Seriously, FUCK Lana Del Rey. If Britney Spears, the famous lip-syncer and mental breakdown lady can sound amazing LIVE on SNL, then anyone should. Watch is. She’s AMAZING! There’s just something about her that you can’t look away from. Lana del Rey just kind of stood there too, and everyone was like “what the fuck bitch!” But when Brit Brit stands there the entire song, singing live, you just stare at her. Je ne sais quoi to the max.
But for real, this gives me hope that someday we may have a Britney back that is more involved in performance and music career. Watching her on the X Factor is weird, because she has psychological issues that leave her in a conservatorship where she can’t make any life decisions on her own. But she’s judging a HUGE talent competition like the X Factor? It just seems kind of weird. Almost like all the people surrounding her, even though they have her off the street drugs and on the prescribed ones, are exploiting her name and face for millions of dollars. Sometimes I just don’t know what to think about our B. Spears. I love her to death, but her life is fucking insane.
Girl’s got a great aesthetic. She’s an H&M model, a new artist on the scene with a retro vibe, and a totally hot babe. I like 3 of her songs from her debut album “Born to Die”. Summertime Sadnessis my jam right now, because fall is sooooo almost here and I’m over summer and all its philandering ways. In my quest to reevaluate my lukewarm feelings towards Lana Del Rey, I decided to do a little more research. Who knows, maybe her ethereal-old timey Nancy Sinatra angle just needed some time to seep in. Maybe not.
Image from Buzzfeed
In my research, I came across this article on Buzzfeed called “26 Meanest Quotes From Reviews of Lana Del Rey’s ‘Born to Die.‘” They’re not so much mean as they are a “what the fuck, commercial industry?! If you’re gonna push some shit in our face, make it better than… this.” She really does have an opposing magnets vibe. Most of her songs are listenable, but listenable isn’t a “HOLY FUCK IF WE DON’T LISTEN TO THIS SONG RIGHT NOW I’M GONNA FUCK YOUR HEAD.” And isn’t that what most mainstream pop music strives for? True, her tunes ain’t dancepopsynthpuke, but the target market is similar. That’s why her entire existence is confusing. You don’t market lukewarm tea to coke addicts. That’s like, marketing 101. You market cocaine to cocaine addicts and lukewarm tea to people who like to stay indoors.
I also wanted to watch her SNL debacle performances again, because I forgot what was so bad about them. Was she standing still too much? Was she pitchy? Was she boring? It’s so much more than that. This person does not look ready to have a career as a mainstream singer. She looks, acts and sings like she’s empty: a shell of a guaranteed faux-indie consumer success. And maybe she is empty. Sometimes we’re all a little empty. What’s weird is that she isn’t using that emptiness in her performance or art, which is the biggest cardinal sin of being an artist: use what’s screwed up about you and turn it into gold. She’s using what she’s not and turning it into ‘meh’. Good plan!
Kind of empty. Image via nydailynews.com
She’s also landed a campaign with H&M for fall 2012. The clothes look good, and again her aesthetic is appealing. But there’s not anything behind her stares. Her poses seems fragile and shy. Maybe in a pop world full of Lady Gaga, Ke$ha, Katy Perry and Nicki Minaj, LDR’s understated image is calculated as some kind of counteract to the exhausting, never-ending motion of the modern pop star. All of the aforementioned pop stars have a clearly defined personality/music/market that we all know and either love or hate. LDR severely lacks personality, spark, that je ne sais quoi that sends the right participants on a one way journey to superstardom.
She seems like a nice girl, someone you would get frozen yogurt with and watch a movie you’ve already seen 100 times. As for being some sort of pop star, we’re still waiting for a personality to emerge from behind the technically beautiful and commercially calculated image that is barely conceivable as human.
OH GOD. The month where all summer activities become stale. The clothes are worn. You don’t even think about the sun anymore, because it’s there all the time. Then when it goes away, it’s like “what the fuck is going on.” Fall clothing hasn’t HIT THE FUCKING STORES YET. All the shitty summer clothes are on sale. Summer romancing is starting to fuck with your life. This is summertime sadness my friends.
ALL HAIL THE RETURN OF FALL. Gaga’s ready. Are you?
YUMMMMM. It's almost warm enough to eat popsicles, and then complain when the wind blows your hair into them. Wind is bitchy like that. Image via blog.zulily.com
Now is about time to change up the dingy, mousy, winter-worn hair and make it bright and beautiful for summer. There’s just something about winter that makes everyone’s hair look gross. Maybe it’s the cold weather or the fact that we’re so lost in winter depression stupors that we forget that roots exist and colors need to be kept up. Here are a couple of tips to get your hair looking summatime fly.
Lana del Rey has some gorgeous hair. I wonder what her vitamin supplement of choice is. Her blonde is soft, proving that total bleach isn't the only way to go for a lighter look. Botoxed lip optional. Image via fromgotowhoa.com
Highlights
As it’s typically the trend to go dark for winter and light for summer, think about getting highlights. Sometimes people make the mistake of what I like to call mall highlights. Mall highlights are when the highlights are thin, frequent and about 50 color shades of different from your darker hair color. Don’t get mall highlights, even if your hair gets colored at the mall.
Second, highlights don’t have to be blonde-blonde. I see so many girls with strictly “blonde highlights” that it gets boring as shit, and they all tend to blend together like a fucking blonde Ashley parade. No thanks. If you have darker or light brown hair, try to lighten up your hair with warm metallic tones, like bronze or gold. They still give you the lighter hair fare without bleaching your hair within an inch of its life.
If you have blonde hair, fuck off. Just kidding! You can have your blonde Ashley highlights and your not-as-noticeable-roots cake too. Jealz!
Bangs
Sure. Bangs look fucking awesome on Zooey D. But the sooner we cope with the fact that we aren't Zooey Deschanel's bangs, the sooner we can start living beautiful, bang free lives that are right for US. Amen sistas! Image via nylon.com
Bangs are awesome. But for summer? DON’T DO IT. Seriously. Imagine: You’re sitting on the beach. You’re on a date. He’s cute. His wavy hair is blowing in the wind as he lights up a cig and offers you a drag. You’re thinking about cookies, but take the cigarette anyways. He looks over at you and gasps, as your newly cut bangs are frizzy, curling and halfway up your fore head in a sweaty pile of “never take me out in public again because I clearly can’t handle it.”
Ok, that guys a dick if he’s judging you for frizzy bangs. Dump him. Regardless, it’s such a pain in the ass to style bangs in the fall and winter, let alone a much sweatier season. Throw in a ton of outdoor fun, a tan line down to your eyebrow and constant hairs dangling drips of sweat in your eye while you’re learning how to bike in traffic. You’ll die looking like hair-do roadkill, and your family will be shamed forever knowing that you were the girl with frizzy summer bangs who died tragically at a four way stop. True story.
Maybe you’re one of those people who has stick straight hair and who doesn’t sweat. Then it’s really only down to the weird tan line and sweat trapping a ton of blackheads and new zit friends. Bangs are fun!
The most important thing to remember about summer hair is ease. You wanna be able to go to the beach, get in a river or day drink (that turns into night drinking) and know that your hair doesn’t need a lot of maintenance. Keep it simple, keep it fresh and if anyone tells you your hair looks frizzy, you fucking cut them, steal their wallet and run. Trust me. They deserved it.
Rumour has it Lana del Rey and Marilyn Manson are an item. Also, her hair is really long. Jealsies!
Marilyn Manson is weird. Like, he STILL dresses like a 90s alternakid? I guess he’d get more ridicule for dressing like a 40 year old hipster. He feels much older than than though. Can you imagine Marilyn Manson in his 70s? He’s gonna be stoned as fuck.
But a nice George Clooney-esque suit would be a refreshing change for ol’ MM. Maybe LDR (which whenever I see LDR I think people are talking about FDR or maybe one of his relatives or a vice president or something) will whip him into shape with some Sinatra-inspired duds.
Let’s just hope this is a confusing moment in LDR’s life. Don’t be another Evan Rachel Wood, because she like drank his blood and piss and shit. I just made that up, but you never know. Some people like it supa freeky.
“In this age of dangerous school bullying, you have sent an important message: If you think someone is weird, you should criticize them as much as possible.”
Lana Del Rey is certainly a hot topic these days. The frenzy surrounding Lana Del Rey’s authenticity is an age old story really, because everything pop culture-big is coated in corporate lipgloss before it’s sent to make the monies. Truth.
It’s true, her album has been described as “a multiple choice test with every answer scanned “C.” and “music [that] doesn’t communicate actual feeling.” Ouch. However, it seems that critics have fallen on deaf ears, as her album Born to Die is number 1 in 11 countries.
I’ll admit that I can’t get “Video Games” out of my head. It is the best song to sing in your car. Trust me. Sometimes we like “B” things, and that’s okay man. Guilty or not, pleasures are pleasures.
If you’re already jonesin’ for remixes of her album, or have no idea who I’m talking about, take a gander at this amazing remix of her title track “Born to Die” by AlunaGeorge.
Lana Del Rey is bursting onto the music scene this year with a hot new song, “Video Games,” and not-so-hot performances on SNL. Although she hasn’t interviewed post-SNL snafu, she did talk with MTV before the performance saying that she doesn’t like live television:
“You can’t expect too much from my show,” Del Rey said, explaining that her real fans are probably aware that she’s more of a songwriter and studio musician than performer and that she thinks people who come to see her show are really just there to hear the songs they already like.
“Sometimes I feel less nervous than other times,” she added. “I don’t love live television. The only tip I have is just pray and just hope that things work out,” writes Gil Kaufman on mtv.com.
Bad performances happen, especially when you’re first starting out. Her fans are really enthusiastic about her upcoming album, Born to Die, which is set to be released January 31, 2012 in the States. Her 60s-vibe album is a breath of fresh air in a world that unfortunately hasn’t had enough of LMFAO’s “Party Rock Anthem.”
Now that's some f-ing class and attitude. Photo: via thatgrapejuice.net
Her style is great, and her hair is f-ing gorgeous to the point where it looks like a wig. She needs to share her shine tips like NOW.
Listen to this video. It is another live performance, filmed in a swanky hotel, that is miles above Earth better than her SNL debut.