Liz Phair brings...something:
http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2012/02/04/liz-phair-on-why-lana-del-rey-scares-rocks-boys-club/
Let me break it down for you: she’s writing herself into existence. She’s giving herself a part to play because, God knows, no one else will and she wants to matter in this life. As far as I can tell, it’s working. I went straight to iTunes and bought her new release “Born To Die” in toto (how often do I do that??) because it was more than a collection of songs or a performance, it was a phenomenon. Maybe all the more so because she’s not overwhelmingly talented.
― Ned Raggett, Sunday, 5 February 2012 22:21 (twelve years ago) link
hats off Ms Phair. she's Number 1 in the UK album chart as of this evening and the album's outstripping the rest of the Top Five put together with 117,000 sales in a week. a phenomenon indeed as the good lady points out.
― piscesx, Sunday, 5 February 2012 22:29 (twelve years ago) link
Maybe all the more so because she’s not overwhelmingly talented.
good backhanded compliment
― I DIED, Sunday, 5 February 2012 22:31 (twelve years ago) link
She bought the album though.
― Tired of these edcuated basic bitches. (lilsoulbrother), Sunday, 5 February 2012 22:33 (twelve years ago) link
'I don't think I'll write another record. What would I say? I feel like everything I wanted to say, I've said already.' ^feel like this was something liz phair should have said at one point.
― omar little, Sunday, 5 February 2012 22:33 (twelve years ago) link
i fucking love liz phair
― first period don't give a fuck, second period gon get cut (lex pretend), Sunday, 5 February 2012 22:56 (twelve years ago) link
(which i didn't really do before)
takes one to know one huh
― call all destroyer, Sunday, 5 February 2012 23:04 (twelve years ago) link
A comment from Facebook: "Liz's quote reads so much better when using your best Troy McClure voice."
― Ned Raggett, Sunday, 5 February 2012 23:18 (twelve years ago) link
on the bus, homeless-seeming guy talking to his buddy across the aisle:
"i'm watching this kid play video gaaaames. never was into video games myself. kind of bores me."
― Little GTFO (contenderizer), Sunday, 5 February 2012 23:19 (twelve years ago) link
haha xp
― iatee, Sunday, 5 February 2012 23:19 (twelve years ago) link
spoken like a true PR
― first period don't give a fuck, second period gon get cut (lex pretend), Sunday, 5 February 2012 23:46 (twelve years ago) link
idk why anyone is bothered by how much anyone sells
does it make it better for you? worse?
― first period don't give a fuck, second period gon get cut (lex pretend), Sunday, 5 February 2012 23:47 (twelve years ago) link
remember when albums could sell a million copies on the week of their release? sigh.
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Saturday, February 4, 2012 2:15 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
it happened last year! twice (almost)!
― some dude, Monday, 6 February 2012 01:37 (twelve years ago) link
feeling pretty prescient about my liz phair parallel way upthread now
― some dude, Monday, 6 February 2012 01:38 (twelve years ago) link
― some dude, Sunday, February 5, 2012 7:37 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
who?
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Monday, 6 February 2012 03:35 (twelve years ago) link
when a critic is reduced to using feminism to defend an artist, you can know they're really bad
― lifestyle porn (the kid), Monday, 6 February 2012 03:45 (twelve years ago) link
can someone esplain this "flag post" thing to me?
― Little GTFO (contenderizer), Monday, 6 February 2012 04:26 (twelve years ago) link
Lady Gaga and (almost) Lil Wayne.
― jaymc, Monday, 6 February 2012 05:22 (twelve years ago) link
Flag Post
― jaymc, Monday, 6 February 2012 05:23 (twelve years ago) link
the kid
― ⚓ (gr8080), Monday, 6 February 2012 06:49 (twelve years ago) link
She kinda reminds me of Emmylou Harris. Or Christine McVie.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFujVHeQJ0Yhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIKkveUcBPc
There's obviously a lot more going on in the LDR image, but its got that same kind of slightly vague glassy eyed affect. Sort of coked out cocktail pop with an immaculately maintained surface sheen. Gives me that same feeling as a lot of late 70s pop of this deeply loathsome and twisted emotional life buffed and perfected into consumable form.
Like Christine McVie's songs on Tusk, there's just an emptiness that I find really interesting. Its pretty difficult to smuggle that kind of desolation into people's lives via pop. A completely different sound but very similar vibe. Laurel Canyon pushed through distant memories of the Sneaker Pimps or Shirley Manson.
Think Emmylou far outshines her as a vocalist though. And Christine too.
The character she plays seems like it would be at home at the same parties that they went to.
― pattern loader, Monday, 6 February 2012 10:25 (twelve years ago) link
I feel really badly for the woman whose art is getting shredded on this thread and elsewhere BTW.
― pattern loader, Monday, 6 February 2012 10:43 (twelve years ago) link
Liz Phair is used to it by now...
― Mark G, Monday, 6 February 2012 10:58 (twelve years ago) link
Probably why she feels some empathy for her.
I've got no love for the tumblr PR machine though, get sick watching both it and the backlash. Churnalism and snark, you can have it all back thanks. I'm going to keep listening to this and the Weeknd though.
― pattern loader, Monday, 6 February 2012 11:20 (twelve years ago) link
Gives me that same feeling as a lot of late 70s pop of this deeply loathsome and twisted emotional life buffed and perfected into consumable form.Like Christine McVie's songs on Tusk, there's just an emptiness that I find really interesting. Its pretty difficult to smuggle that kind of desolation into people's lives via pop. A completely different sound but very similar vibe. Laurel Canyon pushed through distant memories of the Sneaker Pimps or Shirley Manson.
Raymond Carver pop?
― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Monday, 6 February 2012 11:48 (twelve years ago) link
It could be, its music that seems to be intensely aware of the consequences of excess.
I like the Weeknd's Thursday mix tape for the same reason, its not about how great the party is, its about the downside of the pills and the liquor. About the numbness, the desperate search for real emotional connections.
It seems like everyone I've known who partied like that was trying to slap a patch on genuine problems.
― pattern loader, Monday, 6 February 2012 12:21 (twelve years ago) link
99% of people i've known who party like that do so because they are genuine hedonists
― first period don't give a fuck, second period gon get cut (lex pretend), Monday, 6 February 2012 12:25 (twelve years ago) link
i agree with you about the numbness of LDR though. i think it's less to do with partying in her case and more to do with neediness, with the desire to please - that's the drug in her case. those people whose permanent need to be in a relationship or to be loved by someone seems to mask a discomfort about only having themselves for company
― first period don't give a fuck, second period gon get cut (lex pretend), Monday, 6 February 2012 12:28 (twelve years ago) link
Cleverest thing she could do now: kill off LDR at the end of the year and came back with a completely different name and style. A new identity every two years.
― Suede - the fabric, not the band (DL), Monday, 6 February 2012 12:34 (twelve years ago) link
i was totally thinking that the other day! it makes sense, if the whole LDR thing is a character or a project, how much mileage can there be in it anyway? can you sustain a character experiment over a whole career?
― first period don't give a fuck, second period gon get cut (lex pretend), Monday, 6 February 2012 12:36 (twelve years ago) link
i was also wondering how the whole project would have been received if LDR was a girl group (following up some thoughts in some other thread about how many girl groups seem to be vehicles for woman to say certain things, play certain roles and dabble in certain archetypes that they might not feel able to as solo artists)
― first period don't give a fuck, second period gon get cut (lex pretend), Monday, 6 February 2012 12:37 (twelve years ago) link
I think you're probably right about the Lana character, Lex.
Lots of lyrics about loving "you" forever, until the day I die, etc.
Which seem a little bit more chilling than they would in a normal pop context, and I come at Video Games as being a narrative of a woman who has that need for a relationship being trapped with a man who's emotionally immature. Seems pretty true to life to me.
And every homeless drunk is a hedonist, just without the glamour.
― pattern loader, Monday, 6 February 2012 12:45 (twelve years ago) link
wasn't her music pretty much the same as lizzy grant? seems like this is pretty much her one big idea/aesthetic and just because people play up the 'character' aspect of it doesn't mean she's got a david bowie bag of personas.
― some dude, Monday, 6 February 2012 13:57 (twelve years ago) link
well it's a rough guide as to how many people are listening to her, which in this case seems to be quite a lot! on this little island, at least.
― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Monday, 6 February 2012 17:58 (twelve years ago) link
idk why lex is bothered by how much anyone talks about how much anyone sells
― some dude, Monday, 6 February 2012 18:02 (twelve years ago) link
wasn't her music pretty much the same as lizzy grant?
the david kahne album was more straightforward, with generally less bland lyrics and way less produced. it almost sounds like a more mature album on the whole.
― akm, Monday, 6 February 2012 18:25 (twelve years ago) link
ok i mean i haven't heard the earlier stuff i was just going off that blockhead piece where he talked about working with her before and how that whole aesthetic was fully formed before the name change
― some dude, Monday, 6 February 2012 18:31 (twelve years ago) link
was just doing a search on amazon for books about "grant making," this was the first result:http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51LVXN2nnfL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_AA278_PIkin4,BottomRight,-34,22_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg
― congratulations (n/a), Monday, 6 February 2012 21:36 (twelve years ago) link
ebook seo spam, what a world
― Critique of Pure Moods (goole), Monday, 6 February 2012 21:37 (twelve years ago) link
lightening
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Monday, 6 February 2012 22:06 (twelve years ago) link
are they saying she's passing?
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Monday, 6 February 2012 22:07 (twelve years ago) link
LDR is sooooooo january.
― scott seward, Monday, 6 February 2012 23:56 (twelve years ago) link
Now I'm trying to think of an Andrew WK parallel.
― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Tuesday, 7 February 2012 01:05 (twelve years ago) link
this might me break my moratorium on linking to LDR pieces on twitter
http://tigerbeatdown.com/2012/02/07/i-sing-video-games-for-the-fourteen-year-old-girl-i-once-was/
― first period don't give a fuck, second period gon get cut (lex pretend), Tuesday, 7 February 2012 17:36 (twelve years ago) link
More than anything, I am perplexed at the sheer volume of words LDR has thus far begat.
― le ralliement du doute et de l'erreur (Michael White), Tuesday, 7 February 2012 17:48 (twelve years ago) link
Another dude says she kind of wants to sound like the music Angelo Badalamenti and David Lynch wrote for Twin Peaks. While I amuse myself with dudes who disapprove, I am alarmed by this one comparison. Because our culture is already rife with instances of young girls abused, raped and murdered, like Laura Palmer was in Lynch’s series. Is that the kind of fantasy Lana Del Rey evokes in these dudes? Is this the scenery she inspires?
Maybe because it's the scenery she explicitly references in her music, lyrics, photo shoots and interviews?
― Suede - the fabric, not the band (DL), Tuesday, 7 February 2012 17:50 (twelve years ago) link
hey guys i have this cool idea i'd like to base my art on. something in suburbia is..... ROTTEN and TWISTED. like you think everything's all perfect, but under the surface it's not! in reality the "perfect" families lead numbing, rote lives - imagine a long shot of a lawn sprinkler, just spricketing away, untended. and there's a dead body on the lawn! how long has it been there?? who knows! maybe the guy's just sleeping, like eventually he wakes up and walks away, drenched. because in suburbia there's no difference between life and death! that would be the messages of that shot. plus, no one in suburbia communicates! even if the guy WAS dead, no one would even notice. cause they're hollow inside. i'm gonna go to the big city. get the first bus out of town. i can't stand this place! you have to come with me or you'll break my heart. come with me. come with me and we can make a movie together about this place.
― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 7 February 2012 18:01 (twelve years ago) link
or, as you put it more succintly earlier:
Raymond Carver pop? though maybe Cheever has a place therein as well.
― le ralliement du doute et de l'erreur (Michael White), Tuesday, 7 February 2012 18:14 (twelve years ago) link