Is Lana Declining?

[PARADIXO 31,615]

Honeymoon is her second best album

[evilentity 13,303]

Artistically I think she is at a point where she needs to challenge herself a bit more. Not for hits, but more to keep the attention of the listener throughout the record. Tempo-changes would be nice. Making the whole record super-slow ain't doing the trick.

 

Having everything "beautiful" and "majestetic" is way too settled for a woman making her third major label album. Also, most of the songs on HM go on for about a minute too long.

Have you considered Adderall?

[sparklrtrailrheaven 8,403]

While I'm not the biggest fan of Honeymoon, or the Honeymoon era in general, I certainly wouldn't say Lana is declining.

 

It seems to be a natural phenomena in even the greatest artists' careers-- after a meteoric rise to fame, it's common for an artist to take some time to slow down. UV's release and heavy praise hasn't even been two years ago yet. Lana went from being a no-name singer with LDRAKALG in 2010 to a huge sensation in 2012 with BtD that continued into 2014 with UV. 

 

In essence, she hasn't slowed down since 2010-- if not longer. She's produced three flawless albums in 6 years (AKA, BtD, UV), a host of amazing music videos, and such a wealth of incredible unreleased material. 

 

I think we all forget that Lana's only been on the major music scene for such a short time, so isn't it understandable if she's producing some lighter fare? Yeah, HM and the HM videos may be a little insubstantial, (insubstantial, at least, in comparison to the past three albums/eras)  but I think that it isn't a permanent decline she's on. 

 

She's taking an artistic breather. Give her space, give her time, and when she's ready, we'll get something great. 

[leaked_version 10,498]

Have you considered Adderall?

No thanks, I actually work out.

[COLACNT 5,171]

in terms of energy and general motivation, yes

 

though the quality of the music and (some of the) lyrics might still be there, the imagery is part of the overall package and in that area she's fucking up, majorly 

 

[Intriguing Penguin 867]

The only thing that's declining are all these other white indie pop girls some of you are stanning when they all sound the same.. shit.

[markeyvee 221]

I don't think she wants commercial success in the way you guys want her to have. But yes, commercially she's declining.

 

Idk, i just feel like she's more about the music in comparison to a lot of other people and at the end of the day that's the only thing that matters. So if she continues to release an album every year, one or two videos--i'm fine with that. it's what she wants.

[National Anthem 9,896]

No. Lana is just getting comfortable, and so is her label/team. She has the fans, media, and attention now. She fills large arenas now. During BTD, it was important to release elaborate videos and promote like crazy, but it worked, so now she can relax and doesn't have to do that all the time or to the same extent. The most important thing to Lana is and has always been the actual music, which in my opinion has not declined in the slightest. She continues to push herself into new and exciting places musically and Honeymoon is absolutely phenomenal.

[graham4anything 2,859]

trailblazer

icon

 

and Tina Turner was singing about Lana singing the entire Honeymoon album when she sang "Simply the best"

 

and if you don't like it

you can beat it

beat it baby

[Mind Melt 10,090]

Compared to the other artists nowadays, it's rather pitiful seeing her numbers not that far off Marina's.

 

no t no shade to marina bc i love her dearly but HM sold 116k first week and Froot sold 46k so I don't get the comparison

[PARADIXO 31,615]

no t no shade to marina bc i love her dearly but HM sold 116k first week and Froot sold 46k so I don't get the comparison

 

Also HM sold 600k+

Froot... barely 150k

[Flipflopfan 254]

I saw that some of you compared Lana with Marina so I may ask: why would be a shame for Lana to be at Marina's level?

 

When you don't cultivate a certain image that was successful, when you don't promote your music, when you're not performing before the GP then you cannot expect to have huge album sells or to fill arenas with your shows. Recently I read about an Interscope executive who said that he convinced Lana to do arenas in 2015, so I think that naturally Lana is for smaller venues. Lana doesn't think big because she cannot (or its not willing) to handle the things that come with bigger exposure. I don't know too much about Marina's career but she seems at least to be a better live performer than Lana. So it's natural that Lana will come close to Marina's status in the future if her strategy remains the same and it's nothing to be ashamed of. I have to admit that, unlike Marina, Lana had the chance to be big but she refute it so I always consider the BTD era a fluke and I will not play anymore the disappointed fan game towards Lana that will only diminish the enjoyment of her music that I still like  

[MahaMaha 1,110]

Artistically she peaked before she was even famous writing the lyrical masterpiece Elvis.

Other than that I feel like she tries to decrease her level of fame by avoiding promotion so she doesnt have to deal with negative press and public judgement. Her goal is prob maintaining just enough fans to make a living as a musician which is actually quite understandable looking at her experience with the public. I also recall her saying in an interview (shortly after VG had gone viral) that she wouldnt mind being a one-hit-wonder, so I guess her attitude has always been the same. 

[Creyk 11,497]

Honeymoon is her second best album

Let's be real all of her albums are great

Even Young Like Me/From the End/Sirens or whatever the real name is

[sweetie 6,615]

Not really - she has already declined and hit rock bottom. Her commercial and relevance peak was in 2012. Any success she's enjoyed since then is due to the afterburn of Born To Die's controversy. However, she's still declining lyrically and visually; her creative output just seems to get weaker and more uninspired over time. 

 

 

Don't quote me with some "music not the bling" fantasy. The quality of her music is following a similar trajectory to her career, and it's not looking that good. No shade. I still love Honeymoon, but I feel that's only due to my personal bias as a stan. I'll love and support anything she puts out, but I won't deny it's bad.

[Harpunn 399]

no t no shade to marina bc i love her dearly but HM sold 116k first week and Froot sold 46k so I don't get the comparison

Regardless, she's hit her all time low with this album. I honestly don't feel it at all and my feelings now set side by side with the feelings I've had at release are completely antithetical, I've almost forgotten about this album. 

[slang 1,509]

Decline artistically, no. But I wonder about her sources of inspiration, now that her life is sort of stabilized into a career. I wonder if her song-writing is as much cathartic now as in the past (as most seem to think it is), or whether she's moving on to more abstract music-loving reasons for being a writer/performer. I guess in particular I wonder about her still being able to play guitar (and whether she's getting better at it), whether she is vocally coached (even though I know she got better at it), and whether she's generally inquisitive and acquiring with regards to musical skill (which, hopefully, she is, given her recent co-producer status). To me a decline would be most indicated by a decline in ambition in writing, not sales, and maybe also ambition in performance. For performance, I want her to sing comfortably but also courageously, as she seems to like experimenting with her voice. Everything else I would view as a change in priorities and not a decline, possibly including videos and lyrics. However, videos are complicated as they vary in agenda (some are more personal than others) and budget; however, I think she puts thought into all of them, because they don't seem very repetitive to me. Lyrics I'm less certain about. I'm unsure how lyrics are supposed to vary with the emotionality and tempo of the song. So, for example, Marina has a lot more on her philosophical plate to sing about (and her lyrics sound correspondingly a lot more intelligent); whereas Lana has a lot more on her emotional plate to sing about (so she takes 5 syllables to sing the word "pink" and has enigmatic lyrics like "Hoes with lies akin to me"). 

 

Despite hoping she remains ambitious in her writing, I would still like her to revisit her unreleased work just to more formally preserve it and also mine it a bit more. Her unreleased writing also defines a breadth-of-style "bar" from which to measure decline in her released writing. Like many others here, I'm hoping her future is as varied as her past, which would be a "tall order" for any artist.

[TheBoss 13,273]

Her creativity has become way better, interesting and organic that what we had in BTD tho I'm so glad she stayed away off the "You're not good for me, but baby i want you" bullshit (No shade Diet Mtn Dew, but yeah    )

[kristinaj 1,166]

From my own perspective I'd say that one of the downsides of Lana is that she has stuck to the same aesthetic since forever. Flowers, vintage glamour, sadcore, pretty much the same lyrics. I hope that on her next album she manages to bring something fresh to the table but still add her own twist to it. I cringe whenever I see someone say that they want BTD 2.0 because she really ought to move on from that if she wants to retain her artistic integrity

[PARADIXO 31,615]

Not really - she has already declined and hit rock bottom. Her commercial and relevance peak was in 2012. Any success she's enjoyed since then is due to the afterburn of Born To Die's controversy. However, she's still declining lyrically and visually; her creative output just seems to get weaker and more uninspired over time. 

 

 

Don't quote me with some "music not the bling" fantasy. The quality of her music is following a similar trajectory to her career, and it's not looking that good. No shade. I still love Honeymoon, but I feel that's only due to my personal bias as a stan. I'll love and support anything she puts out, but I won't deny it's bad.

 

Her highest peak was 2013 actually

Let's be real all of her albums are great

Even Young Like Me/From the End/Sirens or whatever the real name is

 

ikr, even Paradise, so underrated