Interscope Artist Lana Del Rey

[john]

She sounds like she might be done.

Well, that is sad if she doesn't change her mind. Although if she does change her mind these are unfortunate remarks since they will follow her. She already gets a lot of criticism that intimates she is a phony or artificial. Quitting adds the element of the capricious rich girl who tired of the pop star idea when the going got tough, and then if she flip flops again.... The "not getting anywhere" remark is curious -- she sang in coffee houses and small venues for a long time, now she is gracing magazine covers and just released an album with a major label. I wish her the best, and she seems to have developed a knack for catchy song writing. If she is done -- wow, what a flame out.

I'm sure that the million layers of skin that Randy helped Haley grow will serve her well if, and when, she hits a rough patch. Although she brought a pretty thick skin to the table that includes a healthy amount of self confidence and gritty determination. Slow(er) and steady wins the race. In many ways Haley may be the anti-LDR.

[Miguel]

‘The Voice‘ Season 1 runner up Dia Frampton is back to doing covers. This time the Blake Shelton protege took her talents to Lana Del Rey‘s ubiquitous ‘Video Games.’

...Frampton’s voice isn’t nearly as breathy nor ethereal as Del Rey’s, and at times she adopts an almost infantilized quality. She does it so frequently that the song’s interpretation can actually be altered. Don’t believe us? Listen again. When, in a song called ‘Video Games,’ Frampton sings “I heard you like the bad girls, honey / Is that true?” in the nasal tone of an elementary schooler, she sounds like a girl with a school yard crush on a boy who digs girls in detention.

Frampton’s description of the cover was simply, “Messing around on our day off in New York at a friend’s house.” http://popcrush.com/dia-frampton-lana-de...deo-games/

[video=youtube]www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxBDqsvtHyY[/video]

[john]

Casey Abrams tweeted that he thinks Allie McDonald is pretty cool.


(ugh -1:50)

[john]

From:

Indie-music publishing
The Lana Del Rey affair
Mar 1st 2012, 17:17 by J.D. | CHICAGO


AMERICA’S well-documented independent music scene once valued tour-van mileage, lean living, anti-commercialism and a layer of sonic inscrutability. The DIY work ethic of the 1980s and ‘90s meant everything from booking your own gigs to pressing your own debut single, if necessary. Would-be scribes wrote criticism in Xeroxed zines, published in copy shops. It was more concerned with a grassroots revolution in sound than SoundScan figures—the pre-internet gauge of sales.



In the past decade, indie music blogs—often American, each fancying itself like a mini-NME—have become increasingly influential. Pitchfork and Stereogum, in particular, had the power to break bands from independent labels with every thumbs-up they give. Acts such as the Arcade Fire and Fleet Foxes owe much of their commercial viability to enthusiastic online editorial coverage. The online hype machine—which drops new tracks and videos along with breathlessly excited text, plus the usual reviews and interviews—can easily make a musician that has never played a live concert a buzz-worthy act over night. Often the more mysterious the act, the better for the site that breaks it. Traditional media blogs have restyled themselves along the same lines—Rollingstone.com for instance. In this day and age, that online hype may not translate into massive sales, but it can mean a career in music with potentially lucrative touring and licensing. Publishing and live performance are the profit centres in the industry these days.

Nothing illustrates the conflict between the power and influence of the blogs and their romantic notions of an indie music work ethic better than the Lana Del Rey affair. In short, indie music blogs initially championed her “Video Games” single/video via YouTube and covered her as a rising star in the tradition of Cat Power, an underground darling. But then they outed Del Rey as an ambitious pop-star wannabe, who had already released an album to little fanfare under her given name. She had management, a label and the business savvy to reboot as Del Rey with a signature look (a retro brunette bombshell that rarely smiles) and the blogs felt duped. Del Rey wasn’t the undiscovered organically grown rare orchid they had hoped. Rather, she was nurtured in the corporate hothouse.

But it was too late to put the genie back in the bottle: Del Rey was already on the way to a major label release, an appearance on Saturday Night Live and a number one album on iTunes in 11 countries.

What Del Rey illustrates is that indie cred, and indie values and credential checking is a useless exercise in this day and age—if indie was a private party, the bouncer has long since left the building. Del Rey wasn’t the first career-oriented songwriter to reconfigure herself with an indie scene-friendly look; acts like the Drums had already done that. And the artists that are given carte blanche on the hipster blogs are just as likely to employ powerful publicists and booking agents, and license tunes commercially as those working the industry showcase circuit and toiling away with songwriting teams. And music industry insiders, who once might have ignored bands playing the basement-show circuit, are combing the blogs, SoundCloud and of course YouTube looking for the next sensation. The walls have been broken down for years, and it is a good thing that they are unlikely to go up again.

Del Rey’s new album isn’t quite worth the kerfuffle. Outside of the unique and downbeat “Video Games”, which contrasts a schoolgirl fantasy of glamorous life with a humdrum chore of keeping a boy interested, "Born to Die" only bears modest fruit. We’re given a heavy dose of Gangsta Nancy Sinatra on songs which wed trip-hop beats, sweeping strings and near-raps. Often, she’s playing a gold-loving, retro-styled vixen that savours the thrills that come with bad boys but ends up bored and conflicted. The lounge filler in “Diet Mountain Dew” and elsewhere lends itself to a gangster moll storyline, but altogether, Born to Die is more pop curiosity than a youthquake. Never fear. With the hype machine humming along 24-7, something else will come soon.

[john]

ATRL ‏ @atrl Close
[Celeb News] Lana Del Rey will perform on "American Idol" atrl.net/194190
Retweeted by HaleysShindig

Lana Del Rey will perform on "American Idol"
Lana del Rey Appearing On Or Taping American Idol on Thursday

The controversial chanteuse, Lana del Rey is reportedly either performing on American Idol on Thursday, or pre-taping for a later appearance.

Del Rey’s name is listed on the audience tickets along with Daughtry and Demi Lovato who are scheduled to perform.

http://atrl.net/forums/showthread.php?t=194190

---

New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/201...op-stardom

FEBRUARY 17, 2012

Recipe for a Pop Star

When Jennifer Hudson sang a Grammy tribute to Whitney Houston, a symbolic torch was passed. While Houston grew up connected to music royalty and was discovered while performing in clubs, Hudson came out of nowhere to become a finalist on “American Idol.”

Is that the new normal? Take Lana Del Rey, T Style’s most recent cover subject, who also became famous in about a minute. Is her ascent a sign that we’re more impressed by hype than talent? Or are media innovations helping to hype deserving but unknown artists?

Series of brief articles and comments. In many ways LDR is beside the point as the issues are of broader significance.

Ed comments

Ed
Lotta mediocre blah in the world. So this girl is bored, exploited, self-exploited, whatever? Who would want to listen to this more than once? I mean, it's not just simple-minded, it's dull.
Feb. 18, 2012 at 6:07 a.m.

[Miguel]

“I don’t think I’ll write another record. What would I say? I feel like everything I wanted to say, I’ve said already..."

7 months(!) later, she's back.

Lana Del Rey’s appearance Wednesday night at The Wooly—three connected rooms that form a hesitantly retro lounge, bar, and restaurant at the base of the Woolworth Building—was a calm and tightly supervised affair.

...The several hundred guests were orderly and camera-friendly. More than one seemed as visually like Del Rey as Del Rey herself—human highlighter marks, all reminding us to look more closely at the original.

At nine o’clock, the original Del Rey took to a tiny stage placed in the largest of the three rooms.

...The appearance coincides with Del Rey’s various H&M advertisements, and the unscheduled but imminent release of a “Paradise” edition—i.e. rerelease—of “Born To Die” that will contain six (or seven) new songs described by the artist as an “afterthought.” There are no more scheduled appearances until her first U.S. tour begins, in January of 2013. The Wooly show seemed, though, like the first and last stop on the “Yes, I Can Sing, Can We Get On With It Now Please?” tour. Had it been called that, we’d be done. Yes, she can sing.

We heard no percussive sounds of any kind—just a piano, an electric guitar, and a quartet of two violins, a viola, and a cello. (A laptop was perched atop the piano, but it only ran a time-keeping click for the band’s in-ear monitors and added no unseen sounds.) Del Rey ran through “Blue Jeans,” and then performed “Body Electric,” which is apparently one of the new afterthoughts, though she introduced it by saying “I love it so much.” The song, done in a unplugged, string-heavy way, matches the grainy wobble of “Born To Die,” and is true to Del Rey’s taste for simply lifting well-known phrases: “Baby, I’m on fire” and “I sing the body electric.” After that, we got “Video Games” and “Blue Velvet,” keeping the whole performance in promotional mode. Before the fourth and last song, Del Rey said, “If we’d known how happy you’d be, this wouldn’t be the last song.” That was the only false note—this was a set about control and focus—she was going to wing it like I’m a blue goose. The singing matched the outfit: control is not a bad thing when you end with a vocal performance full of warmth and texture (and a grip of smashed-together catchphrases but patience, people). Del Rey came up with an idea, and it’s exactly as much fun as a Wooly Gimlet, a slightly sweet vodka drink native to the bar. The doubters will need better ammunition, as Del Rey’s pitch and timbre and shtick are all in fine form.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/sa...z27HSiSLu3

I went to check Twitter to see if anyone had tweeted about this appearance last Wednesday and was surprised to find tweets are made about her made every minute.