Is Lana Declining?

[Chris Cuomo 3,324]

It seems like this topic has been creeping into every discussion on here lately and I wanted to get everyone's take. Many of you seemed pretty unmoved by Lana's recent endeavors (basically the whole Honeymoon era ), but if I recall correctly, this was the original attitude towards Ultraviolence as well, and now it seems to be the fan favorite. So was Honeymoon just a single case of mediocrity in Lana's vast discography or has she reached her peak? Or...is everyone simply a pressed Born to Die Stan lol?

 

As for me, I'm not quite sure. I certainly don't love Honeymoon but I don't think it's bad either. I think with the given circumstances and the short period of time in between records, Honeymoon had no chance of being that great and I'm thinking Lana just needs to find her muse.

 

What do y'all think?

[Starsx 1,849]

Pressed Born To Die stan

[Atom Heart 1,931]

I think people expect Lana to perform huge worldwide tours and do tv appearances and interact more. But in reality Lana has been this way forever, so...pressed BTD Stan it is.

 

 

BTD 2012 : "Is she too nervous to perform after the SNL disaster?"

Paradise 2013 : "She's doing some tv...but her tours aren't going dad rn..."

UV 2014 : "Why don't we have a tour yet?"

HM 2015-16 : "We need new videos...tour...something!"

[luckyonewithoutyou 1,929]

Lyrical mediocrity compared to other work -if HM was Lana's debut album, I'm sure 90% of you would not be here as a fan today. That's the way I think of it. BTD is the reason most of us are here anyways.

[May 13,313]

she's not declining, her label has just given up on making her big. they're not pushing her anymore.

 

unless we're talking lyrics-wise in which case yes she's declining majorly

[evilentity 13,351]

It seems like this topic has been creeping into every discussion on here lately

The only thing declining is the quality of discussion on this forum.

 

Lyrical mediocrity compared to other work -if HM was Lana's debut album, I'm sure 90% of you would not be here as a fan today. That's the way I think of it. BTD is the reason most of are here anyways.

"Video Games" and AKA were what made me a fan. I loved her songwriting on BTD for the most part, but the production was a big disappointment to me. I would absolutely be here if HM had been Lana's debut album. HM is more the record I had hoped BTD would be.

[brooklynbaby91 1,386]

Artistically, I don't think she's declining. She's exploring different sounds with each album, so it might be hard to take if you're super attached to a sound from one specific era of hers. You have BTD stans who keep waiting for her to return to that style of music, UV stans who wanted her to continue that way, meanwhile Lana just wants to make songs with whatever sound she finds interesting at the time.

 

There's no denying that budget-wise things aren't as great as they were in the BTD days when she was putting out masterpieces like the Ride video. But I think this is a result of a business situation rather than because Lana is starting to suck.

[longtimeman 9,011]

All of her records have great lyrics, side by side with average lyrics, side by side with lyrics that make me go 'wtf?', but I don't care that much about lyrics if they're not that good - I take lyrics that move me as a bonus (and on Honeymoon I'd include the title track, TLY, Salvatore and TBD as among her best).

 

Musically, she's gotten better over time, although the high points on BTD are still the most exciting things that she's created for my personal tastes.

 

I don't care that much about music videos, but each 'era' has its own aesthetic, and it feels like it's only on this board that every latest thing gets trashed - in the broader world, people either hate her, or love whatever she does, or move on from her (here is the only place that people love her and hate everything she does at the same time).

 

I don't care about what she wears when she buys coffee, so maybe I'm missing out on a big element of her supposed 'decline', but overall, 2014-now have always been fascinating times for me to be a fan.

[Coney Island King 26,122]

i think she's gotten better musically over time for me personally. i find her to be a far more interesting artist now then when she first came out, even though i loved her when she first came out too.

 

i just think people are expecting btd quality eras, and that was very much a one off thing for her, but fans cant let go and they get frustrated. its cute people care so much, but i've come to terms with just rolling with the punches when it comes to her nowdays, as long as the albums are great i'm happy............everything else is fun, but i can take it or leave it since it comes second to the music, and i still love the music.

 

chart and sales wise, she was always going to decline, she was always a niche artist who got a lucky break with btd and she was never going to be able to maintain that sort of success over and over. shes just not that type of artist and her music doesnt have that sort of pull.

[myhuntymoon 12]

We could have arguments all day about her artist development and whether she has grown as an artist or not. 

 

However, sales wise-- absolutely. She is declining and steadily. I think she will always have a solid fanbase, but it's hard to stan for someone who literally does nothing.     

 

Interscope is definitely not to blame. Lana does not like to promote her music. She will cancel promo that they schedule for her (i.e. David Letterman). She makes music for herself; she has literally said this. Interscope would put the money down for a music video if the artist was going to bring revenue. Lana has poor sales with this album, so it makes sense that they would not invest in a large video production. Lana does a lot of these videos out of pocket, I'm sure. Even artists like Taylor Swift make their music videos out of pocket because their labels don't give artists an unlimited budget. Doesn't work that way. 

[James19709 638]

Only with videos which don't really matter to me so no

The only thing declining is the quality of discussion on this forum.
 

"Video Games" and AKA were what made me a fan. I loved her songwriting on BTD for the most part, but the production was a big disappointment to me. I would absolutely be here if HM had been Lana's debut album. HM is more the record I had hoped BTD would be.

 

Me too. I'm SO glad she made Honeymoon, and her vocals are incredible

[Creyk 11,726]

It depends, are you viewing it musically or commercially?

Commercially, of course. It's sad because she could be huge if only she cared, I wish she promoted. The fact is, she has an amazing personality, I would love to see her more on Tv doing interviews and perform. She is just so good at it.

 

Musically, I don't think so. While her sound is very different from the BTD era which was obviously her best, the music is still good. Sure it doesn't have amazing stuff in it like honoring lost love and a glamorous lifestyle anymore, but they are still great songs that I listen to every day

[delreyfreak 5,342]

Musically, she's constantly evolving for me. Although I think UV is her best piece of work, HM is not far from it, and it's certainly a step up from her other works. I love how she has managed to try out a different style every album and never completely repeat her past works. As long as she continues to do that, I think I will always stan her.

 

In areas other than the music, I think it's quite a common belief around here that she has declined, and sadly I'd say I do agree to some extent. Her videos this era, while containing some stunning visuals and concepts, just weren't up to par with her past works. MTWBT could have been perfect had she not insisted on using a B&W filter the whole way through. Freak could have also been better, had she not decided to reuse 5 minutes of old footage with a piece of music that isn't even her own. She also hasn't been promoting much at all. I'm not saying she has to go on TV more or tour or anything like that, because I understand that's never really been her thing, but she could at least try to promote more on her social media, or do a few interviews or HQ live performances here and there. 

 

In some ways, I think she has declined, but for me, the main thing I care about is her music, and I feel like that has always been getting better and better. So as long as she continues to evolve musically, I'm happy. Music videos, live performances, tours and so on are all nice little extras for fans, but I think we need to realize that she doesn't owe us anything.

[Flipflopfan 254]

In pure sales terms and if we are talking about casual fans she is strongly declining compared to the BTD era.

 

But if we take a look at the concept of career beyond commercial success I wouldn't describe her path as declining because in my opinion she never reached true pop stardom. She always was an oddball: hugely popular on some parts of the internet and virtually unknown to large parts of the gp. For me BTD was a fluke, a hype bubble, generated by 4-5 songs with good commercial appeal, by her exposure to the gp in 2012-2013 because of a strange combination of positive and negative publicity and she was the new face with a new sound. But she never stabilize that, she didn't get comfortable with the media, she avoided to perform before the gp and I think that she become aware of her limitations as a performing artist thus she started making non-commercial music that suits better her strengths and doesn't put pressure on her to perform before the gp. I'm convinced that this is conscious strategy of hers to position her career in a zone where is less commercial success but which requires less media exposure and allows her to be more experimental. Maybe she's not a great performer but she's a great studio singer, a respectable songwriter and lately she's showing that she has producer qualities too. Artistically she went upwards: UV and HM are much better records overall than BTD (except VG which is her best song). So, I think that she is in a good place career wise and she'll be relevant for some time to come      

[Harpunn 399]

She's really declining in terms of commerciality, the numbers prove it straightforwardly. Compared to the other artists nowadays, it's rather pitiful seeing her numbers not that far off Marina's. As for the musical part, I feel as though she peaked during the UV era, whilst moderately declining come HM. BTD was perhaps a mess, but a beautiful, vibrant, delicate, fascinating, marvelous mess, and that, per se, was the pinnacle of her career(commercially), simply put. It's probably because of the catchy and playful melodies at the time, thereby granting relative ease to someone who'd want to stan her. I don't like the HM Lana at all, likely due to the redundancy and superficiality ingrained into the album, she seems incredibly lackadaisical if you'd ask me.

[Atom Heart 1,931]

These replies further illustrate my point.

 

 

Everyone wants Lana to do shit she doesn't want to do and after the fluke of becoming a huge pop star she eventually just wanted to stay home and away from the spotlight and make music for herself rather than being up her fans ass trying to please them at every turn. Her career (after BTD) seems to be 100% on her terms artistically. Maybe you guys got tricked into thinking that sales/success was her main goal?

[Thunder Revenant 20,966]

I just hope she won't settle down within her comfort zone too much, because that's what I felt happened with Honeymoon. High quality songs, but nothing new, nothing exciting ...

But I guess it's very hard to predict her.

[naachoboy 7,993]

Yeah but she started declining with Paradise so i dont see the surprise 

[leaked_version 10,499]

Commercially, yes. And she is the one to blame for it, because the music has been good. It's just some weird choices she makes. Like making Honeymoon a promo single and MTWBT a second single.

 

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.

[American Money 681]

I don't know if her goal in the beginning was to be a big pop artist. I think she wanted her music to be loved and recognized, but more on a critically-acclaimed scale, as opposed to a commercially-acclaimed scale. When the opposite happened it was good for her career, yes, but I think more disappointing to her, causing her attitude towards everything (specifically promoting) to decline.

 

I think that's why she focuses more on the music now, because although her music might seem more boring or not as exciting now (which I personally agree with), she's definitely becoming technically better in terms of production, atmosphere, etc. If that makes any sense?

 

Visually, as in music video and to a lesser extent her own self, has obviously declined. I wished she care about presenting a whole package, videos, music, looks, now as much as she did then.