Cruel World
I hate everything about Lana Del Rey except the music.
How can it be that things move so fast that everybody but fans ignore it, how can it be that something is number one one week, with the attendant publicity, both celebrating this fact, and the run-up hype thereto, and then be thrown upon the scrapheap a mere seven days later?
There’s no context. Especially if you’re not in high school. You want to delve into new music, but you don’t know where to start. You read about stuff and check it out and are unsatisfied and say there’s no good music and then you’re bombarded by people telling you everything is good. Huh?
She changed her name, she inflated her lips, she had a disastrous SNL performance, but the grooves have sustained Lana Del Rey’s career.
I don’t trust “Billboard.” I don’t trust Amazon or iTunes, if someone paid for it, they like it, it’s human nature, and the only other people reviewing the cuts on these sites are haters.
And Mediabase squeezes out the alternative, and doesn’t show what’s bubbling under.
So I’ve taken to the Spotify Top Lists. That’s where I discovered “Cruel World.”
I listened to the new Ed Sheeran, and it embodied what Rick Rubin said it would in his BBC interview, it sounds like Ed’s live performance.
I listened to Lorde, it wasn’t as good as “Royals,” but it was certainly decent.
And then I listened to this. Because the buzz from the last album’s “Summertime Sadness” has become deafening, because those who believe in Lizzie really do so.
And I was stunned. Because “Cruel World” didn’t sound like everything else, not even close.
It’s not Top Forty radio ready.
And it’s not alternative.
It’s got the polished, slick production the major labels can afford featuring players who know their craft. The indies pale in comparison.
And the lyrics.
It’s like a modern day Doors record. It’s dark. She’s the female Jim Morrison. In tone, if he only sung when he was stoned and if she wrote slightly better lyrics.
Or she’s Lou Reed with a better voice.
Shared my body and my mind with you
That’s all over now
We do live in a sharing economy! But what’s striking is Lana’s the anti-Katy, the anti-Rihanna, she’s not employing post-feminist girl power, all about physique and outfits, it’s almost like she’s on drugs in a dark room and is telling you her story and doesn’t even care if you’re listening, which makes you want to!
And the track is nearly endless. 6:39. And although hypnotic, repetitive.
But so intriguing. It’s what music used to be, not playing to the station or the masses but just you, the individual, who wants to participate but is flummoxed by society. That’s what records used to be, comforters, even if they were metal, they were blankets to wrap ourselves up in to stay warm, to survive.
The publicity was inane. The newspaper controversy about dying. If you couldn’t see it all as manipulated hype, you can’t read. When someone is selling something, they’ll say anything, the dramatic gets ink. But the records today usually feature this same attitude, let me beat you over the head, let me throw everything at you, let me be overdramatic to convince you I’m better than you and you should pay attention to my explosion while I whore myself out to every corporation who’ll have me. But “Cruel World” evidences none of this.
Got your bible and your gun
You like your women and you like fun
I like my candy and your heroin
And I’m so happy, so happy now you’re gone
HUH?
Where did this come from? It doesn’t sound like the protagonist even has a Facebook account, she certainly doesn’t tweet, she texts to connect, but she’s not interested in the big world, only her own, which makes us want to delve in too, because we’re sick of self-promotion, that of others and ourselves.
And I want each and every one of you to listen to this song.
A good thirty percent will hate it outright. You know, the guys with the tattoos who believe rock must be loud and edgy and…
And those who are afraid… Who flinch at profanity, who want no controversy.
But the rest of you will be struck just like me. THIS IS WHAT PEOPLE ARE LISTENING TO? THIS IS A BIG ALBUM? HOW FANTASTIC IS THAT!!
Yes, the hype turned me off. In this case, the music is enough.
It’s everything it used to be, but it’s different, and it’s brand new.
AND BETTER THAN MOST TV!
P.S. And on Spotify, unlike the lame Sam Smith. Keeping his album off the service so he can enter the charts at a higher number. Either you’re part of the problem or you’re part of the solution. Once upon a time the big acts were leaders, Aerosmith put out the first Internet single, today the bigger the artist the more they’re wedded to the past, WANKERS!
