Lana Del Rey's Impact

[reputation 6,321]

You should watch the videos Lana Del Rey herself made for her album Lana Del Ray, they're really good

 

I have, but making a video of yourself isn't some original idea. beyonce didnt even use 60's footage

[sparklrtrailrheaven 9,063]

 

the good sis bey saw the HM vid before it leaked!!

 

leak ha telephone calls so we can hear lana letting bey get insp. from ha video

[annedauphine 35,902]

I have, but making a video of yourself isn't some original idea. beyonce didnt even use 60's footage

It's more the whole vibe and the gungy low-fi feeling and the association of footage of herself set in a scene and adding elements like this, not about the vintage nature of the footage itself but making it look like it is, idk saying that it doesn't remind at all of Lana is a big stretch imho

[Masochism 15,400]

i think, i dont know if im wrong, that nicole dollanganger is inspired by lana too

[AKASAKA SAWAYAMA 7,885]

she invented music!

[Thunder Revenant 20,945]

A lot of stuff around here is a bit of ... reaching, BtD definitly fueld the retro stuff, I remember multiple fashion magazines and commercials using her style. This one for example

But not everything involving home.made content or anything retro is influenced by Lana. And if artists sound alike, this CAN be because one is an inspiration for another, it can be coincidence aswell. And please guys ... just because Lana uses some words as lyrics, it does not mean that everyone else using them is influenced by her. Same thing with Lolita references, sugar daddies etc

[leaked_version 10,499]

Lana created the human kind, so it is no surprise that she has impacted basically everything.

[Cashew 1,825]

I never heard anyone compare Bey's self titled album to Lana. Also haven't seen any comparisons between Miley's album and Ultraviolence. Does anyone have any links to these comparisons cuz Im interested to see what they say 

[TRENCH 15,450]

Thank you for making this, I've noticed that a lot of artists have borrowed something from Lana and the imagery she uses in small ways

[PARADIXO 32,942]

Good kid MAAD city should be included. It revived authentic hip hop

 

Yeah I thought about it but I think Kanye and Drake were much more impactful in general. Kendrick kind of made a whole image and sound for himself and really no one is doing what he does, that's why he's so unique unlike the other two.

[PARADIXO 32,942]

A lot of stuff around here is a bit of ... reaching, BtD definitly fueld the retro stuff, I remember multiple fashion magazines and commercials using her style. This one for example

But not everything involving home.made content or anything retro is influenced by Lana. And if artists sound alike, this CAN be because one is an inspiration for another, it can be coincidence aswell. And please guys ... just because Lana uses some words as lyrics, it does not mean that everyone else using them is influenced by her. Same thing with Lolita references, sugar daddies etc

 

I do believe some things are just "reaching".

 

However, the artists themselves aren't necessarily influenced by Lana directly. It could be the songwriter, producer, photographer etc. Those are the ones that actually catch up with what's "trendy".

[Macintosh Manhattan 6,511]

I remember back when gaga blew up every musician/artist/pop star its seems were wearing weird shit and trying to be quirky in an OTT manner. Then when Lana came on the scene everything changed over night basically. Music became slower more sinister and more serious. Same goes for fashion.

I really do think that's why albums like ARTPOP during that time flopped. No one wanted OTT anymore. They wanted someone who was serious and  who was different but in another type of way. That person was/is Lana....

[slang 1,532]

Let me apologize in advance for tldr, but in broad strokes she's had several different kinds of impacts:

 

To Pop music: Attention to detail, as in lush orchestrations, melody, emotional expression in melody, and the patience and confidence to go slow. Details are also historical in the sense that she is the fan of older-era music and thinks that there is more to be mined there in terms of extending styles and in terms of dropping references. She's certainly not the first artist to do any of these things, of course. I think she shares with Kate Bush a kind of courage to break from the mainstream and a conviction to do the kind of stuff she likes, and as with Kate Bush, to the extent she succeeds, she encourages other artists to do the same. Also as with Kate Bush, her videography is significant. Comparing LDR's videos to others often seems like comparing The Seventh Seal to The Revenge of the Nerds pt. 3.

 

To Music criticism: BTD debunked music criticism in the sense of showing the critical community could be against something that the general public actually liked. In effect, the critical community could not predict or understand why people liked her music, and as such showed itself woefully deficient at doing their jobs. The issue of "authenticity", while people made a big deal of it, always seemed to me to be a red herring. It was the singing and the music, not an implied message or musical pedigree, that people responded to (and critics did not). I recommend looking at the Tiny Mixtapes reviews of BTD, UV, and HM to see an especially eventful evolution in a critical opinion of her. 

 

To Feminism: I think when the smoke clears it will be the case that LDR's ambivalent stance on feminism actually made her a feminism poster-girl, simply because she did all the stuff expected from males but got blamed for it far more than they did. As such she implicitly defines someone who should be given positive attention by feminists, not negative. Liz Phair made this point about LDR well before LDR's feminism-quote faux pas (I wonder if she still holds that opinion). Another way of stating the argument is this: LDR has songs where she's hung up on a guy, but you don't think Van Halen, Chris Isaak, Frank Sinatra (or countless others) have similar amounts of songs about obsessive love interests? Well if you're ragging on her but not them, then you are in some sense anti-feminist by not supporting gender-irrelevancy in freedom of choice for (legal) human behavior. I think videos like Ride complicate the issue, but they don't undermine them. There the issue is whether art has any moral or social obligation to promote feminism, or any other kind of humanism or pro-social cause, no matter what. Certainly a lot of art does this, and that's fine, but the deeper issue is whether it's a requirement for something to be art (e.g., a lot of people think Nabokov's Lolita is a great book, but the book was still banned by some on moral grounds and/or was not considered art by some).

 

Shout out to Morrissey: I might cite this guy as an "influence" on LDR, but in fact he is just a great precursor with respect to her, meaning he's similar to LDR, imo, but much much more extreme on certain dimensions of behavior. It is therefore interesting to compare his experiences with the media with LDR's. I think he's a great singer/songwriter. He's also sadcore like LDR yet more often upbeat musically. However, his sadcore lyrically is so much more extreme than LDR's, that he's one of the reasons I don't get why people refer to LDR's songs as being sad (I mean compared to him, LDR seems closer to Kimbra). He's also VERY unfiltered with respect to what he will say to the media on issues that are important to him. In particular his comments on suicide are just mind-boggling (e.g., "it's admirable" though he would not elect to do so himself--Larry King 2015 about 16:30 into the interview, and he was one of the few people, in 1995, to have ever said he admired Kurt Cobain's suicide). He is an acknowledged depressive, so the media goes easy on him. He is male too, of course, and I suspect that also helped him. He doesn't like current pop. Larry King 2015 asked him about Sam Smith and Noel Gallagher (17:30) into the interview, he basically declined from saying anything other than he didn't like anything at all; however, when Larry asked him about Sinatra, Morrisey did a shout out to Nancy Sinatra, which makes me wonder how he would have responded if Larry had asked about LDR. Probably very disdainfully, but we'll probably never know.

 

Just some minor quibbles.

 

Chris Isaak on the influencee list: I recall LDR being compared to CI many times but not the other way around. I vaguely remember a video interview where LDR said she liked him (around the same time I heard about the French referring to LDR as CI's "granddaughter"--wish I could find the cite for that). I think it makes perfect sense that LDR would like CI quite a lot, as he's kind of an evolved Elvis, and CI cites Elvis as a major influence.

 

Name Dropping as an LDR influence on others: I see LDR's name dropping as part of her assimilation of a general hip-hop/rap influence where name dropping is common (e.g. Tyler the Creator dropping Bruno Mars' name in Yonkers, in 2011). I give LDR credit for doing name-dropping especially good, though sadly she does this the best in her unreleased  (e.g., Last Girl on Earth, Axl Rose Husband). On the other hand, it may be the case that name-dropping became more popular in pop after her, idk.

 

Lana bringing retro back: I think both LDR and Adele have cited Amy Winehouse as the main influence on that. But ditto my last "on the other hand".

[yourgirlcorny 132]

Life imitates Art  

[missdelreyxo 3,786]

Rihanna's needed me video was a direct rip off

 

And Taylor swifts entire 1989 album

 

 

Halsey new Americana trashhhh

[cashcomesquick 5,381]

The lyrics of Rihanna's Love on the brain could be written by Lana

[VioletsnRoses 50]

I thought I was the only one who caught onto this, Lana's impact I mean. I noticed that a lot of pop artists have quitted the quirky and vibrant image and now the music is a little bit moodier and serious. And don't forget the slew of concept albums (or wannabe concept albums) that are comming out now. Ok maybe not a whole bunch, but almost every alt girl has some sort huge concept in their album, something we weren't seeing a whole bunch prior to Lana. Lana has sort of kicked off the whole "I'm broken and messed up" theme that we see from Melanie Martinez, and Halsey ( and to an extent Tove Lo) I'm also kinda done with it too. (Lana and Tove Lo are the exceptions) But that's just my take on it.

[nationalxanthem 1,308]

lana DEFINITELY played a huge role in the whole "daddy" thing. her impact with that was immense

[Jazzmin 302]

In this review Mylène Farmer's song, "City of Love" is said to be (sonically) reminiscent of Lana's "Radio". What do you think of it?

i think, i dont know if im wrong, that nicole dollanganger is inspired by lana too

She likes Lana's music, or at least she did up to 2 years ago - that I know for sure. After that, I don't know if she ever said anything about Lana's music. Plus, she's been getting compared with Lana a lot back since her bedroom recorded songs era, for example in terms of her voice (which, obviously, isn't a valid reason to think she's inspired by Lana but doesn't rule it out either).

My personal theory is, maybe Nicole's music would be slightly different, had she never heard of Lana since each and every piece of art you like imprints on the artist you become; but, as said, to a very minuscule extent. Thing is, Nicole's and Lana's favorite stuff sometimes overlap, making it hard to trace whether the use of Americana motifs on "Natural Born Losers" is determined in some way by Lana's obsessive Americanness. (Which, once again, strikes up comparisons.)

In other words, I think Nicole is often inspired by the same elements of the (pop)culture that Lana is and not so much by Lana herself.
Nicole mentions Type O Negative and Marilyn Manson as her biggest inspirations - so even if Lana is one of her inspirations, she's a less significant one.

I don't profess to be a ND expert, though, so correct me if it's all bullshit xD .

[dandelion 19]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQmYVfHrNxA

The beginning of the song reminds me of the beginning of Dark Paradise and some critics compared the song to Lana.

 

Also

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Of5IEnv_yH4

Many people compared the visuals to something Lana would do. One of the top comments says "i thought i was looking at a lana del rey music video".