Would Lana be as well-liked if she wasn’t attractive?

[ednafrau 831]

She's never been unattractive. Her nose job and lip injections don't account for great bone structure. You either have it or you don't. Her good looks are all hers, not the work of a surgeon.

 

exactly! that's why it's one thing to speculate if she would've been successful as her natural, "may jailer" self and another thing to imagine if she looked altogether different, with another ("plainer") face. i don't think lizzy has ever been homely, look at her highschool yearbook pic, she was really pretty i actually think she's more gorgeous without the big lips, but that's totally subjective.

[TrailerParkDarling 5,680]

She's never been unattractive. Her nose job and lip injections don't account for great bone structure. You either have it or you don't. Her good looks are all hers, not the work of a surgeon.

 

I agree- but attractive in ~real life~ and in the entertainment industry are two incredibly different things. You've either got to be drop dead gorgeous or have some sort of schtick, it seems.

[Sitar 22,173]

I'll still love her when she's no longer young and beautiful.

 

[Monicker 3,030]

Love you guys, really. This is why i asked the question--i really wanted to hear from all of you. Good stuff.

 

Personally, I think the music would be different if she wasn't this beautiful girl. She wouldn't be singing about being the most exotic flower or the whole world's girl. And that's fine. It's certainly a perspective she has and is used to (although I would never say she's limited to being the hot girl). For instance, I'm not writing about being an exotic flower because I don't have that perspective.

 

I like this point a lot. Good stuff, Sitar.

 

i always thought that if thom yorke had been conventionally good-looking, radiohead would have never attained the level of reverence they did.

 

Ha, this makes me think of what Buzz Osbourne of The Melvins (who was close friends with Kurt Cobain and Nirvana in their very early days) has continually said throughout the years, that he thinks a lot of Nirvana's success was due to how they were pretty boys (albeit in grungy clothing).

 

you might be interested in its application to music?

 

For sure. There's a ton of great stuff that is based on the golden ratio. Bartok, Webern, and Messiaen immediately come to mind, some of my very favorite composers. Though, honestly, i don't really understand the GR.

 

 

It’s interesting not only to consider whether or not she’d be as successful, but also where the success would be coming from and how it could have shifted to other demographics. She’s a pop star, mentioned in the same breath as people like Lady Gaga, a product of contemporary popular culture. That would’ve most likely shaped up very differently had she not been as attractive. But there are also musical considerations to take into account that would have greatly affected her audience, i think: imagine that after AKA she had put out a record of the BTD demos rather than the album versions. We'd probably be looking at a very different fan base. This all deals directly with the butterfly effect, of course.

 

One last thing i wanted to make clear that i should have initially: Her beauty (style is maybe a different story) is in no way part of what makes me a fan of hers. As i’m sure most of you know, and i’ve stated several times before, i’m a music person at the end of the day, plain and simple. It was entirely music-related stuff that reeled me in and has kept me around. Sure, the videos, the glamour, and her style contribute some to the fascination, but i don’t think there’s any way i’d think any less of her or like her any less if i had never seen Video Games or the early videos, considering that with artists who are new to me, i usually first listen to a song a number of times without viewing the video before finally watching the video.

[Guest Maru the Cat]

For sure. There's a ton of great stuff that is based on the golden ratio. Bartok, Webern, and Messiaen immediately come to mind, some of my very favorite composers. Though, honestly, i don't really understand the GR.

 

Do you mean generally, or its application to music?

[Monicker 3,030]

I get it geometrically and architecturally and in nature, but not so much with facial construction and music. I guess it's just because it can be applied to different aspects of music. Like, i think it has more to do with just the sequence of the notes in a melodic line and their intervalic relationships, because sometimes it applies to the overall structure of a piece, but i don't really know.

[PrettyBaby 2,213]

I get it geometrically and architecturally and in nature, but not so much with facial construction and music. I guess it's just because it can be applied to different aspects of music. Like, i think it has more to do with just the sequence of the notes in a melodic line and their intervalic relationships, because sometimes it applies to the overall structure of a piece, but i don't really know.

 

This is fascinating to me. I've wondered for a long time about the connection between music and math. Not having much formal training in music, I don't really get why I like what I like; I just know I like it. I checked out some math rock once. Bought a Don Caballero CD. Was really excited. I put it in and immediately thought, "Wow, I love this sound!" About halfway through the song, I thought, "Wow, this is boring, I never want to listen to this again!" (And I haven't since.)

 

I love music that is experimental-but-not-too-experimental. That's why I love Lana's music. (And Lizzy's even more.) I don't know if I would have been as captivated by "Blue Jeans" if she wasn't so beautiful to look at, but I do know it was mainly her haunting physical voice and bold-yet-vulnerable stylistic "voice" that reeled me in.

 

I feel so torn about my relationship with beauty. I never felt like I had a lot of physical beauty, so that made it easy for me to go along with my Protestant heritage that tended to regard beauty as shallow at best. But in recent years, hearing other perspectives, notably Catholic ones, has made me re-evaluate my approach to beauty, and now I see it as something to be "stewarded," if that makes any sense. (Christianese for "taken good care of and used well.") So it was within that new framework that I encountered Lana. She's basically the first music artist whose physical beauty I've allowed myself to appreciate as part of the entire experience since I was a (hormone-crazed) teenager. (Went through an extended "it's all about the music" phase. Probably wouldn't recognize a lot of my favorite bands' members if I passed them on the street.)

 

Now I guess I'm on this kick where I try to see "the true, the good, and the beautiful" in everyone. And appreciate the fact that different people place different emphases on different values, but that doesn't make them "wrong" as I used to think. (Charm and beauty can be misused, but so can truth and humanitarian values.) We need people who sort of specialize in these different areas, I think. We need to give each other the freedom to pursue these different values, while we pursue our own favorite (without completely dropping the others).

 

I think Lana "stewards" her physical beauty in good ways. But there's no way it's all she has going for her.

[Fluorine 160]

Well, when I heard her album for the first time, I really didn't know what she looked like in any detail (I listened on Spotify and had never watched any videos). Her voice was what drew me in.

 

I'm not going to say I don't find her attractive, though, or that her looks have nothing to do with her appeal. She looks exactly how I expected someone with a voice like hers would look like.

[evilentity 13,303]

What makes makes someone conventionally attractive... it's all of the things you mentioned and the golden ratio (1.61803....) :3 It's ridiculously interesting how the golden ratio captivates the human eye, whether it be face structure, architecture, nature.... you might be interested in its application to music?

Ha, this makes me think of what Buzz Osbourne of The Melvins (who was close friends with Kurt Cobain and Nirvana in their very early days) has continually said throughout the years, that he thinks a lot of Nirvana's success was due to how they were pretty boys (albeit in grungy clothing).

For sure. There's a ton of great stuff that is based on the golden ratio. Bartok, Webern, and Messiaen immediately come to mind, some of my very favorite composers. Though, honestly, i don't really understand the GR.

I get it geometrically and architecturally and in nature, but not so much with facial construction and music. I guess it's just because it can be applied to different aspects of music. Like, i think it has more to do with just the sequence of the notes in a melodic line and their intervalic relationships, because sometimes it applies to the overall structure of a piece, but i don't really know.

This is fascinating to me. I've wondered for a long time about the connection between music and math. Not having much formal training in music, I don't really get why I like what I like; I just know I like it. I checked out some math rock once.

 

This has nothing to do with the OP, but as a massive Tool fan, I can't let all this talk of the application of the golden ratio to music, the Melvins, and math rock go without mentioning them. (Aside from influencing, being friends with, and opening for Tool, the Melvins and Tool also collaborated on a song called "Divorced" off the Melvins' album Crybaby.)

 

The time signature changes and number of syllables in each line in the lyrics of the title track off Tool's album "Lateralus" and some of the lyrical content on the album are related to the Fibonacci sequence/Fibonacci spiral and the golden ratio/golden spiral.

 

Now that litewave has joined the forum, if he writes an esoteric explanation of the music of Tool my life will be complete.

[SugarVenom 459]

Lana's beautiful~ but in a kind of old way. I think she does look quite old, and often looks so tired and worn out.

 

I think that without the surgery she would have succeeded, but I think it was more down to being well groomed.

 

Her hair used to be a mess~ I don't know, I think having lovely luscious hair makes a big difference to her appearance.

[PrettyBaby 2,213]

(Aside from influencing, being friends with, and opening for Tool, the Melvins and Tool also collaborated on a song called "Divorced" off the Melvins' album Crybaby.)

Adding the Melvins to my wish list!

 

The time signature changes and number of syllables in each line in the lyrics of the title track off Tool's album "Lateralus" and some of the lyrical content on the album are related to the Fibonacci sequence/Fibonacci spiral and the golden ratio/golden spiral.

 

Now that litewave has joined the forum, if he writes an esoteric explanation of the music of Tool my life will be complete.

[ScaresMe 17]

so many words....in 1 large paragraph......

to answer the title question of the post, I'd say no. all females in the music industry would not be as well liked if they were uglier.

[Monicker 3,030]

 

 

This is fascinating to me. I've wondered for a long time about the connection between music and math. Not having much formal training in music, I don't really get why I like what I like; I just know I like it. I checked out some math rock once. Bought a Don Caballero CD. Was really excited. I put it in and immediately thought, "Wow, I love this sound!" About halfway through the song, I thought, "Wow, this is boring, I never want to listen to this again!" (And I haven't since.)

 

I love music that is experimental-but-not-too-experimental. That's why I love Lana's music. (And Lizzy's even more.) I don't know if I would have been as captivated by "Blue Jeans" if she wasn't so beautiful to look at, but I do know it was mainly her haunting physical voice and bold-yet-vulnerable stylistic "voice" that reeled me in.

 

I feel so torn about my relationship with beauty. I never felt like I had a lot of physical beauty, so that made it easy for me to go along with my Protestant heritage that tended to regard beauty as shallow at best. But in recent years, hearing other perspectives, notably Catholic ones, has made me re-evaluate my approach to beauty, and now I see it as something to be "stewarded," if that makes any sense. (Christianese for "taken good care of and used well.") So it was within that new framework that I encountered Lana. She's basically the first music artist whose physical beauty I've allowed myself to appreciate as part of the entire experience since I was a (hormone-crazed) teenager. (Went through an extended "it's all about the music" phase. Probably wouldn't recognize a lot of my favorite bands' members if I passed them on the street.)

 

Now I guess I'm on this kick where I try to see "the true, the good, and the beautiful" in everyone. And appreciate the fact that different people place different emphases on different values, but that doesn't make them "wrong" as I used to think. (Charm and beauty can be misused, but so can truth and humanitarian values.) We need people who sort of specialize in these different areas, I think. We need to give each other the freedom to pursue these different values, while we pursue our own favorite (without completely dropping the others).

 

I think Lana "stewards" her physical beauty in good ways. But there's no way it's all she has going for her.

 

 

 

Always an interesting perspective from you, PrettyBaby I find the stuff you said about your relationship with beauty to be really interesting. Also, i really agree with the idea of giving people some breathing room so to speak, and allowing each to embrace what they embrace, to value what they value, for is that not what sets cultures apart from each other and what makes the human experience so diverse?

 

This is all off-topic at this point, but so be it...

 

Music, essentially, is math. Though, of course, it’s so much more than that. But if you wanted to examine it from its fundamental core and a theoretical stance, it’s strictly math. It's no wonder that in ancient Greece, music, math, and philosophy were considered inseparable and, really, part of the same larger field of study. The magic and transcendence of just being pure math comes from that ineffable, unique quality that results from the creative combination and ordering of sounds, that which moves people emotionally. It's near impossible to determine why exactly you like something and dislike something else, and therein lies a lot of music's power.

 

"Math Rock" is kind of a misnomer and a bit of a silly term, i think. Why is it that playing in “odd” time signatures and shifting quickly between different time signatures is considered mathematical as opposed to music that stays in 4/4 the whole time? It’s like “Emo”--what music isn’t emotional? Instead of singling out a style of music for its heightened emotion, maybe there should be another term for denoting the few exceptions where emotion is deliberately avoided. Anyway, i digress from the digression.

 

I simultaneously believe that all music is experimental and that no music is experimental. It’s all experimental because isn’t that what anyone is doing when they sit down to write music--trying out ideas to see how they work? Some hired gun who comes on board to compose a song for Britney Spears--isn’t that person experimenting with different ways to construct something within a desired mold with a set goal, just as much as, say, Krzysztof Penderecki is experimenting when he sits down to write a crazy symphony with his own compositional goals in mind? They just have different functions and end points. But, on the other hand, isn’t everyone also following some general guide and pre-established framework when writing music? Experimental as a term to define music i think is hokey anyway, it’s more often than not (as is the case with Math Rock), more about having a certain sound and style than it is a general approach to constructing music. The great 20th century French composer Varese once said, “I do not write experimental music. My experimenting is done before I make the music. Afterwards, it is the listener who must experiment.” I love that quote. As you may imagine, the consensus considers his music to be wildly “experimental.”

[Luda 167]

Yes. Adele wasn't anywhere near her healthy weight.

 

This.

 

Talent isn't affected by appearance. Lana is a talented singer/songwriter and that what matters the most.

[Myriam 557]

There's this sexy vibe in most of her songs; she knows she's hot and she sings about it so speaking only for myself, I fell for her songs, and the themes of her songs and I honestly don't think it would all be the same if she didn't look the way that she does so I don't know...

[RileyThomas 349]

I guess it depends on which way around you heard of her. If you heard her voice & liked her music then saw her, it wouldn't matter because you enjoy her writing skills and songs so her face is just the face that is attached to that. However if you watched a music video of hers on mute and she was really ugly you'd probably close the tab, however because she's stunning, if you watched a music video of hers on mute you'd be captivated by her beauty. I remember listening to Sia for the first time and never seeing her, and I just fell in love with her voice. After googling her, I didn't find her face matching to the beauty of her vocals and artistic skills, because she's not very conventially beautiful.

 

But like other's have said here, if she wasn't beautiful then the way people may have treated her throughout her life could have been different. Therefore the way she turned out could have been different, which wouldn't be the Lana we have today. It's a bit like The Butterfly Effect, you go back in time and kill a butterfly and all that... could change everything.

 

She most certainly wouldn't have gotten into modelling which seems to have been the start of her media career so things could be different. Thinking about if people would still like her if she was ugly... I think many people wouldn't because they wouldn't have given her a chance, which makes me sad, but it's a part of life.

I don't want to go into too much detail but I will use Lady GaGa as an example. I don't think that, without the fecade Lady GaGa is all that beautiful at all, physically I mean. But, she uses costumes and props to get people to notice her so that they can notice her music, and look where that got her, she's the most popular star on the planet.

[SugarVenom 459]

In the music industry, most musicians do have 'the whole package.' Most are fairly attractive, have a good voice or unique style, and have a seemingly interesting or nice personality. Lana has these for sure, and without her looks she might have made it big, who knows..

[ednafrau 831]

 

Music, essentially, is math. Though, of course, it’s so much more than that. But if you wanted to examine it from its fundamental core and a theoretical stance, it’s strictly math. It's no wonder that in ancient Greece, music, math, and philosophy were considered inseparable and, really, part of the same larger field of study. The magic and transcendence of just being pure math comes from that ineffable, unique quality that results from the creative combination and ordering of sounds, that which moves people emotionally. It's near impossible to determine why exactly you like something and dislike something else, and therein lies a lot of music's power.

 

"Math Rock" is kind of a misnomer and a bit of a silly term, i think. Why is it that playing in “odd” time signatures and shifting quickly between different time signatures is considered mathematical as opposed to music that stays in 4/4 the whole time? It’s like “Emo”--what music isn’t emotional? Instead of singling out a style of music for its heightened emotion, maybe there should be another term for denoting the few exceptions where emotion is deliberately avoided. Anyway, i digress from the digression.

 

I simultaneously believe that all music is experimental and that no music is experimental. It’s all experimental because isn’t that what anyone is doing when they sit down to write music--trying out ideas to see how they work? Some hired gun who comes on board to compose a song for Britney Spears--isn’t that person experimenting with different ways to construct something within a desired mold with a set goal, just as much as, say, Krzysztof Penderecki is experimenting when he sits down to write a crazy symphony with his own compositional goals in mind? They just have different functions and end points. But, on the other hand, isn’t everyone also following some general guide and pre-established framework when writing music? Experimental as a term to define music i think is hokey anyway, it’s more often than not (as is the case with Math Rock), more about having a certain sound and style than it is a general approach to constructing music. The great 20th century French composer Varese once said, “I do not write experimental music. My experimenting is done before I make the music. Afterwards, it is the listener who must experiment.” I love that quote. As you may imagine, the consensus considers his music to be wildly “experimental.”

 

monicker, i just love everything you said. i've thought about these matters but never put them into (eloquent) words. 100% agree! you should have a music column in a good publication (magazine/newspaper, etc). and then, one day they'd ask you to interview lana and it would all come full circle!

[Mileena 2,691]

okay this is just my two cents.

 

i think she's gorgeous, but a lot of people think she's 'weird looking'. a lot of people don't find her attractive at all, so some of her success has to be from her voice. however people do often market her as being sultry and beautiful, etc. but to be successful in something like music or film then yes you do need to have stereo-typically good looks. with lana, you love her music or you hate it and the same goes to her looks.

[alexzdelrey 122]

simple answer: no