Lana Del Rey

"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

xp By which I mean the 2009 debut that nobody heard at the time, not the new one, which is called Born to Die.

Yeah, I managed to find a zip. not sure if it actually existed, ever, as a CD release.

tbh I would care a lot more about her if her songs were all covers of tracks off of Ready To Die

'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.'

this is kind of the central thing about 'off to the races', I think.

whatshername from mad men should make a record. don draper's wife. she'd be better at it.

LDR should arrange to get into a car accident while on pills + wearing an evening gown w/ a toy dog in her purse, it would help with the authenticity thing

whatshername from mad men should make a record. don draper's wife. she'd be better at it.

― scott seward, Wednesday, January 18, 2012 10:51 AM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this is a good call, especially since January Jones is basically the only person to do worse on the SNL stage than LDR the last couple years

is that her name? that's a great name. she doesn't even have to change it.

wonder if the lex has ever heard this song? still makes me swoon...*sigh*. bums me out too. in a good way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgkw47HLxH8&feature=related

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.

― irina-camelia begu (lex pretend), Wednesday, January 18, 2012 3:01 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

ffs, "be less smug" indeed. i don't think that either LDR or "video games" is particularly sexy. that passive, needy, "wounded bird" thing has never done much for me, personally. it is, however, a very common form of erotic appeal. i think that we can easily recognize it even if we don't feel it. as a comparison, i recognize the erotic appeal embodied in sting's music, persona and imagery despite the fact that it doesn't arouse me in the least.

we can't ever know an artist's underlying intent with perfect accuracy, but we can observe the ways in which familiar devices are employed in their work and draw general conclusions. i'm simply saying that i see in LDR's songs and videos the attempt to construct a persona with a particular erotic/romantic appeal. consciously or unconsciously, gay or straight, male or female, most pop stars attempt something similar. the nature of the constructed appeal, of course, differs radically from individual to individual.

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.

― Tim F, Wednesday, January 18, 2012 2:57 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

point taken, but the helpless, role-bound angle is very obvious, and i suspect that it makes intuitive (and direct) sense to all sorts of people.

So one should not judge her on the merit of actually performing a song well, this is a pop world and she is a pop singer and we need to judge her on image. So when I see a comment saying "at least she was hot" or something, it seems to me like looking past her shortcomings to support the image she's selling. Which is a sexpot.

i see in LDR's songs and videos the attempt to construct a persona with a particular erotic/romantic appeal

This i agree w 100%. And by disregarding the 'rockist' performance aspect of it all, really the only way to appreciate her live appearances is as a visual object. I'm not saying it's not sexist to do so, but if the artist is relying so heavily on her visual representation it shouldn't be a surprise that it comes up.

So one should not judge her on the merit of actually performing a song well, this is a pop world and she is a pop singer and we need to judge her on image.

this is just flat-out insane

again, if performing on a high profile show wasn't apparently a more central piece of her label's promotional plan for her at the moment than getting the song on the radio or the video on TV, this would be a moot point. there's no reason she had to make an SNL performance her first exposure to a large chunk of America, other than that they apparently got the opportunity and couldn't say no.

this is just flat-out insane

yeah, got to agree (sorry, bruneau). i'm not saying that image construction trumps other aspects of a pop star's public offering, just that it does figure in somewhere and is reasonable to consider. frankly, i think that all people do this, not just pop stars. we all craft public personas, and most of us would like to be seen as sexy in some sense or other.

http://www.coveringphotography.com/sites/idesweb.bc.edu.baden6/files/images/large/Weegee-Goffman72.jpg

well yeah

Isn't image is a significant part of LDR's appeal though? If the live aspect is to be disregarded then what other aspects of her public offering should we be considering when viewing a performance such as the SNL?