jonathanbogart:

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The fifth or sixth time through as much as the first, the album sounds less like a cohesive statement than like a smart, passionate teenage girl’s Tumblr, full of reblogs of things she likes, things that speak to her, and that she doesn’t quite realize, or if she does realize doesn’t care, aren’t the coolest or the most original things to be fond of. Studio portraits of long-dead glamour girls, gauzily filtered photography, quotations that pop with the sort of naïve sincerity she’ll be embarrassed by in a years’ time, fragments from here and there, pictures of herself trying out postures, scowls, pouts, swoony songs that sound nothing like what her dumb meathead classmates listen to, midcentury poetry that makes her feel tough-minded and wise, pictures of boys that make her feel gooey and fluttery, nothing too revealing, nothing too definitive. It’s the Internet; categorical statements are an error. Be big and dramatic, but also cool and reserved. Be flirty and naughty, but also shrewd and mocking. Be whatever you want to be, nobody’s watching, nobody’s keeping track. Everybody’s performing, all together. It’s intoxicating. And then, abruptly, it ends.

How odd that this point, of all things, is what’s finally gonna get me to actually listen to the Lana Del Rey album. I’m sure there’s at least one in there you’ll like, too. Worth it just for Googling the subheads.

Has anyone brought Jennifer Chance (of Elysian Fields) into the equation, or does that just get conveniently tucked into a whole host of mid-to-late-90’s bachelor pad-isms that still seem to be frightfully uncool? I like Jonathan’s observation that LDR is bringing out Portishead too soon, though I’d also put her in conversation with 90s lounge. Which is fine by me, really, but is probably still pop-cultural-anathema for anyone old enough to remember it. (My iconic image of that period is a stand-up comic who made the Comedy Central rounds doing a song with lots of euphemisms for large penises.)