Is Norman Fucking Rockwell all it's cracked up to be

sus

sus

Moderator
Look, no question, the opening few tracks are bangers, there's solid Joni Mitchell type lyricism on the title track, and Venice Girl culture desperately wanted for representation. But does the album hold out over its duration? Is she really one of America's great contemporary songwriters? And is NFR really better than Born To Die? Discuss.

 
sus

sus

Moderator
"Your poetry's bad and you blame the news / But I can't change that, and I can't change your mood"
 
sus

sus

Moderator
"Self-loathing poet, resident Laurel Canyon know it all, you talk to the wall when the party gets bored of you"
 
line b

line b

Well-known member
EA6z21BUYAEHCRr.jpg
 
sus

sus

Moderator
I think Born To Die is a masterpiece. Especially the Lost Paradise edition that includes her "Blue Velvet" cover, which puts her in dialogue with Lynch's dark suburbia and eroticism, the Americanas he weirded.

Because it's all there in BTD. The entire template of her career laid out. She's assembling parts. Later on, she'll try to pretend she's a whole human being, that the parts are integrated into a self. She'll move beyond archetypes into being an individual person. But on Born To Die, it's like a Tumblr starterpack, it just bares a whole set of signifiers and puts the mythos of those signifiers on display.
 
sus

sus

Moderator
And the sheer number of hit-single worthy tracks is wild. Her singing is ecstatic, cracked, soaring even as her body is bruised, bruises mascara'd; she's capturing a certain attraction to polarity over stability, highs and lows, the rollercoaster, over what's "healthy." Look at how her voice leaps on the chorus here:

 
F

forclosure

Well-known member
suspended said:
Look, no question, the opening few tracks are bangers, there's solid Joni Mitchell type lyricism on the title track, and Venice Girl culture desperately wanted for representation. But does the album hold out over its duration? Is she really one of America's great contemporary songwriters? And is NFR really better than Born To Die? Discuss.

Click to expand...

i don't know about great but she's a very American songwriter that's for sure

never thought i'd see Lana Del Rey on here, suspended you're doing strange things to this here forum not gonna act like i'm a fan of the names you've picked so far but i'm following
 
sus

sus

Moderator
I think "Radio" from that first LP is probably the most beautiful melody she's put out, and all the better given the story, living in a trailer, performing open mics, not making it work. On "Radio" she's singing a fantasy, what life could be, will be, but isn't yet.

 
line b

line b

Well-known member
I think its music for perverts, as suspended himself already kind of admitted. and I mean pervert in the modern, ''meaning of japan' sense, not a catch all for sexual depravity

In the spirit of not derailing I do think pervert music could do for an analysis itself.
 
sus

sus

Moderator
Can someone for the love of God listen to the songs and post about them, instead of worrying about the sociological aspects and whether it's "music for teen girls"
 
sus

sus

Moderator
The point is it's music ABOUT teen girls and that's super interesting, and yes OBVIOUSLY teen girls demand hit singles that reflect their fantasies, but ALSO we can all learn something here
 
line b

line b

Well-known member
Proto pervert music is Kate Bush and Bjork. Can we go back further?

Kate Bush and Bjork though arent sonically pervert music, at least not all the time. Every Lana Del Ray song is deeply perverted
 
  • Like
Reactions: sus
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top