Hello everyone! It’s been a busy and quick 20 days since the new year… And my deepest apologies for more or less neglecting this. While I’m sure most people didn’t notice… I did. And it then encouraged me to make the following commitment: I’m going to post something of substance in addition to the random re-blogging and links to pertinent articles/essays. With that being said…
I’d like to tackle another overblown catastrophe of a debate that is Lana Del Rey. I’ll also probably delve into yesterdays Megaupload/Megavideo take down as well, as relevant to the current grievances. I’m sure by this point, everyone’s seen, or heard of, Lana Del Rey and her awful SNL appearance (If not…. here and here). Yes, they were awful. Yes, having a three song demo tape out and the love of Pitchfork behind you will get you far and will get your name thrown across the Internet you’re destined for fame and riches. Apparently, all it’s gotten Lana Del Rey is a big old steaming pile of hate.
Del Rey’s aesthetic lies between fifties nostalgia and glamour and…. trailer chique? It’s an aesthetic that relies on being as disengaging and numbing as possible. She clearly has some sort of talent, she’s been singing since her childhood and spent time in a choir (According to her statements.) But this is a perfect vehicle to look at pop music, pop culture, and the way we consume both of those things. Her debut single, ‘Video Games’ (Video here) is (Like most her music and visuals) an extension of a persona and the persona’s imitation of life. The video is a hazy wash of people falling in various iterations of the word ‘falling’. The take away is that, her voice is soothing, oddly deep and calming, over a wash of dreamy orchestra and a steady beat that anchors us back to our seats. It’s something you either hate or love. What comes to question is the sincerity. Is what we’re listening too an honest artistic outpouring or something manufactured and false?
In a time and place in which our attention spans are boiled down to three and a half minutes, Del Rey’s hazily glowing music requires too much attention. Without the four-on-the-floor bass (A musical term referring to the kick drum keeping time by hitting it every quarter beat accenting the beat which makes dance music highly danceable) keeping time for us, we’re at a loss and can’t seem to make heads or tails of the song. Look at songs like Katy Perry’s ‘Friday Night (TGIF)’, or anything from 2011’s Teenage Dream. The songs all clock in at slightly over three and a half minutes. All of them: danceable. The radio format doesn’t do well with 4 minute songs. Three minute pop songs are back. It’s what made Motown and Phil Spector era Doowop so successful. But here we are, on the verge of her record coming out (I’m pretty sure it’s leaked this morning) and the entire Internet is divided into Pro or Anti- Lana camps. It’s like Twilight. But with a lot more “adult” arguments.
We’re looking at this phenomenon and wondering ‘Why? WHY?!’. But that is art, if you break it down. Reis and Trout talk about in their groundbreaking work on brand positioning, the seven “docks” in which we store information and how that relates to our memory. Del Rey and her music fit into non-recognizable “docks” and thus we spend most of our time rejecting what she represents and ‘creates’. Those who support and understand her music and video projections clearly are ready and have “dock” space available. As we ready to reject, or accept, we don’t quite understand what we’re looking for and therefore we have no clearly established ‘brand’. That is what Del Rey represents. A brand. A brand of music and art and all those things that come with it. Does that validate her choices and inability to relate to those who like her while she preforms? That’s not up for me to decide. But, think back a paltry five years to the aforementioned Katy Perry’s ‘I Kissed A Girl’. Did we not have similar, if not the exact, same reactions?
A little food for thought this Tuesday morning.
