Well, shit. We’ve been working our asses off down here in the Vole Hole, but we keep running into obstacles hindering our objective of awesomeness with the new site. Please accept our sincerest apologies. We promise to have that puppy up and running as soon as possible. You’ll be happy to know, however, that you really haven’t missed much. January wasn’t that great in terms of new music. The Cloud Nothings’ new album, Attack on Memory, has gotten some good buzz, but I was underwhelmed. It sounds more like a Steve Albini album (it was produced by him) than a Cloud Nothings album.
There. Consider yourself covered for January.
Almost. The album everyone’s been waiting for/dreading, Lana Del Rey’s Born to Die, comes out on Tuesday, January 31st. As with all things LDR, the music seems secondary to the hype, so Brandon didn’t even bother listening to the album before tearing it apart. Classy. This letter goes out to Ross Angeles in Los Angeles. That’s right.
Lana Del Rey – “Video Games” SNL Performance
From: Brandon Hall
To: Ross Angeles
Lana Del Rey’s new album Born to Die is terrible. I haven’t listened to it yet, but in the case of Lana, her music doesn’t really matter, does it? So I just figured it didn’t make a difference whether or not I listened to the album before I wrote a scathing review.
This just about sums it up, I think:
Has there been a more divisive artist in recent memory to set the blogosphere on fire for reasons that seemed to have so little to do with the actual music? Maybe that’s not an entirely fair assessment. Some people did want to talk about the indelibly intriguing, honestly great “Video Games” and “Blue Jeans.” But everyone else, it seemed, just wanted to shit all over those songs by way of not talking about them, instead choosing to make incendiary and disparaging comments about her face, or her image, or the accusation that she’s a talentless major-label plant, which I personally find to be a rather specious argument given the power and uniqueness of “Video Games.” No way Interscope manages to pull that gem out of a focus group.
But the album sucks. I know because I’ve read things from other people who’ve read things by a few people who’ve actually listened to the album and they say it sucks so it must be so. Also I heard some shit about 9/11 that You. Will. Not. Believe.
In fairness, while I haven’t listened to the album I have spent some serious time, obviously, with “Video Games,” “Blue Jeans,” “Born to Die,” and two songs that leaked a couple weeks ago “National Anthem,” and “This is What Makes Us Girls.” As for the latter two, yikes! They’re about as terrible as “Video Games” is great. Actually, that’s not fair to the awfulness of “National Anthem.” It’s far worse than all three of her initial singles were good. Combined. And I quote: “I’m your national anthem/God, you’re so handsome/Take me to the Hamptons.” And by the way, she raps these lyrics. Yeah. She f’ing raps almost through the entirety of that four minute train wreck. She also semi-raps her way through “This is What Makes Us Girls” in case you were wondering. So after hearing those two painfully awful songs, when I read a few pre-release reviews panning the album, I wasn’t surprised.
Of course, this letter to you isn’t really about the music, because who wants to talk about the music when discussing Lana Del Rey? What do you think of her lip injections? Do you think she’s done botox? Did you see her performance on Saturday Night Live? How about what Brian Williams said? Or Jenny Lewis? Damn, haters be hatin’. Did you know she used to be an unsuccessful singer/songwriter who went by her given name, Lizzie Grant, but reinvented herself into this starlet character, Lana Del Rey?
By the way, Stringer Bell has a solid explanation for that last bit:
Ross, I actually have quite a few opinions on all of this, but I’ll get to those on my next go ’round. I do think LDR deserves a fair shake, for what it’s worth, just in case my sarcasm wasn’t quite dripping with the viscosity I intended. And so, while I truly do not expect to like much, if any, of Born to Die, aside from the first three singles, I’ll give it a listen before my next letter. But what do you think of Lana Del Rey, just as a figure in our culture? Why is there so much hatred for someone who, it seems, was just trying to figure out a way to wedge herself into an insanely competitive industry and managed to succeed somewhat?
“I heard that you like the bad girls/Honey, is that true?”
Brandon
Born To Die is out 1/31 on Interscope.
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