Lana Del Rey - Norman Fucking Rockwell (2019)

totally agree re: hope. it didn't do much for me before but it got me a little choked up when i heard it at the end of the album

Well it was certainly a weird track to release as a single, even without listening to the rest of the album.
That said, "Venice Bitch" was also a weird choice if you consider its length, especially in today's 3min tracks culture !

Does the album keep the full jam at the end or is it shorter?

it's the same length

'hope is a dangerous thing' is one of my favorite songs of hers, the lyrics are incredible.

the pre-chorus on fuck it i love you is so lush and beautiful, i just wish the actual hook was stronger

Au contraire: "Bartender" boasts some of the album's sharpest lyrics.

Yeah the pre-chorus on "FIILU" is the best part of the song (but the part right before, in a kinda of staccato, is also great to enhance the rhythmic contrast of the song).

Goddamn it Alfred, when you're right, you're right.

the stutter in that song is such a great choice

Yes! Unexpected.

The first verse of "Bartender" is like a particularly vicious parody of Joni Mitchell. And just in general this album is a master class in how to record vocals.

Yeah on the whole this is her best album.

I think the mix on Venice bitch is slightly different but only barely

I haven't found quite the words to articulate this yet, but the lyrics on this one just feel much more consistent and contiguous than ever before, less shticky/persona-driven than anything she's done before. Not just the contemporary references (although the Kanye kiss-off is very satisfying), but the constant circling back to a couple of main themes, esp the simultaneous allure and terror of retrograde romantic ideals, as well as the scattered references to alcoholism and recovery. It's truly affecting, not simply affected!

(although the Kanye kiss-off is very satisfying)

Was that line - "black narcissist" - about him? I thought it was about Azealia Banks...

she's said the "black narcissist" line (thankfully) explicitly does not refer to race, I think that's just a metaphor for her own bad impulses. "The Greatest" features the line "Kanye West is blonde and gone."

I’ve never paid much attention to LDR after ILX clowned Video Games so severely out of the gates, but Venice Bitch is such a good song. That vulnerability and longing in her voice on the chorus is something else. Where do I go next?

Work your way back.

Yeah, honestly just start with this one (out Friday if you're not into l33ks)

Album ranking:

Norman Fucking Rockwell
Ultraviolence
Honeymoon
Lust For Life
Born To Die: The Paradise Edition

The timing is perfect to release such a great album. This might just cement her as a top 3 artist of the 2010’s in the inevitable decade revision. She was consistent throughout the decade, her lows weren’t abysmal and she’s closing the year with what feels like a mature statement record.

I honestly didn’t think she had such an album in her after “lust for life” which felt to me like her blandest record.

(xpost) I'd agree with that ranking. Make sure you do listen to the Paradise Edition though because it has Ride on it which is one of her all time best songs.

"her lows weren’t abysmal"

well her SNL performance was but maybe people don't remember that so much now.

it's interesting (to me anyway) to compare/contrast this album and her career with Marina Diamandas'; they both started out around the same time with slightly similar types of debuts, but where Marina's output has gotten (IMO) worse with each release, culminating in an incredibly dull and boring 'adult' sounding album this year, LDR also has released what might be called an 'adult' album but it's , well, not boring. Not sure where I'm going with that but it crossed my mind just now.

I honestly didn’t think she had such an album in her after “lust for life” which felt to me like her blandest record.

The curse of Sean Lennon.

I might be the only person who kind of loves that song lol

I'm sure Yoko likes it.

I like LFL better than most; perhaps the surfeit of guests softened it.

Xxxpost: oh yeah that SNL performance is a potential career killer but SNL usually has some terrible performances, I wonder why it is? Tight rehearsal times? Lack of monitor speakers, terrible engineers?

Maybe they provide some bad quality drugs backstage.

shitty sound in their setup is (or used to be) a common complaint

not that i really give a shit about her politics but theres still something validating abt her worldview seeming as facile to me as her music

I prefer Lust For Life over Honeymoon

I can't argue w/ unperson's ranking. Born to Die really has not aged well for me, for the most part.

I prefer Lust For Life over Honeymoon

― Mario Meatwagon (Moodles),

same

I bet Stevie NIcks kicks herself every morning for never coming up with "Beautiful People Beautiful Problems."

Bartender has a very beautiful melody, as does NFR. I do think having so many excellent songs released far in advance throws the listening experience off, somewhat.

"My baby used to dance underneath my architecture"-- what an opening line...

This is wonderful all the way through, but not better than Ultraviolence or Honeymoon for me yet. Her cover of Doin' Time is such an outrageous flex...

born to die still pwns yall are nuts

It's a great album though I'd snip some songs off it and it certainly sounds of a time.

NFR and Ultraviolence are pretty easily her two best, the other three are all quite inconsistent but have their moments. i'd probably put Lust for Life as her worst since it's way too long and has some real clunkers on it

For the unitiated she has the best, most popular pile of unreleased songs of any artist i've ever heard of, some gold in here, especially Pawn Shop Blues and Serial Killer which she plays a lot live

https://nylon.com/articles/best-unreleased-lana-del-rey-songs

Driving in cars with boys is still one of her greatest songs.

not that i really give a shit about her politics but theres still something validating abt her worldview seeming as facile to me as her music

I don't know of any American pop stars with non-facile politics, but this is a good quote imo

In reply to a photo of West in a MAGA hat, Del Rey said that Trump's election was "a loss for the country," but that West's support of Trump was "a loss for the culture."

Prior to that, she had performed at West's wedding to Kim Kardashian.

"Lana Del Rey on Trump, Kanye and the Right Time for a Protest Song"

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/28/arts/music/lana-del-rey-norman-rockwell-album.html

The first verse of "Bartender" is like a particularly vicious parody of Joni Mitchell.

― shared unit of analysis (unperson), Wednesday, August 28, 2019 12:56 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Lol is it now?

I don't hear it as parody. She's revisiting some of her motifs to show how some things never change.

yeah I mean she uses all sorts of Cali iconography all the time, if anything it seems like a shot at the Coachella crowd still dressing like Laurel Canyon

The video version of "Doin' Time" adds what every Sublime cover needs: a 45-second string interlude

https://youtu.be/qolmz4FlnZ0

The beats in Doin' Time are bad. It didn't really bother me when I listened to it in isolation but it sticks out like a sore thumb in the context of the album.

I don’t know how anything sticks out on any of her albums it’s all one long gauzy monorhythmic ig vacation phitkb