Tag: Lana Del Rey

Today just felt like a Lana Del Rey kinda day. I don’t know why exactly other than because it does. I happen to like her a lot because she is pretty and her music is uniquely hers but also I find her a number of strong philosophical concepts given human form. Which is a neat trick but most of us never get to be the embodiment of intellectual ideas but she does. My favorite at the moment is that everything she does is constructed and artificial and that there is more truth in that than there is in most authenticity. It’s just a fun paradox to sort of bounce around in my head, that because everything she does is an affectation she reveals more than those who carefully take their time to seem real. There is no lie to Lana Del Rey because it’s openly not real. Anyway, my brain loves going down those roads but if you don’t I would point out she makes for some fantastic pictures. So you can just enjoy those. Today I want to fuck Lana Del Rey.

Happy Birthday, America!  Are you feeling your age yet?  I get it, it’s been a rough couple of months in a lot of way but I am here to remind you we’re built on a couple of principles and a big one is that we’re in charge.  It’s why we told King George to shove it, because we knew a people can only be ruled through it’s own consent.  We still can only be ruled through our own consent.  It means we can reinvent ourselves whenever we want, which is why I chose Lana Del Rey.  She reinvented herself and it was pretty successful.  That’s the freedom we enjoy, and some people hold it against her but those are sad and bitter people.  Sure their voices are the loudest sometimes but they fade away if like all trolls you don’t feed them.  She pushed forward, she put in the work, she believed in herself.  It’s the same for everything.  We can be the America you want but you have to stand up for it to be so.  That doesn’t mean shutting out opposing views.  It doesn’t mean shutting them down either.  The only way to counter a bad idea is with a good idea.  We have them.  Be vocal.  Keep in mind we can be what we want to be and that King George can get bent for all we care, remember, nothing is more American than telling authority to suck it.  Happy 4th everyone.  Train, say your prayers, eat your vitamins, believe in yourself.  Be a real American.  Today I want to fuck Lana Del Rey.

So I was wrong about Cannes yesterday.  Not that it was starting.  It started.  People were there.  People looked good.  Not many people were there yet though and what I was wrong about was the idea that it would dominate posting this week.  See, instead Lana Del Rey showed up in Elle in the UK.  And well, her coming out with a new album is great because we get new Lana Del Rey photoshoots which are honestly always a fantastic thing.  I quite liked the Elle editorial because it was big on the glamor but toned down the sepia tone filters.  I mean, I like the sepia tone filters and all with Lana but a little variety is nice.  And she looks very good all fancied up.  So she is here today and it was an easy decision.  Today I want to fuck Lana Del Rey.

Here is Lana Del Rey because there was a possibly new set of photos of her.  I honestly can’t be entirely sure because they looked familiar but at the same time that’s kind of the whole point.  Photos of Lana Del Rey are always steeped in a memory of a past that never really existed, so they are supposed to make us think that maybe we have seen something just like this before, even though in reality they pick pieces from disparate time periods that weren’t really all that close together at the time, even if the past seems to be one big jumbled mess to us in the present.  It’s like when people used to have 80’s parties and they’d dress in fashions that never saw each other, or when 90’s parties happened and everyone thought that was all about neon even though that was basically 1 year in the 90’s and no other time.  I don’t know how people dress for 2000’s parties, I just know my mind rebels at the whole idea cause my brain still thinks of that as basically now, even though it’s been 7 years.  My point is the past can blur together and that is the past a picture of Lana Del Rey is selling, not a real past but a concept of the past.  A feeling of old timey-ness that is inexact and more about what we want the past to be than anything it really was.  So, I guess what I am saying is there may have been new pictures.  It would make sense, she has a new album coming out at some point this year.  Or they might be recycled because magazines love to do that and let’s be honest, if you’re going to recycle photos and pass them off as new, Lana Del Rey is a pretty good choice for that.  Not so much as a meta commentary but because people can’t be sure if they have seen them before.  Today I want to fuck Lana Del Rey.

So here is Lana Del Rey who released a trailer to her new album yesterday.  I have written a lot of words about Lana Del Rey in the past because there were a lot of words to write, she inspires that kind of thing in part because of who she is but more because of our reaction to her.  I thought the trailer was fine but I did react negatively to the idea of a trailer for a record.  I should state I happen to dislike movie trailers.  Or rather the culture that has grown up around them.  I am not sure why everyone in the world gets excited for a new commercial that is designed to make a thing seem better than it is but holy shit do that.  That’s fine, its’ their thing.  It’s the abject horror when I have told them I haven’t seen it and upon sending me a link or shoving their phone in their face the horror when it turns out it isn’t because I was unaware the internet existed but rather because I have no interest in purposefully watching commercials.  Also, calling them commercials really gets people’s goats.  Which is why I keep saying it here.  I am a dick.  So anyway, I am not one to get excited about commercials but it did get me thinking about Lana Del Rey and nostalgia, probably because there were some references to the state of the world in said trailer, and Lana is going to make it all better.  I should point out that I happen to greatly enjoy Lana Del Rey and have defended the artifice of what she does here on this blog many times.  Check the tag if you are interested.  That said, I am not sure black and white and trappings of the past are the solution for the current state of the world as I feel nostalgia is why we are here.  When La La Land got all the buzz it goes I was opposed to the buzz.  Not the movie.  The movie was fine. Though, I should point out “fine” is a descriptor that doesn’t go along with the praise it was getting.  What bothered me was the fact that people were just going apeshit over it for the same reason everyone voted for Donald Trump.  A view of a pretty, pristine, white past that never existed.  Now, I think what Lana Del Rey does is clever, she artfully takes bits form the past and forms a thing that never actually existed.  But of course, that’s what La La Land did, too, it carefully stole from old musicals to create a new one that was kind of about white people saving Jazz (not really but that also really pisses people off, too). And of course Trump was promising an idealized version of the 1950’s that never existed, not even for white people, but certainly not for anyone who wasn’t white.  And I guess I think this is general ok in our entertainment and I will never hold the artist responsible for the misinterpretations of their work by others.  But when she promises to make everything better… it kind of rubbed me wrong.  Music is transcendent and can cure almost anything that ails you but it needs to have something to say.  If it is just the warm comforting blanket of rose tinted nostalgia around you then it is not art, it’s art’s greatest enemy. So uh… I guess I am saying if you’re reading this I sure hope you come through for us, Lana?  Am I putting unfair pressure on you?  It feels like I am a little but like… look, if you can perfect the looks you have done, a great record can’t be that hard right?  Right.  I mean, to be honest there are some pretty hard truths in her earlier works that not everyone seemed to get.  Just give me that.  Today I want to fuck Lana Del Rey.

Here is Lana Del Rey cause it’s a Lana Del Rey kind of morning.  I listened to one of her records, I have a lot of thoughts about her and image and superficiality and authenticity but i have already written about that.  A lot actually.  On this blog.  on other blogs.  Every celebrity is selling us an image of them, not themselves.  Those who we feel are particularly authentic or uniquely themselves are either just better at selling or authentic unique themness is just what they are selling.  This all sounds cynical and it is and lord knows I am not really a fan of the nihilistic there is no truth, nothing can be known freshman year intro to philosophy stuff.  It is not profound and it is intellectually lazy.  My point is just that Lana falls into this grouping that because she is more transparent about the image she is selling she is somehow seen as less honest.  It’s an interesting intellectual contradiction we engage in, where we are almost upset when someone doesn’t try hard enough to let us suspend disbelief.  So yes, she is selling an image but it’s a pleasant image.  And there is truth to be found in purposeful illusion.  Also, she’s just kind of sexy.  Anyway, I have been thinking about all of that but it’s nothing new because it’s basically what I always think about when I think about Lana Del Rey.  Which is a good thing, certainly not everyone makes me explore thoughts on reality and truth.  Today I want to fuck Lana Del Rey.

I guess Lana Del Rey has a new album coming out soon.  Or… I don’t guess, I know she has something coming out eventually, the soon is the part I am guessing on.  I know there has been some stuff and all and there has been a mini influx of pictures from photoshoots recently.  That’s usually a good sign.  Look, I am not who you should go to for your LDR news.  Or any news.  This is not a news site.  I am sorry.  You may have to scrap that paper you’re working on if you used me as a source.  Sorry, I really should have mentioned all this earlier.  I am just a site where I talk about stuff I like.  Mainly girls but sometimes other stuff.  Well, always girls.  Sometimes other stuff with the girls.  I like Lana Del Rey.  Not as much as my dear, sweet friend @lunoboom does, so maybe ask her if you have Lana Del Rey questions because she is bilingual and once defeated 3 assassins with just a grapefruit, so she seems closer to a valid source.  Anyway, this is way off track because I am tired and in a rush so I will just say Lana is pretty and sexy and I like her so today I want to fuck Lana Del Rey.

Today is a very important day, people.  Very important!  Today is my dear friend lunoboom ‘s birthday.  This is important because she is just wonderful.  If you don’t know this I feel very sad for you but it’s understandable because you may have never gotten to talk to her.  That is why this is such a great day for you, I am going to give you an excuse to start.  Go ahead and go to her ask box and wish her happy birthday.  Izzy is the Izziest Izzy who has ever Izzied.  On top of that she is smart (taught herself English by watching TV), is mega talented (She plays bass, drums, guitar and sings better than she is willing to admit), and is beautiful (in the sense that her face is quite pretty and she has very lustrous hair).  She also once won a staring contest with a mad gorilla (that I just made up but it doesn’t mean it’s not true).  Anyway, this is your chance to get to know her, after wishing her happy birthday my suggestion is to start talking about Lana Del Rey.  Izzy quite wisely realizes that Lana Del Rey is gorgeous.  And talented.  You can talk about her songs or just how she makes your heart go a flutter, I promise you, Izzy can discuss both.  In English or Portuguese.  Talented, I tell you.  So wish her happy birthday, make a new tumblr friend.  Discuss how hot Lana Del Rey is!  These are amazingly great activities I am offering you.  Today I want to fuck Lana Del Rey.

I posted yesterday in response to a friend (the delightful lunoboom ) about Lana Del Rey and in my comments I called her a walking Instagram Filter which someone else viewed as kind of a snotty thing to say.  And I can see why they would say that.  I certainly didn’t say it as an insult but I can see who it could be seen that way.  In general I feel like we’re al Nostalgic for times that never existed, I guess actually that is largely what nostalgia is, this longing for a time that never actually really existed.  You might long for the summer when you were 13 years old but that real summer will never match the summer in your mind, the summer of endless twilight adventures with friends, sleep overs with bad movies, crushes and starting to learn who you were.  Those were magic and they tend to crowd out the times you were bored and no one wanted to hang out, or when you cried yourself to sleep because everyone else had someone to watch fireworks with but the crush you had liked someone else.  That’s how it works.  I mean, I remember being a teenager and my mom making a comment about how she wishes things were like the 50′s, when things were just more moral.  I of course snottily snapped back which was more moral, persecuting people with different religious beliefs, people with different political views, the oppression of minorities, or the part where women were meant to be seen but not heard.  Score one for teenage self righteousness.  She said I knew what she meant, I am sure I pretended I didn’t and went to go write some screed in my notebook about the fucking baby boomers while I listened to Scentless Apprentice because this was the 90′s.  I did know what she meant though, she meant she wanted things to be like this one very specific aspect of a culture she never really knew and was only a part of for the first couple of years of her life.  The part of her mind that had mad unlocked doors and family meals seem like the pinnacle of human society.  The part where black people had to use separate water fountains weren’t part of the fantasy.  Which is kind of the comforting fantasy Lana Del Rey sells and what I meant about my Instagram thing, she is selling a thing that never really existed, a 1940′s Lauren Bacall Haircut and 50′s Galmour through a modern lens on Born to Die, a bit of highly filtered 70′s sleaze on Ultraviolence.  And there is nothing wrong with this but I am older than she is and I wasn’t around for that shit so she certainly wasn’t, none of it was like we imagine because none of us are particularly capable of creating a fully formed reality in our head, it is much more like the set of an old Western, mainly wooden fronts designed to look like buildings without there actually being anything on the other side.  Indie music is often obsessed with Authenticity, which I feel in general is a fools errand but I always felt was the result of the backlash against Lana, she tricked them and they were mad even though there was no point at which a 20 something girl in 2010who was aping the style of women from 50 years earlier was doing anything but purposefully manufacturing an image.  What people fail to see is the authenticity in artifice, in carefully constructing a picture of the past that looks nothing like the past what an artist really is doing is carefully choosing the parts of disparate things that they wish to represent them.  And that stuff we choose to believe or embrace about eras that didn’t exist?  That defines us more than what really happened would have.  This is what I thought about as I listened to my new record and this is why today I want to fuck Lana Del Rey.

Here is Lana Del Rey and I don’t know why entirely.  She just kind of popped into my head this morning but i never mind because it is always a little fun hunting down pictures of her.  Mainly because she does photoshoots better than almost anyone else.  It is interesting how for some people they look so much better in certain situations.  There are some celebrities who look their best on the street and you find yourself wondering why they never look as good on the red carpet.  Some people look best on the screen and when they aren’t moving an emoting you look at a static image and it feels empty.  Lana Del Rey looks best in photoshoots and I’d imagine it’s a talent tied to her ability to make the music she does.  Her photoshoots are so good because she evokes a mood.  It’s a little retro but a little not, a little glamorous but through a skeezy faded Polaroid from the 70′s filter. It’s very specific to her but it is nice.  And I like going through pictures trying to determine which is the best at evoking what is in my brain at the moment.