Lana Del Rey - Norman Fucking Rockwell (2019)

About to listen - sounds like Ultraviolence structurally which I am so down for

"white dress" namechecjs sun ra and kings of leon, she has truly gone mad with power

who's that singing on "breaking up slowly"?

"white dress", "tulsa jesus freak", "dark but just a game" and "dance till we die" seem to be the highlights. super low key even by her standards. it does *sound* great. I just really need her to ditch the piano on the next one.

also feels much less emotionally turbulent than NFR!, I suspect lots of quarantine meditation

I suspect lots of quarantine medication

i read the lyrics to white dress and hahahahhahaha no

somewhat ironically brad I listened to that one and wondered aloud "is this a coded message to taylor"

this album is the most aggressively uncommercial thing she's released so far.

this album is the most aggressively uncommercial thing she's released so far.

The last album had a nine-and-a-half-minute song, fully half of which was an extended synth solo. It also had "fucking" in its title.

yeah but it also had that sublime cover the label made her include so it would have a radio hit

(that's not to knock it, i really like that cover, but it kind of messes up the flow of the record)

arguably this is still very commercial, her demo has just changed definitively to Mojo readers

she has fully embraced her inner boomer

At her first run of gigs proper (i saw her first ever show weirdly enough) the audience was *very* Mojo; a pretty polite, sedate vibe, she'd been getting a lot of play on BBC6 etc. It was only later on that the first 10 rows became screaming teens.

she's always had that thing that billie eilish does too, at least based on Facebook, where guys my age post about it and say "I usually don't like pop music but this is good"

well like "video games" initially blew up with the indie music press and then she soon crossed over to a mainstream pop audience from there but never fully committed to chasing it long-term so she's just settled with a decent cult following

Have the screaming teens stayed her fans (or been replaced by newer screaming teens), or have they moved on to younger stars?

I saw her on the NFR tour and it was a more sedate crowd all around than when I saw her several years ago (at the Shoreline) where it was 98% screaming girls with interesting eyeliner and hesitation marks.

is that baez on 'for free'?

that's weyes blood

ah. great baez impression then

This album is amazing when high

also a million lols at 'the men in music business conference'

I think the whole lyric is pretty great tbh, and I like those moments on the album where she tries to cram in as many syllables as possible. there's gotta be honesty in there because who would lie about jamming out to kings of leon

that song is a great character study that treats it's subject with equal scorn and empathy

also: fucking jack antanoff. this guy is probably my favorite working producer now (neck and neck with inflo). funny because his own music does nothing for me, but every other album he works on sounds amazing.

Is she using more falsetto than normal? I find it wearying.

mainly on the opener iirc?

i like the raspy thing she does on it

Yeah I love the way she sings the word "OrLANdo" on that song

Falsetto's all over the album.

It's only really grating on the first track, though. I almost bailed out.

there is a lot of falsetto but most of it is layered, multi-tracked vocals, which she hasn't done quite to this extent before. I like it.

it's weird that she repurposes so much of "how to disappear" for "wild at heart" but i think "wild at heart" ends up being an improvement?

Like, wow Tulsa Jesus Freak; comfortably in her top few songs ever list.

I'm stuck on the title track, which I managed to not hear until now. It's really amazing. I wish the video for it werent so cheesy

does she have any music videos that aren't really?

Excited to listen to this album with all of my rapper friends.

Starting listening to it. Really like the first track.
Shouldn't there be a new thread for his album ?

I adore this.

at this point she makes Pretty Good Lana Records and Really Good Lana Records. I think on balance this is a Pretty Good Lana Record.

she only has three albums i'd rate as 'pretty good' or better and this one is 'really good' to me

pls save me from a new fleet of thinkpieces about ldr jesus christ

reaction to this one seems much less hyperbolic and overwhelming compared to NFR (or BTD) so you may get lucky. This seems to be nestled into a Honeymoon sort of PR rollout.

The Pitchfork review makes it sound like a mere undergraduate degree in semiotics is not sufficient to fully appreciate this artist or album.

^ha ha... well, ok man. I actually think that all of Pfork's LDR reviews are pretty solid; including when they make critical judgments (and even if I don't necessarily agree with every take or point of emphasis).

This album has grown on me, in the months that I've been listening intensively to LDR's catalog. At first, I thought it was too soggy, soft-edged, and overlong; and that it suffered in comparison with the albums that followed it. But I find that when you're in the mood for the ~vibe~, it really is impressive. (I would still probably lose "Bartender"... it feels "songwriter-y" in a way that doesn't work for me, and I think it intrudes on that final stretch of songs.)

This is very minor errata… but the instrumental bridge section of “How to Disappear” sounds a lot to me like “Wild at Heart” (which allegedly was intended for NFR!, but cut from the final tracklist).

Can someone with a better ear confirm if it’s the same chords(?)

it's weird that she repurposes so much of "how to disappear" for "wild at heart" but i think "wild at heart" ends up being an improvement?

― ufo, Tuesday, 16 March 2021 11:41 (two years ago) link

I'm sitting in a coffee shop that's playing through this album. I forgot how good it is, I still think it's her best.