Tag: Lana Del Rey

I am currently listening to James Brown tell me about how he doesn’t know Karate but he knows Ka-Razy.  This might seem like a strange way to start this but I just finished an 8 hour drive home and so this post is coming later than usual.  I would have posted Lana Del Rey when I first woke up this morning but while I love you guys I thought it better to get on the road than to spend the time finding pictures and typing up an entry.  So I am doing it now.  And listening to some records I got for the Holidays.  Including James Brown.  I bring alllll of this up to point out that I still am posting Lana Del Rey and that is odd.  Usually if I wait it means my brain has moved on.  Not today though, woke up thinking about her and I am still thinking about her.  Because frankly there is something sexy about her.  I spent hours on the road, have listened to plenty of other artists and yet still today I want to fuck Lana Del Rey.

I was glancing around the internet the other day and somehow stumbled onto some old article about “2011 Buzzbands” and Lana Del Rey was listed there and my first thought was, “Oh my god, has it been that long?"  And yeah, it turns out it’s been that long.  It’s kind of nuts to be honest.  It’s just kind of crazy how fame cycles work, where she went from being talked about all over the internet, a darling to a villain to being declared a failure to… whatever.  I am not sure what place she holds in the pop culture landscape now.  She was labelled a failure but she seems to have her fans, she certainly sold a lot of records, she is making a living, so failure seems wrong.  She isn’t… buzz worthy anymore though?  By which I mean she isn’t driving page views for various snarky internet publications, people aren’t just sitting around talking about her.  She’s clearly important enough that she keeps showing up in magazines and stuff.  I don’t know, none of this is really important, it’s just always a subject of fascination to me how we like to set up idols, crush idols, destroy idols, eat our idols and so forth.  Anyway, I happen to still enjoy her and her music and think she is quite pretty so she’s here today.  Today I want to fuck Lana Del Rey.

I am glad that Lana Del Rey has a number one album.  Or had, I dunno where it is now.  I never really pay attention to those things other than to occasionally go, “That’s all you have to sell to have a #1 album now?"  Oh music industry, you can blame the internet but we know whose really to blame.  Anyway, I don’t have any sort of emotional connection with her that has me rooting for her personally, I have friends who do, who just unabashedly love her and thus in their heart of hearts want her personally to succeed (and probably to marry them.  Like I think they’d take either.  Yes, I am talking about you lunoboom). I don’t have that.  I like her fine but her music doesn’t move me in the way it moves others and I just… don’t care that much.  That said I am glad to see her succeed because one of the internet’s more obnoxious traits is when it collectively decides to shit on someone.  I mean, there are exceptions.  Like if you guys wanted to muster up your courage and start talking about how Hitler was kind of a dick you have my support.  That guy was a dick.  But most celebrities aren’t Hitler.  I don’t know Lana Del Rey or anything but I am going to go out on a limb and say, without having met her, whatever her sins may be as you perceive them, potential collagen injections, inauthenticity, being too popular, being calculated, et al., they are not as bad as Hitler.  I also just typically cannot take joy in seeing someone fail.  I have never really understood that sort of thing.  So I am glad she had some success and it has probably come at the best time because if it had happened with Born to Die she’d probably still be #1 on a bunch of hate lists.  I mean, it kind of did happen with Born to Die but the perception was that it was not successful for whatever reason.  So good for her.  I like seeing someone who is unfairly hated get the classic best revenge, succeeding.  Of course, that’s just me rambling, she’s here today because I think she’s really pretty and she has a certain something about her that can be pretty sexy sometimes.  Today I want to fuck Lana Del Rey.

Today I am posting Lana Del Rey and it’s 100% because all these pictures of her started popping up yesterday from this photoshoot she did and she did this thing in the photoshoot that meant I had to post her.  What was that thing?  She looked amazing.  She did this thing where she looked amazing.  It seems like she’s had a pretty good week since she had the number one record, which you know, good for her, it’s so strange that she elicits so much hate (but just as much love).  I guess some artists don’t have anyone lukewarm about them, they just seem to generate a lot of devotion and a lot of repulsion.  I don’t get it.  But man is she gorgeous.  And yeah, her voice is really sexy too.  But she looked so good and that’s all it takes sometimes so today I want to fuck Lana Del Rey.

I am glad that Lana Del Rey is… maybe not less divisive than she once was but that the… let’s call them the internet hipsterati have found other things to kick around since 2011.  Side note, I already feel bad about that word, hipsterati, I think hipster is a generally worthless phrase because I have never actually met anyone who is the walking stereotype people portray when using that term and let me tell you, I have seen so many bands you guys have never heard of.  I have 7 inches from bands that maybe never even existed!  Wait, i am digressing, my point is I am glad that’s over.  I really only see stuff from people who actually like her now.  I find, in general, that just makes for more pleasant experiences because like, if I am seeing positive things about people I don’t like I can scroll past but I don’t ever have to see someone making really fucked up statements about people I do like.  And the interesting thing about her is that the controversy was always about how authentic she and her image were.  Why I say that is interesting is the image, kind of the whole package of pseudo-throwback from the smokey voice to the fashion to the lips and the hair go a long, long way to making me attracted to her.  People can debate all they want about how much of it is contrived or not but that doesn’t change the fact that she is very attractive and there is a sexiness to her image, nature or unnatural.  (As another aside if you care about my thoughts on such thing I think authenticity is largely a lie.  All images are cultivated.  Some might be more of an affectation that others but especially in the age of the internet we are active curators of our own image.  Facebook, tubmlr, twitter, everything is not a peek into our soul, it is a peek into the part of our soul we want people to see.  It is a carefully designed bit of PR to present ourselves to the world as we wish to be seen.  Even if you share everything.  Even if nothing you like is popular.  I would remind you the “individual” is the most popular and successful marketing type in existence).  My point is that once I went to the Grand Canyon and it was god damned beautiful.  I expected a hole in the ground and instead I had my breath taken away.  I can’t imagine anything artificial being done to it and it being better.  I also have also stood atop a hill in my city and stared out into the night.  The lights twinkle and dance and the hum of the city is a music that fills my ears and it is beautiful as well but there is nothing natural about it.  No one rails against way old buildings bunch together to create a gorgeous back drop for being affected.  So I wonder why we are so worried about it on a personal level.  I guess what I am saying is it doesn’t matter which way the needle points on her, today I want to fuck Lana Del Rey.

It’s actually been over a year since Lana Del Rey has been here which is both surprising and not surprising at all.  Surprising because she is rather attractive and I have quite a few followers who absolutely love her.  Not surprising because I was probably most into her before he first album even came out and man, that feels like a million years ago now, right?  Back when there was debate about if she was indie or manufactured and like before she even was on SNL and people blew that out of proportion?  Well, she released a new song which if you are reading this you probably know.  If you aren’t reading this you probably don’t care.  It’s been all over my dash as well as her Coachella performance and well… she is attractive and not all together unpleasant to listen to.  Nice to look at and to listen to.  So… it’s that simple, today I want to fuck Lana Del Rey.

Lana Del Rey interests me most in that she offers a sort of prepackaged, superficial glamor.  This is not an insult, though it is the source of some of the backlash against her.  I see it as a more honest thing than most.  I suppose it depends on perspective, is glamor something innate to certain people?  Well, looking at Audrey Hepburn would seem to indicate that yes, it is something some people just have.  But I would argue it’s always superficial, it is something projected outward that says little about the person.  It is an image, perhaps in some it is an image they project natural, but we are still buying the sizzle, not the steak when we fall under its spell.  But it’s a hell of a sizzle and I don’t know that it’s a bad thing to be impressed by something that so few can pull off.  Which takes me back to Lana Del Rey.  She also can do it well, though I am almost more impressed by the sort of trashy glamor she pulls off sometimes, which honestly isn’t even a thing that should feel possible.  Still, I have said in the past I am very hot and cold on her, either she does nothing for me or blows me away, maybe this explains it, the image she projects, there is no middle ground, either it’s there or it isn’t at any moment and there just isn’t an inbetween.  I don’t know, I could just be rambling again, all I know for certain is that today I want to fuck Lana Del Rey.

I am, if nothing else, impressed by the endless stream of new songs Lana Del Rey keeps pumping out, it’s an impressive rate and even if you hate her for some imagined slight to your indie cred you have to kind of respect the machine that seems to keep her running with perpetual new content and appearances, this is a flame that could have burned out very quickly a very long time ago in pop culture terms.  Not that she has quite the heat she did a year ago but then again she hasn’t been on Saturday Night Live spinning around recently.  I am on the record saying I like a couple of her songs, dislike one or two, and find a lot of it just kind of uninspiring.  This isn’t really that damning, I described a lot of pop music to be honest, the album as an art form is arguable as a thing in any genre but has hardly been the yield of top 40 radio over the year (I mean I fucking LOVE Off the Wall but they aren’t all gold and it is a collection of songs, not a personal statement, unless that personal statement is “I can make better singles than you”).  Anyway, Lana is someone I seem to need to be in a certain mood for, a lot of the time I just don’t care, it isn’t that she isn’t pretty, she is pretty, it is that she evokes little passion in me.  Then some days I realize she is very attractive in a somewhat unique way.  Today is one of those days.  Today I want to fuck Lana Del Rey.

Lana Del Rey… back again.  I am surprised she’s back again so soon after 6 months of not showing up and honestly almost a year after really caring about her.  Maybe she’s just been in good pictures lately?  Or I have reseen what I originally saw?  I don’t know, she’s definitely pretty and I am not immune to certain affectations.  Certainly the knowingly retro style is something I enjoy.  There is an intrinsic sultriness to someone with an old school voice who looks like a femme fatale.  But I don’t know why exactly, I just know today I want to fuck Lana Del Rey.

I am not really entirely sure what to write about Lana Del Rey, it is always strange when a pop singer can be so divisive because… it’s pop music, by it’s very nature it’s meant for mass consumption, divisive is the opposite of it’s intent  I think people felt a little burned by her or rather, felt exposed by her.  Music is, in many ways for many people as much a piece of self identity as it is art.  Who and what you listen to can be as much of a fashion statement as the clothes you wear and if you identify as someone who is non conventional I can see how Lana Del Rey could burn you.  When Pitchfork first “discovered” her on youtube she became pretty instantly popular with the underground crowd.  Of course, it didn’t take long for the history of Lizzy Grant to emerge and suddenly there were people writing about her being prepackaged or her being fake or her having fake lips or whatever.  It certainly made her poison to those who first liked her but it seems silly to me, if you think Video Games is a good song then you think Video Games is a good song.  I grew up listening to punk music and when Avril Lavigne first broke I worked at a record store.  You’re supposed to kind of hate everything she stands for in that situation.  Thing is though, it doesn’t matter if you dislike her or her manufactured image, it doesn’t effect the music and I still think the chorus to Complicated is a pretty masterful bit of pop song craft.  As such, I also think that Video Games is pretty good, the most troubling part about it is not it’s origin but the screwed up gender politics of the relationship it describes.  This all brings us back to Lana, who I run pretty hot and cold on.  When she first appeared I was definitely very into how she looked, she just had a certain… something.  And yes, it always seemed calculated, no one accidentally rolls out of bed and looks like that.  I am fine with that.  I just got bored with her.  By the time her album finally came out I was way past bored with the controversy and her and the album itself was kind of mediocre.  So I don’t think of her much but you know, sometimes I pause and realize that yeah, she’s pretty hot. Sometimes there is just something to that look that catches my eye.  Thing is, that’s fine.  I can like Video Games.  I can kind of like Blue Jeans.  I can think Born to Die isn’t very good.  It isn’t a statement about me at my core, it’s a statement about three songs.  I can like how she looks some days and not, the only thing it says about me is that I am rather flighty in my attraction to people I don’t actually know.  My choice of her only really reveals one thing about me and that’s that today I want to fuck Lana Del Rey.