Lana Del Rey - Norman Fucking Rockwell (2019)

Pretty useless passage tbh

a dude using a passage from a book by a woman to assail another woman's feminist bonafides is "interesting" let's say

Does Kim's take come from anything real beyond LDR's lyrics?

Is she referring to LDR's once-rumored involvement w/Axl Rose ("gross older men")?

She dated Marylin Manson too I think which is almost as equally gross as dating Axl.

I wasn't very aware of her love life but googling around (https://www.whosdatedwho.com/dating/lana-del-rey) I've found out she mostly dates gross looking men.

Wait, Moby? Really?

kim was married to thurston who treated her like shit and is an apparent dog. do we hold that against her?

Axl is legit cooler than Thurston, lol

Anyway I’m not an LDR fan, but critiquing her on the basis of whom she dates feels kind of uncool.

kim is probably talking about her lyrics circa born to die

"transient biker queen" def refers to the Ride video and there is fetishization of "gross older men" both fictional (object of off to the races) and not (literally harvey weinstein) on BTD and paradise

i'm not a "BTD is compromised juvenalia" guy tho, an important part of/launching pad for her project imo

LDR's lyrics + LDR's videos + LDR's persona in interviews + LDR's rumored dating life + the collapse of Kim's marriage = Kim being less than charitable to another female artist over her dating choices and how they may or may not manifest in her art

Wait, Moby? Really?

https://www.vulture.com/2019/05/moby-on-being-politely-shut-down-ny-lana-del-rey.html

Finally got around to listening. I actually quite like a lot of it, but relate to the people way above saying it’s worth creating its own playlist of selected songs—there are tracks I could probably do without, but maybe on more listens they’ll lock into place.

A couple of people up above were praising Venice Bitch, and I don’t hate the track but I could probably find like two and a half minutes in there that I would cut and probably feel fine.

Paging morrisp: LDR covers "Break up with your girlfriend I'm bored" around 128 mins in here:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0008914

Haha, thanks... I’ll “scrub” ahead to that timecode and check it out

tbh the main thing this has taught me is that no one is good at defining what a "persona" is

dumbest comments I've seen have to be "oh, so you _really_ fucked your way up to the top, like that song title?"

I never got the impression that Lana Del Rey (persona on top of the base Lizzy Grant personality, or maybe just her now) was speaking literally and not sarcastically/ironically

dumbest comments I've seen have to be "oh, so you _really_ fucked your way up to the top, like that song title?"

*bows*

hah, I hadn't seen that coming from you, Alfred!

regardless, the cynicism that I thought I've heard in LDR songs all these years may have been overstated, even if the lyrics clearly aren't autobiographical

I'd addressed similar comments to her fans, not LDR herself.

fair!

her fans seem young and impressionable, and I do kind of wonder if there's a segment that take things a little too literally

This is as appropriate a moment as any to repost this rather unsettling tutorial:

https://www.wikihow.com/Emulate-Lana-Del-Rey

that article pushes her a few places higher in the 'worst fans in music' stakes

You're speaking your mind, even if it is not popular. Such a Lana thing to do.

That Ariana cover is pretty good !

^^^^classic Lana statement

I hadn't seen these lovely 2018 versions of "How To Disappear" and "Venice Bitch (well, Chick, actually !)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9WK6olGkDY

Actually "How To Disappear" is one of my favourite songs from this album atm.

https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2019/09/8483496/sean-larkin-lana-del-rey-boyfriend-cop

there's little that needs to be added tbh

sticks seems cool good job lana

the greatest is also just bracingly good, ive prob played it 100+ times this month

i kind of burned out on this album after playing it nonstop for two or three weeks.

i was so into it before personagate and now ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

yeah I couldn’t bear to listen any more after her ethics in music journalism tantrum. will try again this week

Lana fields some questions about personagate:

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2019-10-03/lana-del-rey-hollywood-bowl-norman-rockwell

After “Norman” came out to glowing reviews, you took to Twitter to criticize a piece written by NPR Music critic Ann Powers, a longtime champion of female artists. Your fans then trolled her. Why did you choose to go that route?
First of all, and this is very me, there were a million beautiful reviews that I didn’t read. And then I randomly see this one thing. In the piece, she said that I’d overcome something, and the way she said it one can only assume she meant I’d overcome child abuse. I’m like, “Don’t bring kids into it. Even if it’s me.” And I’ve never said anything about that.

Did anyone actually read this into it?! I thought she got mad over the 'persona' thing (also addressed in the LAT interview), but this is a new one.

Really sounds like her reaction was based on a reading that most people would never have inferred based on what was actually on the page!

I glanced back at Powers’ article, and couldn’t immediately find what LDR was referring to there; but it’s amusing to say she doesn’t feel like Powers was “taking her seriously,” when the piece contains passages like this:

As virtually everyone who's commented on her work has noted, Del Rey accesses the twin realms of Surrealism and the psychoanalytic most often through their cinematic manifestations

and the piece is a thousand-plus words long

I guess it does illustrate the principle, though, that someone can say a million nice things about you, and the one negative or ambiguous thing will stick in your craw. Like how artists say they only remember the few mean tweets out a barrage of nice ones.

i can't tell if people are being serious that "personagate" turned them off this album

it put me off it

i thought it was just all right to begin with though

it didn't turn me off to it, in fact I don't care at all about htat. I just listened to the album constantly and needed a break.

seeing her live on Sunday. we'll see how that goes.

i can't tell if people are being serious that "personagate" turned them off this album

Generally speaking, when someone says something that makes you cringe with embarrassment for them, they meant it.

imo artists aren't responsible for their fans being total assholes who are rabid to start monstering anyone who looks sideways at their idol, but they should probably be cognizant those fans exist and what the effects of offhandedly disagreeing with a review can entail

She played in Seattle last night and the bus stops were full of teenage girls wearing too much eye makeup. Seems popular. Kind of like the Taylor Swift crowd but double the eyeliner and none of the unicorn scrunchies.

that's how it was the last time I saw her. It was kind of amazing. I find her fan base somewhat endearing.

checked out a youtube video of a show in NY last week, hard to hear over the people singing along and the camera was very far away, but it's clear LDR has stepped up her live performances.

I wish she didn't rely so much on piped in vocal tracks

seems to be par for the course for live pop acts unfortunately. she is doing chelsea hotel with just one person playing guitar though.

I like her Thunberg comments. Her read of the Powers story remains baffling but it seems like she got stuck on a phrase or two and extrapolated from there. Which if I were in her position I would probably do all the time