Lana Del Rey

[Mik]

I like Video Games but I've never listened to any of the other songs.

I find her lips very distracting... even prior to finding out the backstory.

 

[Smartly Pretty]

"Video Games" is probably the best song of the year. Totally with Byron on this one, way to go on posting this a while back, though with all the hype bullshit I guess we all would have found her eventually. "Blue Jeans" I'm less into, but the new one is fucking rad.

 

[The Coat Is My Father]

If I never hear that stupid Video Games song again, it'll be too soon. I always scoffed at the notion that Pitchfork lead the unwashed indie masses around by the nose, but I guess some people really do listen to everything they're told to.

 

[The Coat Is My Father]

You morons probably think that Pumped Up Kicks bullshit is the second best song of the year. You'd love the adult contemporary radio station at my office.

 

[BUTT]

Interesting you mention "Pumped Up Kicks." Upon reading Byron's comparison of Ms. Del Ray to Hemingway, I started thinking of all the silly "_____ is the new _____" statements I've seen from critics in the last couple of years, like "The-Dream is the new Prince" and "Taylor Swift is the new Morrissey." And it made me wonder if anyone wants to join me in spreading a "Foster the People are the new Beatles" talking point around the internet. If you say it enough times, it becomes true!

 

[The Coat Is My Father]

Owl City are the new Suicide.

 

[Brocklock]

Skrillex is the new Brian Eno.

 

[Incandenza]

If I never hear that stupid Video Games song again, it'll be too soon. I always scoffed at the notion that Pitchfork lead the unwashed indie masses around by the nose, but I guess some people really do listen to everything they're told to.

Oh, hey, I never bothered to listen to any Lana Del Rey song prior to Byron's starting this thread, and I've long since established here and elsewhere my ability to think for myself and like what I like and dislike what I dislike without any supposed tastemaker's direct involvment, but, hey, if deluding yourself into a totally misguided sense of superiority—the misguidedness of which should be evident to anyone who's paid attention to any of your posts—makes you feel better about yourself, then keep on keepin' on, bro.

All that said, Byron's penchant for grand, eye-rolling hyperbole is, well, pretty eye-rolling indeed.

 

[Byron The Bulb]

That's what happens when you learn how to write about music from pitchfork year-end list blurbs. I'm a product of my environment!

 

[The Coat Is My Father]

I wasn't expecting such an earnest response, Incandenza. I appear to have hit a nerve I wasn't aiming for.

 

[Incandenza]

Poptones, how long did it take you to write such a legible post what with your trembling fingers and tear-filled eyes that were a result of my devastating riposte.

 

[The Coat Is My Father]

Like three hours

 

[Incandenza]

Kreese mentioned The-Dream, which reminds me: I hope—but am not all that optimistic about—that the next time a black musician trucking in a nominally "black" genre of mainstream music produces something even marginally different from what one usually hears in said genre, no one will think to liken him to Prince. His name has frequently been tossed about in relation to The-Dream, in spite of only a few, slight similarities, and as we had to hear about Andre 3000's The Love Below, which didn't sound like Prince at all. (At least you could say there are a couple of Dream songs that sound Prince-ish.) People even brought up Prince's name when talking about 808s & Heartbreak! The mind reels.

 

[The Coat Is My Father]

To be fair, I think The-Dream's reputation for Princeness is based on this song:

The-Dream - Yamaha

which is quite Prince-y. It's not at all typical of his usual work, though.

 

[The Coat Is My Father]

I've also noticed that any female singer with an unconventional voice is immediately compared to Bjork, including such entirely dissimilar artists as Bat For Lashes and Joanna Newsom.

 

[Incandenza]

Joanna Newsom is basically if Tori Amos had died and been reincarnated as a wood sprite.

 

[Incandenza]

Also, yeah, as I said, there are a couple of Dream songs that are Prince-sounding, with "Yamaha" being the one that immediately comes to mind. Not that that's a bad thing. I love that song.

 

[Mickey Massuco]

People even brought up Prince's name when talking about 808s & Heartbreak! The mind reels.

I agree the music is totally different but they're both megalomaniacs so if someone were to look for a way for Kanye to become irrelevant, Prince is a good example.

 

[Kinetic]

All female singer-songwriters sound like some combination of Joni Mitchell, Carole King, Laura Nyro, and Kate Bush. Rock criticism requires only that you choose the comparison which seems most apt.

 

[Byron The Bulb]

YAYO

 

[Incandenza]

The song is called "Yayo."

 

[Edwin]

I was disappointed in the lack of Tony Yayo.

Spoiler

j/k didn't even listen to the song 8)

 

[Brooklyn Zoo]

It is about Tony Yayo

 

[Byron The Bulb]

Nah she's just a big King Kamala Classic fan.

 

[Jingus]

Here's a question from an outsider. I've never really studied music and admittedly know dick about the inner workings of it, but there is one curious trend that I've repeatedly noticed and never quite understood. Why does music seem to inspire so much more talk and passion about Artifice vs. Authenticity than any other creative medium which comes to mind? In other fields of entertainment, it seems to be just sort of grudgingly accepted that manufactured hype and capitalistic motivations are things which go with the territory. (Ironically, I'm listening to Lily Allen's "The Fear" right now.) In cinema you'll get some people complaining about how Hollywood is nothing but a shill for corporate products and how indy/foreign/old/experimental/whatever films are where you need to go in order to get the Real Thing, but it seems like an entirely different level of anger and controversy when the same subjects come up in music. You never hear fans arguing with more fervor over whether someone's "sold out" or not in the other media as you do among hardcore music fans. Why do you guys think that is?

And thanks for mentioning Bat For Lashes, I've got a new favorite. And thread subject Lana seems pretty neato herself, although I like her songs a hell of a lot more than her videos.

 

[Edwin]

I actually feel like that sort of resentment has dissipated quite a bit with shifts in the music industry over the past half-decade or so. Digital distribution and the general decline of physical CD purchases has made contempt for success kind of obsolete. Everyone's struggling to sell music now, so I think "selling out" is less of a concern. It's also now kind of expected for small bands to eventually flame up; digital distribution and access to "try listening to this band" services like Spotify, Pandora, and Slacker have broadened the horizons of the average not-just-top-40 listener, so I think more deviations/style changes/etc. have become acceptable amongst the snooty "they were mine first" crowd, if such a thing exists anymore.

 

[Sesquipedaliantique]

Everything Edwin typed is on the mark. Punk's probably the starting point, but that kind of attitude was mostly residual from the 'ideological importance' placed on the flux of independent labels in the 80s, where bands had to develop their own distinct personalities to be successful.

 

[Byron The Bulb]

I dunno, there's still plenty of ink spilled on the "authenticity" question, even if it's mostly in a slightly different tenor than the old debates over selling out. I think, at root, it's because other than maybe poetry (which is of course as far removed from the realm of corporatization as something can possibly be), lyrical music has, since the birth of the singer-songwriter, generally been considered to be the most "personal" artform out there, and thus the one most in danger of being "betrayed" by inauthenticity.

 

[Mik]

Satuday Night Live performance of Video Games was brutal and hard to watch. Not a good way to introduce yourself to America.

 

[Smartly Pretty]

That's unfortunately totally true. I really dig everything she's put out so far but wow that was bad.