Lana Del Rey

it reminds me of the scene in High Fidelity where the ex complains to John Cusack that he never talks about what he wants to do + his future anymore

anyway, "carrie" would have been a much better SNL look than "whooping cough"

i dunno. if vulnerability is sexy, then any erotica appeal based on vulnerability must seem "real" in some sense in order to generate the frisson. and if ambiguity is the point of appeal, then the ambiguity must seem real. if it's intelligence, then the intelligence must seem real, etc.

and maybe "real" is the wrong word. maybe i just mean that the siren song must be erotically convincing on some level. i'd argue that, as erotica, on a strictly sexual level, the battered desperation of the narrator of "video games" is and is supposed to be erotically convincing.

I think you're applying a fairly rigid framework for the operation of desire here.

Vulnerability isn't sexy as some kind of standalone concept such that the more purely it is presented the more enticing it is. The things we find erotic are always performances or articulations, weaving together a host of ideas and resemblances and implications and relationships and assumptions (on the part of the audience).

To determine objectively whether something was "erotically convincing" you'd need to exhaustively define that articulation first.

But I think that one of the things that can result in a performance seeming erotically charged is how it can exceed or go beyond the concepts which the observer brings to the table, and refuses to be limited by them (apologies for the psuedo-lacan). So an observer not really knowing how to box LDR's performance strikes me as being as capable as generating desire as the observer being able to box it squarely and neatly as "vulnerable".

agree with all that, but i'm not trying to prove my case objectively and don't think anything would be served by an exhaustive attempt to define terms and frame my argument. perhaps i am applying a rather "rigid" framework to the operation of desire, but i'm speaking more in general terms than trying to account for all cases and variations. in general, i do believe that erotic offerings must be erotically convincing on their own terms in order to "work". and i do believe that the core of LDR's erotic offering in "video games" is desperate self-negation. i don't find any fault in this, but i am a bit suspicious of attempts to excuse or deny it.

it seems to me that the best counterargument to mordy's point isn't that LDR's self-abasement is distanced gender play, but rather that we're often far too quick to pass simplistic political judgement on eroticized female submissiveness.

morelike lana del GAY amirite????

no idea why i'm getting into this but...

i don't get how you could possibly watch the video for "video games" and not see ambiguity and critical distance. after reading the first wave of responses to the video and watching it i was surprised at how much was made of her character's attitude towards her video game-playing boyfriend (which to me seemed intentionally vague and somewhat beside the point,) and how little was made of the double meaning of the song title, which if you watch the video, seems pretty obviously to be about her put-on persona and performing for the camera, she's playing video games. the emphasis on cameras in the video, the footage of sunset strip, the way her look and sound quote cliches of past pop starlets, it reeks of irony and self-consciousness. btw, you can't accuse me of giving her too much credit w/o exposing yourself as a misogynist. so yeah, i think i agree with tom e's take on it.

ps: this has no bearing on her snl performance which was definitely bad and not intentionally vulnerable or w/e.

omg that double meaning doesn't exist get out of here

idk, maybe it's too pat, but its what i thought when i first saw the video

video games = games you play with video? cute.

agree with everything karl just said. my point isn't that she lacks complexity as an artist, but rather that the erotic offering she very clearly and intentionally projects (both musically and in the "video games" video) is not similarly complex. it's quite simple, and it leans in a simple way on vulnerability and need.

even though that song is simple i do think it would be hard to sing live on t.v. unless you are REALLY good at performing live cuz its kinda like singing a capella. you have to captivate. when i hear the studio stuff by her i always wish someone who could sing was singing the songs. cuz the songs are catchy and compelling, and the right person could do them justice. someone who can really sing should cover video games immediately. someone more soulful.

i think you just disagreed w/ everything he said? xp

i'm not disagreeing, i'm distinguishing between different levels in the functioning of artistic personas.

i mean, is there any way that the voice, persona or video clearly intend to read as "not sexy"?

are the narrator's vulnerability and desperation ever clearly questioned, subverted or made to seem less than erotically alluring?

The singer also revealed that she was "trying to look smart and well turned-out, rather than 'sexy' [in the music video]. Of course I wanted to look good, but 'smart' was the primary focus."[3]

^^^ this is kind of hilarious to me and feels like her whole thing in a nutshell

I assume that by now Griel Marcus has compared this song to Betty's audition in Mulholland Drive.

kinda feel like she could work on the sexy thing along with the singing thing. if sexy is what she is aiming for. she does pitiful pretty good. and pouty. and she definitely has model looks, so, i'm sure with a good acting/singing/sexy coach she'll be the whole package in no time.

"I tell you all the time: heaven is a place on earth where you tell me all the things you wanna do."

huh, i heard it as "with" not "where" -- not a huge difference, admittedly

it's definitely "heaven is a place on earth with you"

sorry if i haven't read the entire thread, but, have we discussed that the bf in this song seems kinda lame?

are the narrator's vulnerability and desperation ever clearly questioned, subverted or made to seem less than erotically alluring?

Sorry contenderizer, I just don't understand why you think critical distance = "made to seem less than erotically alluring."

Running with the Lynch reference, I would compare the narrator of the song to the two female leads in the first half of Mulholland Drive - clearly "not real" fantasies that are also deeply alluring, and moreover, alluring as fantasies, as something that not only "is not" but also "cannot be".

it's definitely "heaven is a place on earth with you"

this slightly weakens my position, I'll admit, but not enough to make me retreat from it.

oh i don't have a dog in this discussion i was just being a lyrics pedant

the lyric that Tim heard is a better lyric, but that's not what it actually says. horseshoe otm

I often find myself mentally improving songs in this way.

Probably a Belinda Carlisle ref.

Belinda seemed to have more lively and interesting bf's

i assumed it was a belinda carlisle reference, too. i don't really get the song.

I just don't understand why you think critical distance = "made to seem less than erotically alluring."

i don't! i assume LDR knows exactly what she's playing with and that the song is delivered in character. i recognize and appreciate the sophistication of the whole. i'm only talking about the use and quality of eroticism as part of the surface appeal. on that level, the performance and video strike me as quite simple. would compare the seductive aspects to mazzy star and lynch's "dark" heroines.

the sense I get is that LDR-the-performer wants you to believe this is real while LDR-the-author wants you to know how screwed up it is

yeah this is definitely what i think, which is why all the arguments along the lines of "lana del rey is reinforcing unhelpful gender stereotypes and setting a Bad Example to young women" were so reductive. it's a great song because it conveys how much the narrator wants to believe in the relationship, to the extent that she's prepared to play a submissive or helpless role, while also conveying that the situation is fucked up.

i read the double meaning of "video games" as relating to the general out-of-body feeling of the song, as though she's seeing herself inhabit this role but despite that awareness is unable to snap herself out of it - kind of like she's unable to control her character in a video game.

^^^^^^^

Lex speaks truth.

half-baked idea alert: I don't like invoking this kind of thing but I suspect that this aspect of the song would make intuitive sense to a lot of gay people.

w/r/t sexiness, it's obvious to me that the submissiveness/passivity/helplessness that del rey plays in the song goes hand in hand with a certain idea of sexiness, and the song makes it quite clear that it's just an idea of sexiness, one that's as helpful to the narrator as the passive helplessness. whether the listener actually finds it sexy is neither here nor there.

memo to str8 dudes: just because a female performer sings and performs ideas of sexiness in her work does not mean that "does this give me a boner" should be your litmus test of whether she's any good as an artist. it's not about YOU.

(memo to str8 women: "does this give the annoying bros in my life a boner" is also not a good litmus test.)

I keep expecting her to break into U2's "With or without you"

Memo to gay dudes: be less smug

i do remember rev alluding on some thread to indie rock as aspirational for african americans, which i'd like him to expand on.

― irina-camelia begu (lex pretend), Tuesday, 17 January 2012 11:23 (Yesterday) Permalink

i think i brought this up actually & he tied it more specifically to african americans, but it was about how 'aston martin music''s chorus was kinda funny to me b/c chrisette michelle associates the yeah yeah yeahs with ... aston martin driving. where i associate it w/ dirty basement parties from college with cheap beer & etc.

I think there's a really interesting essay to be made about how the performance of taste is often about aspirational living

solange knowles. blipsters. kanye's fashion sense.

Memo to gay dudes: be less smug

haha, was gonna say: gay dudes are actually the worst when it comes to confusing their erections with good taste.

I just watched the video for the first time, which is also the first time I've heard a note from this person. Seems OK to me. The erotic component seems pretty minor to me in this case. She's got this world weary stance that makes it sound like she's been through the (relationship?) ringer. She's wounded, which most people don't find ... sexy.

Also, I haven't seen the SNL performance, but this really doesn't sound like any sort of difficult, balancing act sort of song to pull off live, unless you can't sing.

Speaking of Kathleen Edwards, I kept thinking of "Hockey Skates" for some reason! Dunno why.

Do you mean the ones go to circuit parties or the ones who go to pride marches xp

Both?

That's a very-much overlapping venn diagram in any event i would have thought.

I think there's a really interesting essay to be made about how the performance of taste is often about aspirational living

very fucking otm dude for real

not only would it make an interesting essay but it already has!

http://www.amazon.com/Distinction-Social-Critique-Judgement-Introductions/dp/0674212770

Ha, I just started reading Distinction, knowingly only the condensed version via critics like Carl Wilson.

xp Verging-on-sycophantic agreement with Tim. Not just about the first-half-of-Mulholland-Drive comparison, which I wrote about during an EOY discussion but the importance of persona. One thing people who "expose" her Lizzy Grant past ignore is how blatantly she foregrounds the LDR character - her debut is called Lana Del Rey (AKA Lizzy Grant). That's not hiding anything. And in Q she compares the LDR character to an art project. A very consistent one too, at least on record (on SNL the gap between the person and the persona yawned dangerously wide). In almost every song I've heard she remains sexually passive, hung up on bad boys, and only in National Anthem is there a suggestion that she's using this to manipulate a man, but then that song is so jaundiced about sex, money and celebrity that it's hardly empowering. Much though I agree with Maura that there's a misogynist streak to some of the attacks on her (notably HRO), I can see feminists getting just as angry with her. How much she can get away with by saying LDR is just a character with retrograde sexual politics I'm not sure.

you guys are really thinking about this! LDR close readings! i had no idea...

still think an acting coach could really help her out.

Slightly OT but I think it's a bad idea to use HRO to attack critics of any type. Its whole raison d'etre is to be inappropriate + irreverent.

her debut is called Lana Del Rey (AKA Lizzy Grant).

rly? :( if so

not only would it make an interesting essay but it already has!

http://www.amazon.com/Distinction-Social-Critique-Judgement-Introductions/dp/0674212770

I want you to know that I really did say "wow, I should read that" unironically to myself when I saw this