Harlepolis said:

lazycrockett said:

Shes as much of a singer as January Jones is an actress.

I may not be as enthusiastic about Lana, but dammit back off of Betty Draper

[Edited 3/2/13 4:14am]

The "Twin Peaks" connection

http://www.spin.com/#arti...twin-peaks

Could that explain the appeal of Lana Del Rey?

*it certainly would explain why I'm mysteriously drawn to her

[Edited 3/4/13 15:19pm]

Well FYI to you posers, David Lynch and Julee Cruise are still making music so go listen to the real shit.

aardvark15 said:

Can't stand her. She treats herself more seriously than she is. Her voice is a bad version of Nancy Sinatra's, her production and music sounds practically the same on every track, and her lyrics are laughable.

I interpreted her as doing just the opposite, or moreso, that she was playing a charater or crafting a persona (?) ... I like her, but I think some or her critics treat her more seriously than she should be.

I feel she's creating a persona as well, and critics think this is new (an artist creating a persona)?

Maybe it's the style of music she's trying to make that riles her critics?

But there's something there. She's seemed to have touched quite a few people with her "Ride" monologues, which she wrote.

Sorry, I just don't get it. To me, there is nothing "mysterious, awesome, overwhelming" about her whatsoever... If it wasn't for the Org, I never would have heard about her. And, now that I have, my response is--meh.

Clearly, it's this Lynchian aesthetic that's driving current leader-of-the-pack Lana Del Rey. Her entire image fastens the secretly sinister Old Holly­wood imagery of Lynch's Mulholland Drive to the secretly sinister imagery of her own early '90s electric youth (video games, cartoons, Tupac, skateboarding, David Lynch, paparazzi). "I like her songs," Lynch says of Del Rey. "I like the way she sings them. She captures the mood, for sure. It's not the same mood as Julee Cruise, but it might live in the same building."

Del Rey says she's never seen a David Lynch movie in its entirety, but critics certainly recognize the similar mood. Ann Powers, writing in Slate, compared Del Rey with Twin Peaks' mystery girl Laura Palmer, the murdered homecoming queen who came "wrapped in plastic" in Peaks' pilot episode. Mainly because she seems, well, dead, noting "the affectless tone" of Del Rey's voice and the "airlessness of her undateable vintage sound." But beyond that, our obsession with Del Rey eerily mirrors the Peaks-ian obsession with Laura Palmer. The most popular girl in school (in this case, the most forwarded meme in indie rock) endures accusations of dual identity (rich parents, plastic surgery, a pop-star past under another name), and is ultimately more engaging as a mystery than as a presence (being press-shy for so long didn't exactly hurt her career).

But artists like Del Rey aren't really evoking Lynch for his half-recalled nostalgia or purring Badalamenti menace; they just want Lynchian secrets. Think of how iamamiwhoami, the electro forest-skulker played by Swedish singer-songwriter Jonna Lee, strung us along with her series of anonymously posted YouTubes, each hiding a single letter — much like the "R" found under Palmer's fingernail — so that curious gawkers could piece together the puzzle of her identity. And what of avowed Badalamenti worshippers Ghost, the wildly romantic, cult metal band who've retained their anonymity for two years without being unmasked? "That feeling of not knowing and not wanting to know is actually stronger," says one of the band's five "Nameless Ghouls." "It's like if you go to a magic show and sit in the back of the stage because you want to see how the trick is done. What's the fun in that?"

Twin Peaks was almost entirely about secrets. Mystery was the show's draw, something perfectly strange combating the Perfect Strangers of the world, an enigma of languid pacing, impenetrable imagery, story lines that never resolved, impossible characters who seemed truer than real life, owls that were not what they seemed. It somehow reached 35 million people, and for today's twenty- and thirtysomethings, channel-flipping from Carol & Company on Saturday nights to get a Peaks peek, Lynch provided their first glimpse of anything "avant-garde" until Nirvana released "Endless Nameless." After the hype faded, dwindling ratings made the show's fans feel like a secret society of their own, scarfing cherry pies and decoding scenes at viewing parties with their friends.

Compare this to how the metaphysical whodunit Lost played out over six excruciating seasons, every episode ending with a mad rush for traffic-baiting, narcissistic episode recaps. It was just one more aspect of a pop-culture world where even the most nominal bands have trivia-saturated Wikipedia entries; where every Blu-Ray has three director's commentaries and liner notes by the key grip; where every website claws to be the first to have the Q&A with the owner of the keyboard-playing cat.

No wonder bands yearn to retreat into secrets and mystery, copping the mystique of a director who refuses to even do commentaries. A band like Cults was picked over, poked, prodded, slashed, backslashed, backlashed, and back-backlashed before they even had a record out. Can you blame them for wanting to play the Twin Peaks theme as the intro music for their live show? Today's bands and listeners aren't nostalgic for Lynch's twisted subversion of nostalgia, but nostalgic for the mysteries it represented.

*Doesn't this perfectly describe 2013?

And I don't believe for one second that Rey hasn't seen one David Lynch movie all the way

through.