Posts

Showing posts with the label Born to Die

“California” by Lana Del Rey (repost), Thursday, April 18, 2024

Image
Lana Del Rey 's magnum opus,  Norman Fucking Rockwell!   was released in September of 2018 and earned the singer-songwriters the acclaim she had been laying the foundation for since 2012's  Born to Die.   A year after her lackluster album/ collection of good songs  Lust for Life ,  she released the first single from  NFR,  " The Mariner's Apartment Complex " and quickly followed it with another single, the 9:38 song " Venice Bitch ." She began building hype for the record, a cohesive record using the Americana formula Del Rey uses best, a year before its release. The singer awkwardly promoted the album in October of 2018, 11 months before its release, at an  Apple Keynote event . The singer wasn't allowed to say the name of her upcoming album or its single, which she played censored, "Venice Bitch," as  Jack Antonoff   played the piano. Norman Rockwell's  Saturday Evening Post Cover,  Public Domain YOU DON'T EVER HAVE TO GO FASTER T

“I! Only! Wanna! Live! Forever!” by Fleurie, Tuesday, July 4, 2023

Image
Fleurie is just shy of 3 million monthly listeners on Spotify. The Nashville-based singer-songwriter's majority of listeners, though, come from outside the United States from India, Turkey, Brazil, and Germany to be precise. Last year I talked about about her cover of Sufjan Steven 's   " To Be Alone with You ," which appears in the Looking for Alaska mini-series. While Fleurie has released many covers including a haunting version Linkin Park 's " In the End " and Gary Jules ' arrangement of Tears for Fears ' " Mad World ," the singer also writes original songs and released her fourth LP earlier this year titled Supertropicali .  CALIFORNIA GIRLS DON'T LOOK LIKE ME. How to describe Fleurie's latest album, Supertropicali? Fleurie describes it on her Spotify page as "a world, an era, a story unfolding, all stitched together in '90s nostalgia, romance, youthful hope, and belonging." Taking inspiration from Mary Popp

“California” by Lana Del Rey, Monday, April 17, 2023 (update repost)

Image
Lana Del Rey 's magnum opus,  Norman Fucking Rockwell!   was released in September of 2018 and earned the singer-songwriters the acclaim she had been laying the foundation for since 2012's  Born to Die.   A year after her lackluster album/ collection of good songs  Lust for Life ,  she released the first single from  NFR,  " The Mariner's Apartment Complex " and quickly followed it with another single, the 9:38 song " Venice Bitch ." She began building hype for the record, a cohesive record using the Americana formula Del Rey uses best, a year before its release. The singer awkwardly promoted the album in October of 2018, 11 months before its release, at an Apple Keynote event . The singer wasn't allowed to say the name of the her upcoming album or its single, which she played censored, "Venice Bitch," as Jack Antonoff played the piano. Norman Rockwell's Saturday Evening Post Cover,  Public Domain YOU DON'T EVER HAVE TO GO FASTER T

“Dark Paradise” by Lana Del Rey, Thursday, July 7, 2022

Image
  This July, as many American have celebrated Independence Day, I think it's important to look at different versions of the American Dream. Lana Del Rey 's 2012 record Born to Die examines " the dark side of the American dream " at times. While America is starting look more like it's Puritanical heritage with a little too much Flannery O'Connor and Homer Simpson pseudo-religiosity, the Northeastern secular world that Del Rey paints on her debut album seems like a world apart from a neo-conservatism. Del Rey's America is the America of Hollywood. It's New Yorkers who vacation Upstate in the summer and attend cocktail parties on the weekend. If they go to church, it's infrequent and not an evangelical version of Christianity. It's the America of the Jazz Age and the fifties. ALL MY FRIENDS TELL ME I SHOULD MOVE ON. But it's also the America of Mad Men.   Del Rey has been criticized for sometime avowing an opposition to feminism. In 2014, the

"Without You" by Lana Del Rey, Thursday, May 19, 2022 (Trigger Warning: Discussion of Domestic Abuse)

Image
In Lana Del Rey 's first interview with Zane Lowe , she talked about her inspiration for the 2012 record, Born to Die . She talks about the collaboration between her, hip-hop producer Emile Haynie , and string arranger Larry Gold to create an album that sounds classic and fresh. Although Del Rey has moved away from the Brooklyn-style hip-hop beats in albums after Born to Die, the album still feels relevant ten years later. In fact, when  Pitchfork re-examined the record last year , the review bumped the score from 5.5 to 7.8. While pop cynics may argue that music has gotten worse rather than being misunderstood at the time, the young adult escapism, the post-modern life she sings about makes more sense among the younger artists Del Rey influenced such as Lorde and Billie Eilish .  I EVEN THINK I FOUND GOD. " Without You " appears as the thirteenth track on the  Target Bonus Tracks edition of Born to Die. The album's standard edition ends with " This Is What

“Wildest Dreams” (Taylor’s Version), Saturday, May 7, 2022

Image
Last summer, Taylor Swift ’s “ Wildest Dreams ” started trending on TikTok . Of course this was in the middle of Swift’s massive project to release re-recordings of her studio records due to her inability to buy the rights to her original recordings. In the spring of last year, she released a massive re-recording of Fearless , the album that propelled the then teen singer to being one of the biggest internationally-recognized music stars. Responding to the TikTok trend, Swift posted her own take on it with the re-recorded version , despite the fact that the singer had stated that she would release her version of Red , 1989 ’s predecessor and the album that transitioned the singer’s style from Country to Pop, before any of her versions of songs from 1989 would be released. Fans hoped that Taylor’s version of 1989 was on the way, but in November of last year, Swift released a 31-track version of Red . Fans certainly weren’t disappointed as Taylor’s 10-minute Version of “ All Too Well ”

"Summertime Sadness" by Lana Del Rey, Wednesday, July 21, 2021

Image
In April, I introduced Lana Del Rey to my playlists and talked about my experience with her debut album, Born to Die.   My first introduction to Del Rey was The Great Gatsby soundtrack original song " Young and Beautiful " which was the planned single to bring Del Rey to Top 40 radio. Earlier singles like " Video Games " and " Born to Die " were successful in the indie world and overseas, but Del Rey was still relatively unknown in the States. However, when a remix of "Summertime Sadness" by Cedric Gervais appeared and started taking the charts by storm, Del Rey's record label pulled support from "Young and Beautiful." "Summertime Sadness" would become Lan Del Rey's first number one hit, and the remix would earn Gervais a grammy for Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical.  OH, MY GOD, I FEEL IT IN THE AIR. When school let out for the summer, church was held in the smaller chapel, giving a more intimate feeling compar