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.
― Tim F, Wednesday, 18 January 2012 05:43 (twelve years ago) link
oh i don't have a dog in this discussion i was just being a lyrics pedant
― horseshoe, Wednesday, 18 January 2012 05:43 (twelve years ago) link
the lyric that Tim heard is a better lyric, but that's not what it actually says. horseshoe otm
― sarahell, Wednesday, 18 January 2012 05:45 (twelve years ago) link
I often find myself mentally improving songs in this way.
― Tim F, Wednesday, 18 January 2012 05:46 (twelve years ago) link
Probably a Belinda Carlisle ref.
― Mark, Wednesday, 18 January 2012 05:49 (twelve years ago) link
Belinda seemed to have more lively and interesting bf's
― sarahell, Wednesday, 18 January 2012 05:50 (twelve years ago) link
i assumed it was a belinda carlisle reference, too. i don't really get the song.
― horseshoe, Wednesday, 18 January 2012 05:53 (twelve years ago) link
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.
― Little GTFO (contenderizer), Wednesday, 18 January 2012 06:12 (twelve years ago) link
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.
― irina-camelia begu (lex pretend), Wednesday, 18 January 2012 10:52 (twelve years ago) link
^^^^^^^
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.
― Tim F, Wednesday, 18 January 2012 10:57 (twelve years ago) link
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.
― irina-camelia begu (lex pretend), Wednesday, 18 January 2012 11:01 (twelve years ago) link
(memo to str8 women: "does this give the annoying bros in my life a boner" is also not a good litmus test.)
― irina-camelia begu (lex pretend), Wednesday, 18 January 2012 11:02 (twelve years ago) link
I keep expecting her to break into U2's "With or without you"
― Mark G, Wednesday, 18 January 2012 11:18 (twelve years ago) link
Memo to gay dudes: be less smug
― Matt DC, Wednesday, 18 January 2012 11:24 (twelve years ago) link
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
― I Love Pedantry (D-40), Wednesday, 18 January 2012 11:29 (twelve years ago) link
solange knowles. blipsters. kanye's fashion sense.
― irina-camelia begu (lex pretend), Wednesday, 18 January 2012 11:49 (twelve years ago) link
haha, was gonna say: gay dudes are actually the worst when it comes to confusing their erections with good taste.
― Tim F, Wednesday, 18 January 2012 11:49 (twelve years ago) link
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.
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 18 January 2012 12:47 (twelve years ago) link
Do you mean the ones go to circuit parties or the ones who go to pride marches xp
― Dancin with Mr. D__ (Ówen P.), Wednesday, 18 January 2012 12:48 (twelve years ago) link
Both?
― Tim F, Wednesday, 18 January 2012 13:17 (twelve years ago) link
That's a very-much overlapping venn diagram in any event i would have thought.
very fucking otm dude for real
― unlistenable in philly (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Wednesday, 18 January 2012 13:29 (twelve years ago) link
not only would it make an interesting essay but it already has!
http://www.amazon.com/Distinction-Social-Critique-Judgement-Introductions/dp/0674212770
― Mordy, Wednesday, 18 January 2012 13:48 (twelve years ago) link
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.
― Science, you guys. Science. (DL), Wednesday, 18 January 2012 13:51 (twelve years ago) link
you guys are really thinking about this! LDR close readings! i had no idea...
― scott seward, Wednesday, 18 January 2012 14:14 (twelve years ago) link
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.
― Mordy, Wednesday, 18 January 2012 14:20 (twelve years ago) link
her debut is called Lana Del Rey (AKA Lizzy Grant).
rly? :( if so
― Θ ̨Θƪ (sic), Wednesday, 18 January 2012 14:35 (twelve years ago) link
I want you to know that I really did say "wow, I should read that" unironically to myself when I saw this
― unlistenable in philly (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Wednesday, 18 January 2012 14:37 (twelve years ago) link
xp By which I mean the 2009 debut that nobody heard at the time, not the new one, which is called Born to Die.
― Science, you guys. Science. (DL), Wednesday, 18 January 2012 14:44 (twelve years ago) link
Yeah, I managed to find a zip. not sure if it actually existed, ever, as a CD release.
― Mark G, Wednesday, 18 January 2012 14:44 (twelve years ago) link
tbh I would care a lot more about her if her songs were all covers of tracks off of Ready To Die
― Bam! Orgasm explosion in your facehole. (DJP), Wednesday, 18 January 2012 14:46 (twelve years ago) link
'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.
― akm, Wednesday, 18 January 2012 15:43 (twelve years ago) link
whatshername from mad men should make a record. don draper's wife. she'd be better at it.
― scott seward, Wednesday, 18 January 2012 15:51 (twelve years ago) link
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
― the boy with the gorn at his side (Edward III), Wednesday, 18 January 2012 16:06 (twelve years ago) link
― 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
― Whitechocolatespacecase (some dude), Wednesday, 18 January 2012 16:11 (twelve years ago) link
is that her name? that's a great name. she doesn't even have to change it.
― scott seward, Wednesday, 18 January 2012 16:21 (twelve years ago) link
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
― scott seward, Wednesday, 18 January 2012 16:27 (twelve years ago) link
― 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.
― Little GTFO (contenderizer), Wednesday, 18 January 2012 16:37 (twelve years ago) link
― 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.
― Little GTFO (contenderizer), Wednesday, 18 January 2012 16:45 (twelve years ago) link
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.
― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Wednesday, 18 January 2012 17:05 (twelve years ago) link
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
― Bam! Orgasm explosion in your facehole. (DJP), Wednesday, 18 January 2012 17:06 (twelve years ago) link
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.
― Whitechocolatespacecase (some dude), Wednesday, 18 January 2012 17:09 (twelve years ago) link
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.
― Little GTFO (contenderizer), Wednesday, 18 January 2012 17:20 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.coveringphotography.com/sites/idesweb.bc.edu.baden6/files/images/large/Weegee-Goffman72.jpg
― Mordy, Wednesday, 18 January 2012 17:27 (twelve years ago) link
well yeah
― Little GTFO (contenderizer), Wednesday, 18 January 2012 17:32 (twelve years ago) link
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?
― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Wednesday, 18 January 2012 17:42 (twelve years ago) link
best strategy relative to the SNL performance is to view another channel
― Little GTFO (contenderizer), Wednesday, 18 January 2012 17:52 (twelve years ago) link
― Science, you guys. Science. (DL), Thursday, 19 January 2012 01:44 (8 hours ago)
ah yeah as Mark says, this really looks like at best a publishing demo, the cover more like a comp someone on t'interweb's made of some old unreleased or barely-released tracks recently, not an actual release she put out.
― Θ ̨Θƪ (sic), Wednesday, 18 January 2012 23:54 (twelve years ago) link
the sexist machinations in the gen shaming rhetoric around this go way past subtleties like "overt" and "obvious."
also this post:
in a certain way sexism is all over this incident. we have an artist whose entire act is either enacting particular sexist tropes about female passivity, male domination, a whole dynamic of neglect + pining, or at the very least problematizing + dialoguing that it. she records one single that that gets her a lot of attention. i'm not going to pretend that my love of that single has nothing to do w/ gender + sex. i found her performance in that video really sexy, i found her vocal performance really arresting, and titillating. that's often going on w/ music of both genders. partially due to the attention she got from that video (a video that was itself sexually problematic, and attention that was certainly sexualized) she was given an incredibly rare opportunity for such an inexperienced artist -- playing on SNL.now we have a notably terrible performance from that artist. part of what made the performance terrible is what i wrote about in a post above: that instead of seeming confident, in control, savvy she came off as amateurish, naive, overwhelmed. part of the problem is that instead of being sexy she was almost childish. so it's not like sex + gender aren't appropriate here. but i think calling criticism here 'sexism' without explicating exactly how sex fits into the whole thing, is just an intellectual duck.then on top of it, there are actual technical stuff about her performance that were imperfect. but yes, if she were someone else, maybe someone who had different dynamics in her song, or someone coming w/ a wider range of material + tropes, the reaction would be much different. but this reaction has as much to do with how she was marketed upfront.― Mordy, Wednesday, January 18, 2012 12:25 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
now we have a notably terrible performance from that artist. part of what made the performance terrible is what i wrote about in a post above: that instead of seeming confident, in control, savvy she came off as amateurish, naive, overwhelmed. part of the problem is that instead of being sexy she was almost childish. so it's not like sex + gender aren't appropriate here. but i think calling criticism here 'sexism' without explicating exactly how sex fits into the whole thing, is just an intellectual duck.
then on top of it, there are actual technical stuff about her performance that were imperfect. but yes, if she were someone else, maybe someone who had different dynamics in her song, or someone coming w/ a wider range of material + tropes, the reaction would be much different. but this reaction has as much to do with how she was marketed upfront.
― Mordy, Wednesday, January 18, 2012 12:25 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
p much reads like "what did you expect dressing like that?"
― judith, Thursday, 19 January 2012 00:26 (twelve years ago) link