" I guess reading that BS, mostly the pieces where you have the clear impression that the critic didn't even bothered to listen to the album properly lifting out a word or a sentence to trash the entire lyrical content of the album. Most of the writers are misogynistic pricks, failed indie musicians who are jealous of her "undeserved" success or feminists who are cringing at her music and I'm frankly amazed, given the divide between her and the critics, that she has a respectable overall score on MC.

 

Hey Vertigo, just curious, do you like HM better than Lana's previous albums? the same but different?

and yes, who gives a fuck about what any writer, critic, fan, stan, or really anyone says about her, or any other artist

for that matter. I long since give no fucks about what anyone thinks about the music i like.

[renaissance 8,329]

yeah, theneedledrop will review it and give it 3/10 at the very most

[longtimeman 8,918]

yeah, theneedledrop will review it and give it 3/10 at the very most

Which would be an issue if he had any credibility whatsoever 

[renaissance 8,329]

Which would be an issue if he had any credibility whatsoever 

the TRUTH. I absolutely loathe his reviews, they are so biassed. He doesn't understand any artist's  (except FKA twigs') creativity and image at all.

[longtimeman 8,918]

the TRUTH. I absolutely loathe his reviews, they are so biassed. He doesn't understand any artist's  (except FKA twigs') creativity and image at all.

Yep. He's the living embodiment of the 'opinions are like assholes' cliche. Except in his case, it's more like 'faces can be like assholes'.

[graham4anything 2,859]

One of the greatest US Presidents once said "If I walked across the Potomac River in Washington, all the press/media would report the next day was

"LBJ can't swim". (President Lyndon B. Johnson)

 

the only review that matters to me is my own.

Next time I hear a song of Lana's I don't like, I don't respect, I am not awed by the songwriting, the lyrics, the music, will be the first time that occurs.

 

Lana continues to be unique and the one and only female vocalist in rock and roll history (1955 to the Present) who has transcended female vocalists and

is truly one of the boys when it comes to comparing her to.

She is both Elton & Bernie (as Elton only writes the music & Bernie the lyrics)

Leonard Cohen, Paul Simon, Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, Roy Orbison, Willie Nelson, Grateful Dead, Jimmy Webb, Kris Kristofferson, etc.

 

When you hear a Lana song, it is a Lana song. And written, lyrics/music AND now Producer too.

She has inspired a nation of Lana's, copying her, however, they are not her. (Taylor, Miley all want to be her, but there is only one original. Shame is they are embarrassed of who they are that they need to find inspiration in her to exist it seems).

 

There is no one out there that is like her.

Not one bad song out of what? 400 so far.
 

Quality remains a true artist.

 

The media almost all male based don't get to define her, so they hate her. She won't adapt to them, so they hate her.

(take for instance the BBC interviewer a few days ago- he did not even do his homework "Lana have you done movie work"???

What a schmuck. (And she didn't even mention Gatsby LOL)

When she doesn't do much media, I don't blame her. Would you want to deal with these idiots?

 

They (the entire media) should all go fuck themselves.

[letsescapelizzy 672]

[letsescapelizzy 672]

good thing LB's got rid of that fuck retro future.. this thread would have turned into a ..

[letsescapelizzy 672]

i think there are some male media that truly respect Lana and see her greatness in the industry and what she has done, and what she is.

Not all the male media hate her. Alot of them like her.

 

we'll see some great reviews for HM. Watch..

[YUNGATA 14,955]

yeah, theneedledrop will review it and give it 3/10 at the very most

 

tbh. his UV review was more a review of the tumblr fanbase than the album

[renaissance 8,329]

tbh. his UV review was more a review of the tumblr fanbase than the album

AND THE BORN TO DIE ONE

[cashcomesquick 5,381]

Might be off-topic, but: Can anyone pm a link to a real 320kbits version of the album? I'd appreciate it so much! 

[letsescapelizzy 672]

@@YUNGATA, thanks for banning retro. :gclap:' it ' was over the top.

[SuperMegaStan 9,985]

yeah, theneedledrop will review it and give it 3/10 at the very most

 

he's literally like those pretentious hipsters without his own original opinions nor critical thinking.

 

the way he trashed Wildheart 

and the way he kissed Kendrick's a** for TPAB like jesus re-visited his pathetic basement   

[Coney Island King 26,002]

needledrop does admit to having a morbid curiosity about her. i also remember him being much nicer about ultraviolence than he was about btd. well.....as nice as he can be since he cant stand her lol.

 

he gave both the honeymoon song and high by the beach bad reviews, so im guessing his honeymoon review will be more of the same. lots of complaints, a couple songs he liked and an overall low score.

[naachoboy 7,993]

yeah, theneedledrop will review it and give it 3/10 at the very most

1/10.

[naachoboy 7,993]

Lana Del Rey looks out into the world and all she sees are stares. Cold faces, eyes hard with judgment. And lights, too — sharp beams that poke like needles and cut like lasers. For years, she has been scrutinized as intently as she’s been listened to. You would not blame her even a bit for wilting.

Instead, she has hardened, ossified into a thing of refined cool. The more famous Ms. Del Rey has grown, the more obscure she’s become. What was once something of an elaborate performance has become merely a simple mode of being.

 

Now, she meets the glares and the harsh lights with … nothing. Total blankness. The way that celebrities stand still on the red carpet and fix their eyes on some far-off point while a violent scrum of photographers fire flash bombs and shout their names, resulting in picture after picture of sturdy serenity, that’s Ms. Del Rey’s everyday. There’s no moment she’s not above the fray.

 

Because of this, “Honeymoon” (Interscope), her third major-label album, achieves a sublimity missing from her first two. She’s been angry, and then bored of being angry, but now she’s just bored, and her boredom is entrancing.

 

There’s that taffy voice, resignedly oozing all over the place — rarely does Ms. Del Rey check in at something more intense than a yawn. She’s not an ornate singer, but she achieves a great deal with only the many shades of exhaustion.

 

On “Salvatore,” when she ooohs about “soft ice cream,” she’s a billowy cloud. On “Music to Watch Boys To,” she sighs, “I like you a lot,” but her voice is multitracked, as if arguing with herself whether it’s even worth the bother.

 

And in several places, she refers to the blues — the music, but also the color, and the mood. “Got my blue nail polish on/It’s my favorite color and my favorite tone of song,” she sings on “The Blackest Day.” On the title track, she merely exhales: “Dah-ah-ah-ah-ark bluuuuuuuuue.” Her blue is the ocean, and it’s clear sky, and it’s also blood.

 

For much of “Honeymoon,” she dwells on relationships so toxic they’ve turned her into an emotional refusenik. On “Terrence Loves You,” she sings, “I lost myself when I lost you/And I still get trashed, darling/When I hear your tunes,” and on “High by the Beach,” she moans, “We won’t survive/We’re sinking into the sand.”

 

“Religion,” a love song that would seem to demand preachy fervor, is instead delivered with a shrug:

Ms. Del Rey’s weakness remains her narrow field of vision. And her apathy does tend towards lethargy — individual songs seep long past their most pungent moments, and her unwavering vocal approach can induce somnolence.

 

’Cause you’re my religion, you’re how I’m living
When all my friends say I should take some space
Well, I can’t envision that for a minute
When I’m down on my knees, you’re how I pray

 

Apart from the album-closing cover of “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” and the T.S. Eliot poem Ms. Del Rey reads during an interlude, all the songs were written by her with Rick Nowels (Lykke Li, Belinda Carlisle), and the album was produced by them along with Kieron Menzies.

 

Together, they have arrived at a solution to a problem that bedeviled Ms. Del Rey on her first two albums, “Born to Die” from 2012, and “Ultraviolence” from last year. On “Born to Die” especially, she was thwarted by the ambitions of her producers. Ms. Del Rey was still unsteady as a character, and the gorgeous, lush production often highlighted how fragmented she was.

 

Now she is steady, and resolute too. And so the music stays out of the way, ranging from melancholy to aspirated but never overwhelming, whether it’s the ethereal desert vibes of “God Knows I’ve Tried,” or the piano dirge “Terrence Loves You,” or the exceptional “High by the Beach,” which is like an ASAP Rocky song dubbed onto a fuzzy cassette.

 

Ms. Del Rey sounds lonely here, and fine with that. Perhaps “Honeymoon” is the first great prison album of the 21st century, her jail being celebrity and the scrutiny that comes with it. This album’s opening couplet is a hilarious troll: “We both know that it’s not fashionable to love me/But you don’t go, ‘cause truly there’s nobody for you but me.” And her cover of “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” feels wholly earned — brittle and distant, a sad-sack meditation on inevitable disappointment.

 

Her acceptance of her absurd condition is there, vividly, in the incisive “Freak,” about life and love under the magnifying glass, which has a woozily seductive chorus:

 

In the video for “High by the Beach,” Ms. Del Rey lolls about in a glorious house on the Pacific until she’s interrupted by a helicopter with a paparazzo inside. She skips down to the beach, grabs a rocket launcher hidden in the rocks, and blasts the copter out of the sky, then resumes her blithe bliss.

 

Baby, if you wanna leave
Come to California
Be a freak like me, too
Screw your anonymity
Loving me is all you need to feel
Like I do

And so after four years in the limelight, here lounges Ms. Del Rey, immune to the gravitational pull of the discourse about her. Once a careful invention, she is now glassy-eyed and glassy-voiced, too cool to care. The result is something like a dog that, when its leash is tugged, simply lies on the ground and shuts its eyes: basking in the sun, feeding off its warmth, never giving an inch.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/18/arts/music/review-lana-del-rey-honeymoon.html?_r=0

[Nick 857]

I have about as much credibility as theneedledrop (except I'm not a jackass) but here's my review of Honeymoon that I'm going to publish in my university's newspaper when I get a chance. Gotta get that media promo for ha: http://auralfixationreviews.blogspot.com/2015/09/honeymoon-lana-del-rey.html