OK, is this the worst piece of music writing ever?

Ok is this a review or Ode to a Grecian Urn

that stately elvish homer in full

https://i.giphy.com/media/z2l1cinVfSyiY/giphy.gif

maybe Newsom rearranged all of her music into ragtime

Having read that review, I didn't realize DiCrescenzo founded a school of journalism

The use of "ragtime" (and "rococo ragtime" in the review itself! though that seems ever so slightly more accurate tbh) almost made me wonder if there was a bot-generated component to this review. But googling around finds that a number of reviews of Divers include it on a list of styles that inform the album, presumably referring to Sapokanikan. Which, I guess. but pretty random for that descriptor to get linked to that song, let alone artist.

Highly recommend dipping into that reviewer's oeuvre. She has a similarly florid review of Roskilde 2019, rife with pull-quotes for this thread.

i may be just tired of the del rey overhype moment but something about this one really bugged me
https://hyperallergic.com/515894/lana-del-rey-norman-fucking-rockwell/

Internet phenomenon turned Saturday Night Live laughing stock, her sustained popularity has perplexed those who would prefer to see brilliant women fail... based on her new album, she deserves comparison to the heavyweights of American mythology like Joni Mitchell and Joan Didion, Ernest Hemingway and Bob Dylan, Silvia Plath and Carole King.

I mean, in the context of "I am profoundly uninterested in what this person has to say with their art" I am pretty okay with comparing LDR to Hemingway and Dylan

well yeah i'm there with you but why not throw in lars von trier and evelyn waugh while you're at it

Those comparisons are absurd

hemingway and dylan were both brilliant women

Bob Dylan as Cate Blanchett

just like lana del rey

who is Silvia Plath?

i think peter laughner, also a brilliant woman, once wrote a song about her

Del Rey’s latest album is a culmination of the artist’s last four records, a singularity that allows her various personae to converge into higher form

not just one persona but personae

xp tbf, the unedited version of that quote makes it clear that there's some space between "brilliant women" and that breathless lineup of people you can write your senior report on

"various" as an adjective bothers me in most uses.

who is Silvia Plath?

it's a typo: https://www.mixcloud.com/silvio-plath/stream/

That same year, Del Rey stopped performing in front of the American flag, viewing it as “inappropriate” for the Trump era. She changed her backdrop to a screen of static instead, a multifaceted commentary on the “white noise” of American politics and the dissociative phenomenon of living in the world’s wealthiest country, which also happens to jail children.

ohhhhhh, *that* Silvio Plath

Joni Mitchell and Joan Didion, Ernest Hemingway and Bob Dylan, Silvia Plath and Carole King

all spellbindingly human

Who are six people who've never been in my kitchen?

That same year, Del Rey stopped performing in front of the American flag, viewing it as “inappropriate” for the Trump era. She changed her backdrop to a screen of static instead, a multifaceted commentary on the “white noise” of American politics and the dissociative phenomenon of living in the world’s wealthiest country, which also happens to jail children.

like i dunno if that's so much multifaceted as it is... monofaceted?
― Fuck the NRA (ulysses), Wednesday, September 11, 2019 11:15 AM (three minutes ago)

more "dumb as fuck" faceted

extremely appropriate for the trump era, tbf

has perplexed those who would prefer to see brilliant women fail

love this construction, where the fact that everyone agrees the subject is brilliant is presented as a given

also the strawman internet chud bamboozled by LDR ascension when his druthers are, as a rule, to see brilliant women fail
imagining a masculinist america's funniest home video special where a parade of women in mortarboards, lab coats and astronaut suits keep stepping on rakes and slipping on banana peels

ove this construction, where the fact that everyone agrees the subject is brilliant is presented as a given

― “Hakuna Matata,” a nihilist philosophy (One Eye Open),

Don't see the big deal?

"Brilliant" is a cliche, though.

Norman Fucking Rockwell! slaps in all the right places.

Jesus Fucking Christ.

someone needed to slap the keyboard out of that writer's hand

couple of people in here really preferring to see brilliant women fail right now.

or maybe it’s that some people love imposing brilliance on vapid people because they’re pretty

i do like seeing someone fail now and then but i'm not super picky about who

I mean I like LDR but jfc comparing her to Joan Didion my god

or maybe it’s that some people love imposing brilliance on vapid people because they’re pretty

I would like to put this on a t-shirt

Norman Fucking Rockwell! slaps in all the right places.
― american bradass (BradNelson), Wednesday, September 11, 2019 2:05 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

like "the face"

sorry, should clarify that brad was quoting somebody there

I keep imagining Meghan Trainor singing "All the right slaps/In all the right places"

I decided to read this piece as opposed to just making fun of it from afar and I don't think I'm going to get past the subhead:

The singer has defied critics and graduated summa cum laude from the pop pantheon into the hall of legends. Her latest album proves she deserves the respect of legends like Joni Mitchell and Carole King.

o rly

It must be true. *dies*

In 2012, Del Rey’s debut album, Born to Die, delivered a complex satire of American neediness far ahead of its time, which combined babylike vocals with crushing instrumentals and lyrics rife with literary references to everything from Walt Whitman to Vladimir Nabokov. The net effect was like listening to a toddler recite passages from The Bell Jar: mesmerizing and depressing

what

If my toddler was reciting passages from The Bell Jar my reaction would probably be "HELLO WORLD? LOOK AT MY FUCKING TODDLER"

if my toddler recited passages from the bell jar i'd be like - this slaps

Elsewhere, she’s gloriously despondent. “Fresh out of fucks forever,” she sings on the prodigious “Venice Bitch” song. “Ice cream, ice queen, I dream in jeans and leather.”

I don't think this writer knows the definitions of the words he is using.

Thesaurus.com got a lot of clicks that night

Looks like that guy usually only writes about art

Does the writer give any specific examples of how one of the "crushing instrumentals" aids the "complex satire of American neediness" or is that just one of those things people say when they mean "I like to get high and listen to this record and I hate Trump"?

speaking of "crushing instrumentals" I would like both Lana Del Rey and Deafheaven more if she was their lead singer

she doesn't have the range