Lana Del Rey - Norman Fucking Rockwell (2019)

Cynicism = bad faith; using scorn, sardonicism, etc to mask an essential sentimentality. She has flaws, but I never got that from LDR.

Bowie’s a decent comparison tbh

― omar little, Wednesday,

No it's not! Only briefly (1983-1987) did I think Bowie indulged in bad faith. So many of his strategies are to project beyond his physical ability to care like the soul singers he loves.

maybe cynical is the wrong word, or i don't define it that way.

Or, rather, I should say that LDR, Bowie, and Ferry have much in common but cynicism has fuck all to do with it.

Too often "cynical" means "bitter" or "sarcastic" when those words are consequences not ends.

i was thinking more as "a winking manipulation"--basically the knowledge that she has her audience and the press in the palm of her hand, and leaves them lyrical catnip.

Every cynic I know wishes the world were a better place, which only a fucking sentimentalist would believe.

I only agree with the Bowie comparison strictly artistically, not the cynicism!

i was thinking more as "a winking manipulation"--basically the knowledge that she has her audience and the press in the palm of her hand, and leaves them lyrical catnip.

― normal fucking rockman (voodoo chili),

Too many artists at their peak are too distracted to go for this five-dimensional chess. It's like accusing Trump of strategy.

Now waiting for Jane Dark's LDR Hot Take.

LDR on this album and elsewhere reminds me sometimes of early Bowie, not like exactly but in terms of a certain approach and a certain theatrical sentimentality that hits harder on record than it does on paper.

xxp

but some artists do this! even huge artists--lennon, bowie, taylor swift, etc. are hyper-aware that every word they say is going to be dissected and that definitely affects their songwriting.

lmao at the 'lib-centrist' criticism, it's not as if she's been pretending to make some marxist criticism of america this whole time

I'm not going to get into an argument about intentions, but for sixty years we've given pop artists way too much credit/blame for a calculation that has never gotten in the way of a dumb hook. If you wanna say that good dumb hooks get written or are stumbled on and the audiences fall into their hands, that's another thing; it's a different question from creating standard contract-filling albums.

Come on now. Bowie's lyrics were often literal nonsense — remember his fascination with Burroughsian "cut-ups." LDR's lyrics may be obvious at times (though they're more often sharper than she's given credit for, at least until this album when a lot of people seem to have suddenly discovered that she's smart), but even the obviousness is always intentional. Nothing is left to "chance" with her. Also, she's been playing the same character for almost a decade; Bowie never hung onto a persona for more than what, three years?

Clover created a tweet thread attacking the hippie-punching in OUATIH that made a couple good points but didn't acknowledge the white supremacist views of the Manson crew.

as a leftist I really REALLY wish leftists would stop trying to do hip contrarian pop culture takes for attention. they're almost always bullshit (see also basically any Jacobin pop culture piece)

my pussy tastes like praaaaaaaxis

i can't think of a culture-critic who more often seems to try to speak with wildly more critical authority than he actually has than clover.

Clover created a tweet thread attacking the hippie-punching in OUATIH

Couple of glasses of wine in, I read this as OU812.

Ann Powers's take: https://www.npr.org/2019/09/04/757545360/lana-del-rey-lives-in-americas-messy-subconscious

What’s that opening paragraph, some kind of cod Joan Didion?

yes

there was another review somewhere that explicitly drew a comparison between del rey and ...play it as it lays maybe? can't recall.

Piece is a little shaggy but has lots of individual observations I really like

She's good.

When’s someone gonna release a concept album about the San Fernando Valley? All we have is the Karate Kid soundtrack.

Isn’t the entire No Doubt discography a multi-volume concept album about the Valley?

Here’s a little sidenote on your piece – I don’t even relate to one observation you made about the music. There’s nothing uncooked about me. To write about me is nothing like it is to be with me. Never had a persona. Never needed one. Never will.

— Lana Del Rey (@LanaDelRey) September 5, 2019

Looks like Lana didn’t like Ann’s article

So don’t call yourself a fan like you did in the article and don’t count your editor one either – I may never never have made bold political or cultural statements before- because my gift is the warmth I live my life with and the self reflection I share generously.

— Lana Del Rey (@LanaDelRey) September 5, 2019

And speaking of not understanding how criticism works...

Also how the hell is she going to write a whole ass article without even asking you a single question like ??? There is no quotes in it at all

— angel of radiant excellence (@Allison_Perezz) September 5, 2019

“never had a persona” ok

honestly that might be the most radical thing about lana del rey i’ve read this album cycle

personally I prefer not to ask questions when writing ass articles

this instance is particularly frustrating because it happened to a genuinely excellent piece of criticism; there are some cases where artists get upset over a review where I can see how they have the tiniest kernel of a point, in that the article could have used a redraft to address certain things [I include some things I've written in that], but the npr review was best-of-the-decade material

i'd thought she seemed fairly self-aware about her persona but i guess not?

lol you don't wanna get interpreted then don't make 1 art, artist

I'm not a huge fan of AP's work a lot of the time but that piece was really good. I'm actually baffled at what LDR could have found objectionable about it (beyond the Trumpian "anything short of worship renders you an enemy" mindset, which is really beneath her, or anyone with a functioning frontal lobe).

im honestly baffled by her assertion that she, LANA DEL REY, doesn't have a persona.

there's nothing wrong with having a persona, i mean, ask robert zimmerman, or david jones, or james osterburg

im honestly baffled by her assertion that she, LANA DEL REY, doesn't have a persona.

Yeah, there's kayfabe and then there's that.

Isn’t the entire No Doubt discography a multi-volume concept album about the Valley?

― shared unit of analysis (unperson), Wednesday, September 4, 2019 11:06 PM (yesterday)

No doubt was from Orange County

also, to be fair, this isn't lana-related, but there's something deeply unsettling about a bunch of 15-year-olds gleefully shouting "YES END HER CAREER MAKE HER UNEMPLOYED" in this late capitalism-scape

i guess she took offense to her lyrics being described as 'uncooked' in comparison to joni mitchell's because that's the part of the review she most directly singles out, but the next paragraph then goes on to basically say "these lyrics are still good though, just in a different way to mitchell's" so it's less unfavourable to her than it initially reads

the ann powers review really articulates basically everything i feel about the album, except i like it less than she does. it reads like a rave, this is not a good look.

What LDR did was monstrous.

send out the Twitter hordes!

It amazes me that in 2019 artists regard a persona as inauthentic.

She should name her next album "Persona Non Grata."

i guess she took offense to her lyrics being described as 'uncooked' in comparison to joni mitchell's because that's the part of the review she most directly singles out, but the next paragraph then goes on to basically say "these lyrics are still good though, just in a different way to mitchell's" so it's less unfavourable to her than it initially reads

― ufo, Thursday, September 5, 2019 10:37 AM (eighteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

sure, but they also are uncooked in comparison to joni mitchell's. most lyrics are! any songwriter, besides maybe fifteen people, who has a reasonable sense of one's skills, if someone said "this isn't as good as joni mitchell," should think "yeah, it probably isn't."

maybe she knows that Persona is a video game & that gives her mixed feelings