Lana's Instagram Travel Diaries

[leaked_version 10,498]

On the positive side: looks like she is over this era.

 

And I hope for the next one we will get more than just Instagram photos. She really gives these untalented brats like Halsey or Melanie Martinez way too much room.

 

Lana has starpower and she is charismatic. I hope she serves the right material and promotes it on TV and radio. There was an article recently where the industry is heading towards and one thing mentioned in there was

that artists who use Instagram as a promo tool, will soon fade away quickly.

[gloomyharlow 1,215]

It's funny because I really hate social media. I'm only on Tumblr and YouTube but I don't even consider those social media sites. To me it's the Facebook, twitter, instagram...the number of follows and likes type of sites. I use to love when singers or bands had their official website and that was it. They would have a blog and update from there...now everything is Instagram and twitter....

[James19709 632]

I thought there was something really special and intimate to the last degree of hearing her sing very softly like this just for herself, not singing as a singer but just as a person, her voice sounds different and neither controlled or polished and idk I really enjoyed this not because she's beautiful or just because it's related to her but there was something very particularly genuine and human about this 15s video

 

Or I'm just extra asf. That's also realistic

 

What are you talking about here?

 

EDIT: Never mind, saw it.

[Dua Lipa 3,588]

On the positive side: looks like she is over this era.

 

And I hope for the next one we will get more than just Instagram photos. She really gives these untalented brats like Halsey or Melanie Martinez way too much room.

 

Lana has starpower and she is charismatic. I hope she serves the right material and promotes it on TV and radio. There was an article recently where the industry is heading towards and one thing mentioned in there was

that artists who use Instagram as a promo tool, will soon fade away quickly.

 

I SECOND THIS

[leaked_version 10,498]

I SECOND THIS

Oh, and she needs to drop that "I'm a jazz singer now" -mentality. Like, nobody (or hardly anybody) is here for it. If I want to listen to jazz, I'll pick up some contemporary jazz records, not Lana Del Rey albums

where she just uses her laziness in lyricism for "jazz" Like zzzzzz-my fucking ass, bitch. Just because she is too lazy to come up with a proper lyric, she sings "aaaaaaa", "uuuuuuh" "ahaaaaaaaah".

 

No posts on Instagram will take away from the fact that this woman is for years constantly trolling her fanbase with lame excuses why she doesn't write as melodic songs like Video Games, Summertime Sadness and Blue Jeans anymore.

 

Enough of it. I don't wanna sit thorugh an album like Honeymüün again where is no excitement, no real hook, no anything except for cultivated boredom. We as a fanbase deserve way better than that. Without us, she wouldn't even be around.

 

She is a pop star. She signed up to be one. And she ain't no Nina Simone and will never be.

She needs to excite her fanbase and not let it rot away.

[Flipflopfan 254]

She is a pop star. She signed up to be one. And she ain't no Nina Simone and will never be.

She needs to excite her fanbase and not let it rot away.

I agree with a lot of stuff you said but I disagree about Lana's popstar potential or that she wants to achieve that status in the future.

 

We all agree that Lana is an extremely good looking woman if she wants to be. So, she got the looks to be a popstar but little else I'm afraid.

 

I came at peace with one thing regarding Lana: she will always be a sub-par performer. And it's not about her inability to dance or to do elaborate movements on stage but it's the lack of emotional involvement, expressiveness and the inability to sing constantly at high levels. She seems sometimes as she doesn't want to be on stage or that she doesn't take very seriously her live presentation. She's the only artist that I know who doesn't do encores and her shows are notoriously short. We forgive her for this shortcomings because we like her records, her voice and we look up her on the net just to see her pretty face. But I can't envision Lana anymore as a confident performer who can please a varied audience with her show.

 

"I'm overly shy" and "I'm crippled on stage" cannot be accepted anymore as excuses at this stage of her career. She had all the time needed to change her game, to improve her live presentation. But sometimes I have the feeling that she isn't that interested in that. Halsey is talking about a huge show at Coachella and what exactly did Lana there? She came out in a simple floral dress, took selfies with the first line of fans and smoked on stage. And still it was a success because there was a lot of hardcore fans who sang her songs more forcefully than she did (at Glast and GovBall she just fell flat). 

 

I think that she came to the realization that she just doesn't have the abilities and the drive to be a true popstar. Moreover, she is still very divisive, if she would raise her profile again in the mainstream media she will be attacked again and she's afraid of that. 

 

The real problem is that she is not Nina Simone either as you said. Lana's carreer is suspended between popstardom expectations and quality singer status which she fails to achieve yet. Let's face it, she needs to work on the quality of her music because a lot of people (even fans) don't consider her music as "quality music" despite her soaring scores on metacritic. That is why I said that she needs to take her time with the next album: she needs to come out with a quality album. 

 

In line with what I said earlier, I think that it would be a huge mistake from her to come out with a commercial album. She will not promote it properly as I don't think that we'll see ever Lana on TV or doing big oscar, mtv type of shows. She is older now and she is naturally losing her appeal to teens who are the main staple of commercial success. Simply put it, Lana as a pop star was killed and buried under UV and HM, albums that seemed like were designed to diminish her appeal to the GP. She lost a lot of her charisma by her insistence on subjects like death and she came out sometimes as ungrateful for her success. Moreover, she lost the fashion icon status she build up in 2012 and she's practically out from the conscience of the GP as she eschewed the mainstream media in the last 3 years of her career. So I don't see anything in her behavior pointing in the direction that she wants to be again in the limelight and to be frank even if she wants it she cannot be a successful pop star anymore in my opinion. 

 

As a fan I hope for a quality album from her with interesting lyrics and invested singing and not a misguided attempt to popstardom.

[slang 1,509]

Oh, and she needs to drop that "I'm a jazz singer now" -mentality. Like, nobody (or hardly anybody) is here for it. If I want to listen to jazz, I'll pick up some contemporary jazz records, not Lana Del Rey albums

where she just uses her laziness in lyricism for "jazz" Like zzzzzz-my fucking ass, bitch. Just because she is too lazy to come up with a proper lyric, she sings "aaaaaaa", "uuuuuuh" "ahaaaaaaaah".

 

No posts on Instagram will take away from the fact that this woman is for years constantly trolling her fanbase with lame excuses why she doesn't write as melodic songs like Video Games, Summertime Sadness and Blue Jeans anymore.

 

Enough of it. I don't wanna sit thorugh an album like Honeymüün again where is no excitement, no real hook, no anything except for cultivated boredom. We as a fanbase deserve way better than that. Without us, she wouldn't even be around.

 

She is a pop star. She signed up to be one. And she ain't no Nina Simone and will never be.

She needs to excite her fanbase and not let it rot away.

 

I agree that she's not a (contemporary) jazz singer, but if you were to put LDR songs in a play list with some your favorite Ella Fitzgerald songs the results would seem, IMO, more like a conversation among peers than it would with other popular singers of today (who may be more powerful or reliable at singing live, but also more robot like, imo). I also think the experimental things she does with her voice (e.g., MPG, OTTR, HM, Cola) qualifies her as jazz-like at least. But more properly, she's a slipstreamer like the people she headlines with at the festivals. And isn't it odd that she's headlining so many of them after what so many people are calling a flop album (which did relatively well in the alt-indie category)?

 

On the positive side: looks like she is over this era.

 

And I hope for the next one we will get more than just Instagram photos. She really gives these untalented brats like Halsey or Melanie Martinez way too much room.

 

Lana has starpower and she is charismatic. I hope she serves the right material and promotes it on TV and radio. There was an article recently where the industry is heading towards and one thing mentioned in there was

that artists who use Instagram as a promo tool, will soon fade away quickly.

I don't believe Instagram or social media promo are relevant to whether an artist will fade or not. They're just information/(indiscretion?) channels for an artist. The promoting via TV also seems kind of moot for me given I can see MPG at Carcassonne, Carmen at the Jazz Cafe, or Serial Killer live... on youtube, so while she's been "negligent" about TV promo, she hasn't exactly been out of touch promo wise. I'm hoping (praying to God actually) that continues for the upcoming festivals.

[leaked_version 10,498]

@@Flipflopfan: sorry, but we don't live in the time and age of great performers? Since when are Katy Perry or Taylor Swift or Selena Gomez great live performers? Lana has more stage presence than somebody like Selena Gomez. Even Lorde is horrible and Lana is way better than her. And great vocals and stage presence doesn't always translate into sales: see Demi Lovato or more recently, Lady Gaga.

 

Lana will lyrically never be in the league of artists like Nina Simone, Fiona Apple, Tori Amos or Kate Bush. I mean, even Tori can not reach the "wuthering heights" of Kate's lyricism. That is fine. Lana is a pop singer. The pretentiousness among some of her fans should not be her business. The vast majority wants a commercial sounding album in the vein of Born To Die.

 

@@slang: we've been there before: Lana is not an indie artist. She is signed to a major label and is a pop arist. HM is still under 700k and her streaming numbers are horrible (and streaming is the future of music). Just look how streaming has taken over physical and iTunes, Amazon and such. And compare that to the streaming numbers of Honeymoon.

 

I mean, I can also give you a great example of why it is that way. And quite frankly, it's the material. Should I go into details?

[Thunder Revenant 20,694]

Even though I agree that Lana is nowhere near an "Indie artist" status and I always facepalm when fans are talking about her being "jazz-like" (because doing some non-completely-pop-things borrowed from jazz music won't make you become a jazz singer), I also don't think she'll ever be a big popstar in the common sense (aka Terrible Swift, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Britney Spears etc) and I agree that she should focus on putting out high quality music.

She will NEVER be a big promoter, especially now that she found some kind of "excuse" for not promoting by uploading some boring videos to instagram. I also don't really know if I want a pure pop album from her and if a Born To Die 2.0. would work out at this point.

Her performances are nice but not spectacular and I guess they only fascinate people who are already liking her music (and are capable of blending out hundreds of   teen girls and gay men annoyingly singing along).

So yeah, I can not see Lana being a pop star in the traditional way. She was too controversial in order to get the status of a "not as mainstream quality singer", like Adele, whose records are hyped without her having to put up with any effort anymore.

So yeah, I think Lana should put effort in creating a good album, because in the end her music will matter the most for her career, as she's not really doing anything else with it. Since BtD we never got any exciting single treatment anymore so the initial record has to be great.
HM sucked because even each song had a high quality, it seems like she didn't bother to do but one same sound (and tempo) for the same record. Both UV and BtD were exciting and, even though cohesive, diversive in terms of sound. She has to return to this album quality, no matter if she does it in a more pop-ish or more alternative way, the important thing is that she's DOING it.

Oh, and I think she could have chances to become a fashion icon again, now that her looks keep improving more and more. However, this means she has to do much more (fashion) covershoots and care more for her outfits constantly.

[slang 1,509]

Lana will lyrically never be in the league of artists like Nina Simone, Fiona Apple, Tori Amos or Kate Bush. I mean, even Tori can not reach the "wuthering heights" of Kate's lyricism. That is fine. Lana is a pop singer. The pretentiousness among some of her fans should not be her business. The vast majority wants a commercial sounding album in the vein of Born To Die.

 

@@slang: we've been there before: Lana is not an indie artist. She is signed to a major label and is a pop arist. HM is still under 700k and her streaming numbers are horrible (and streaming is the future of music). Just look how streaming has taken over physical and iTunes, Amazon and such. And compare that to the streaming numbers of Honeymoon.

 

I mean, I can also give you a great example of why it is that way. And quite frankly, it's the material. Should I go into details?

 

Isn't Tame Impala on Interscope? Beck was also on Interscope (at least for a while). So it's not the label that defines the type of artist. I mean I don't consider the label; I consider the music. 

 

Streams: all I know is spotify, where HM (the album) is at 139 million streams and UV (standard edition) is at 288 million (this is just mousing over the bars for each track and adding integer millions in my head + number of tracks / 2 millions to approximate the info I ignore). All I can say is that this seems pretty good, at least relative to people that I consider pretty good (e.g., Kimbra, Grimes, Marina, Monae). And of course one could also look at streams for Fiona, Tori, Joni, and Kate. While I agree their lyrics are better than hers, if you just put theirs and hers side by side on paper, the issue of whether or not they are better when comparing songs side by side is a complex one for me.

 

BTW where do you get your album sales number for Honeymoon? Last I heard it was at 604k, but that was the end of January. The only way I know how to look for it is by googling this:

 

"@chartnews WW sales: @@lanadelrey, Honeymoon"

 

but @chartnews seems just a fan feed.

[leaked_version 10,498]

 

 

Isn't Tame Impala on Interscope? Beck was also on Interscope (at least for a while). So it's not the label that defines the type of artist. I mean I don't consider the label; I consider the music. 

 

Streams: all I know is spotify, where HM (the album) is at 139 million streams and UV (standard edition) is at 288 million (this is just mousing over the bars for each track and adding integer millions in my head + number of tracks / 2 millions to approximate the info I ignore). All I can say is that this seems pretty good, at least relative to people that I consider pretty good (e.g., Kimbra, Grimes, Marina, Monae). And of course one could also look at streams for Fiona, Tori, Joni, and Kate. While I agree their lyrics are better than hers, if you just put theirs and hers side by side on paper, the issue of whether or not they are better when comparing songs side by side is a complex one for me.

 

BTW where do you get your album sales number for Honeymoon? Last I heard it was at 604k, but that was the end of January. The only way I know how to look for it is by googling this:

 

"@chartnews WW sales: @@lanadelrey, Honeymoon"

 

but @chartnews seems just a fan feed.

 

Lana is not the same type of artist like Beck or Tame Impala. Lana has way more pop appeal than these two. Lana is placed somewhere between pop and alternative, leaning way more towards pop. Of course not pop like Katy Perry or Brittany, but compareable to Lorde, Halsey, Melanie Martinez and Ellie Goulding. Not Grimes, Marina, Kimbra or Monae. Lorde, Halsey, Melanie and Ellie are her close competition. The others are just girls that never happend or had small sized success, never leaving an impact on pop culture like Lana, never having an album that was selling huge numbers with several successful singles accross the globe.

The streaming numbers for UV are rahter meh, compared to HM they are almost sensational especially when you consider that streaming has literally exploded in popularity since 2015.

And then compare Lana's Spotify numbers to these girls and not "the old ladies" (with no disrespect) like Tori or Kate.

 

Yes, HM was at 604k in January. I doubt that it has sold 100k since then, that why I said still under 700k.

[kristinaj 1,166]

Tbh the thing that bothers me about Lana is her using the world 'blue' in so many of her songs. I get it that it's so ~jazzy~ but it's lazy to use it so much. I wish she read some Rimbaud or something for some inspo. She seems to be comfortable with the same tropes and motifs she's been using for years and it's kind of a shame that she doesn't want to improve and explore new areas

[BlueJeans 2,603]

Tbh the thing that bothers me about Lana is her using the world 'blue' in so many of her songs. I get it that it's so ~jazzy~ but it's lazy to use it so much. I wish she read some Rimbaud or something for some inspo. She seems to be comfortable with the same tropes and motifs she's been using for years and it's kind of a shame that she doesn't want to improve and explore new areas

 

On one hand, I find it great that she short of built her own universe with the same motives making appearances recurrently; it shows that she has a clear vision of what she likes. On the other hand, I agree that she could explore new themes ... 

[Thunder Revenant 20,694]

On one hand, I find it great that she short of built her own universe with the same motives making appearances recurrently; it shows that she has a clear vision of what she likes. On the other hand, I agree that she could explore new themes ... 

Having your own artistic universe is fine, but you should expand it.

Just look at all the unreleased songs: Of course they were never meant to be heard so they can't be counted for the "official LDR universe" but you can already find almost all of the tropes she explored so far within them, meaning she ticks to the same topics for at least 8 years now. Of course each album had it's own little thing going on, BtD was the romantic "Lolita in the hood" topic, Paradise had some more Americana stuff going on, UV was about being "the mistress on the side" for an abusive man and HM had some more "thoughtful" base, but in the end her themes are quite limited.

Not that I want her to sing a feminist anthem, but it would be a big progress if we had an album that's not mainly circled around relationships

[leaked_version 10,498]

Having your own artistic universe is fine, but you should expand it.

Just look at all the unreleased songs: Of course they were never meant to be heard so they can't be counted for the "official LDR universe" but you can already find almost all of the tropes she explored so far within them, meaning she ticks to the same topics for at least 8 years now. Of course each album had it's own little thing going on, BtD was the romantic "Lolita in the hood" topic, Paradise had some more Americana stuff going on, UV was about being "the mistress on the side" for an abusive man and HM had some more "thoughtful" base, but in the end her themes are quite limited.

Not that I want her to sing a feminist anthem, but it would be a big progress if we had an album that's not mainly circled around relationships

I don't even think it's the topics. Many, many songwriters use the same topics, mostly songs about love and doomed relationships.

 

The problem is the songwriting itself by now. Her songs used to tell little stories, they had charme and the lyrics were flowing so well. The structure was also more interesting. They exploded in the chorus and had amazing bridges like in Blue Jeans (one of the best bridges in pop in the last 5 years or so in my humble opion).

 

I'll give you an example to compare. The difference in songwriting is quite evident.

Video Games

 

It's you, it's you, it's all for you

Everything I do

I tell you all the time

Heaven is a place on earth with you

Tell me all the things you want to do

I heard that you like the bad girls

Honey, is that true?

It's better than I ever even knew

They say that the world was built for two

Only worth living if somebody is loving you

Baby now you do

 

and then:

 

Our honeymoon

Our honeymoon

Our honeymoon

 

Say you want me too

Say you want me too

Dark blue

Dark blue

[Amadeus 11,293]

I don't even think it's the topics. Many, many songwriters use the same topics, mostly songs about love and doomed relationships.

 

The problem is the songwriting itself by now. Her songs used to tell little stories, they had charme and the lyrics were flowing so well. The structure was also more interesting. They exploded in the chorus and had amazing bridges like in Blue Jeans (one of the best bridges in pop in the last 5 years or so in my humble opion).

And it's not just the lyrics, it's also the melodies. yes she landed a good song with terrence loves you when it comes to building a somehow interesting melody but she cant fill a complete album with slow "jazzy" songs like terrence loves you. the melodies of her other songs are just as repetitive as her lyrics. just look at the video games and honeymoon choruses again, the melody in video games is "exciting" and tells a story (especially together with the lyrics) then you have the monotone honeymoon chorus. 

 

it bothers me so much how many fans label honeymoon as some "artistic jazzy peak" in lanas career (??)

she could've put starry eyed with its repeated first chorus on honeymoon and no one would have noticed how lazy that song (as a finished product) would be!

[Thunder Revenant 20,694]

I don't even think it's the topics. Many, many songwriters use the same topics, mostly songs about love and doomed relationships.

 

The problem is the songwriting itself by now. Her songs used to tell little stories, they had charme and the lyrics were flowing so well. The structure was also more interesting. They exploded in the chorus and had amazing bridges like in Blue Jeans (one of the best bridges in pop in the last 5 years or so in my humble opion).

 

I'll give you an example to compare. The difference in songwriting is quite evident.

Video Games

 

It's you, it's you, it's all for you

Everything I do

I tell you all the time

Heaven is a place on earth with you

Tell me all the things you want to do

I heard that you like the bad girls

Honey, is that true?

It's better than I ever even knew

They say that the world was built for two

Only worth living if somebody is loving you

Baby now you do

 

and then:

 

Our honeymoon

Our honeymoon

Our honeymoon

 

Say you want me too

Say you want me too

Dark blue

Dark blue

 

Well, I think that comparison is kind of unfair since you can do a vice versa comparison by picking any less interesting lyric from BtD and compare it to a better one of HM, but yeah, I get what you want.

I actually don't have any problems with the chorus not having to much lyical content, there are a lot of great songs which chorus just contains one sentence that''s repeated or something like that.

I guess it's just the overall "wording".

BtD had songs that really had a lot of text compared to HM. Ultraviolence had songs that had more simple lyrics, but in this case they were focussed on transmitting an atmosphere or her vocal qualities.

But on HM, it often seems that there is no focus on neither the lyrics nor the atmosphere or delivery, no stunning lyricism nor exploding choruses or instrumentals that are pushing any boundaries. Every song is a nice song, but they often make you expect that the next song on the album will be a different one again, which ios sadly not really the case. It's like Lana got inspired by Adele's "I'm not gonna do ANYTHING new or diverse" mentality, the problem just is that unlike with Adele, people will not buy Lana's stuff without listening to it.

[slang 1,509]

I don't even think it's the topics. Many, many songwriters use the same topics, mostly songs about love and doomed relationships.

 

The problem is the songwriting itself by now. Her songs used to tell little stories, they had charme and the lyrics were flowing so well. The structure was also more interesting. They exploded in the chorus and had amazing bridges like in Blue Jeans (one of the best bridges in pop in the last 5 years or so in my humble opion).

 

I'll give you an example to compare. The difference in songwriting is quite evident.

Video Games

 

It's you, it's you, it's all for you

Everything I do

I tell you all the time

Heaven is a place on earth with you

Tell me all the things you want to do

I heard that you like the bad girls

Honey, is that true?

It's better than I ever even knew

They say that the world was built for two

Only worth living if somebody is loving you

Baby now you do

 

and then:

 

Our honeymoon

Our honeymoon

Our honeymoon

 

Say you want me too

Say you want me too

Dark blue

Dark blue

To think this all started when you were just suggesting her instagrams were ineffectual and irrelevant promo, and now look how we've derailed the thread. But I can't let the comparison between HM and VG slide. You are comparing the the faster part of a ballad to the slow part of a slow song, where she's singing at Gregorian-chant pace and style! Why would you expect the lyrical complexity of the two lyric samples to be the same? However, I agree that the lyrics in BTD were more dense and more narrative, but a fairer comparison would be the VG chorus to the HM bridge. I also would have liked @@Body Electric 's response to your comparison, but man, did he have to slam HM's production so hard? I mean some people actually like it. :~)

 

Perhaps something more thread related (but still not quite on topic, because it doesn't involve her "travels"): Does anybody else think LDR may have shaded Elvis Costello a bit in the lanadelrey instagram caption for the Ohana festival. I mean the shade would be implicit by not mentioning him (and the fact that she headlines just above him in all annoucments sort of made me feel uncomfortable, lol). He is a retro-giant in the pop literature and hugely influential, and hugely interesting, imo. So I find it surprising she didn't mention him. Maybe she's pissed that he filled her spot on David Letterman (that time she canceled), or maybe she just doesn't know about him or doesn't like him musically (either would surprise the heck out of me)?

[Creyk 11,497]

OMG all this in-depth discussion on Lana's carreer on this page is so damn interesting.

It's interesting to read so much criticism towards her, and while I agree with everything Leaked Version, in the sense that it would be the best thing in the world if she put out a Born To Die 2.0, a commercial record and promoted it everywhere, I'm also very satisfied with what we have now. All songs on Honeymoon are fantastic, and she is already working on new music, meaning we will get even more amazing material from her. As long as she keeps serving music often I'll be happy to follow her, and I really want her to release in Q4 this year, maybe in november or early next year. It doesn't matter that much how successful the albums will be simply because the music is just so on point that is all I care about.

Does she have potential for so much more? Oh yes, loads loads more. She could be bigger than most pop stars. But is it a tragedy that it's not happening? No, not really.

[Tristesse 1,761]

stupidity all over da place *sigh*