What I've Been Listening To Lately - And Yes, That's What I'm Going With!

After a whole two (Count 'em!) lengthy posts in a row I felt like doing something snappier. And since it's been a week and a half since the last What I've Been Listening To Lately...

Of course, these things rely on my actually having listened to something new. Have I? Let's see...

Ah, yep. I think we're covered. Fifteen tracks bookmarked for possible inclusion and that's not counting all the new-to-me, unreleased Lana del Rey songs I ran into while looking for AI Lana. Is there another artist with anything even close to as many unreleased recordings out there? I was trying to keep a complete collection going for a while but it's just impossible. New ones appear all the time. Where do they even come from? Does she live in the studio?

Anyway, since we're talking about Lana, I guess we could start with this, even though it inevitably means it'll be all downhill from here on...

Candy Necklace - Lana del Rey (ft. Jon Batiste)

The new album, Did You Know There's A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd, is wonderful. Of course it is. It's also very strange. I've seen parts of it compared to William S Burroughs and not without reason.

This track is relatively "straight". It's also half as long on the album, where it's perfect, and yet it feels perfect at a shade under eleven minutes, too. It's some kind of magic. 

As for the mini-movie, it just works. It's loosed from time and all adrift. There's a woozy, dreamy, malignant pressure that builds and won't release. It's horror, really, but horror through a Fellini filter, re-imagined by Warhol. 

Warhol would have loved Lana. She'd have made a great Superstar.

JFK - Lana del Rey

Now here's a very clever thing. What someone's done is fit this unreleased gem to an edit of the video for another, official, release - National Anthem. I'm not at all sure I agree with the commenter on the thread who says the words seem like a much better fit for the images, but then the original is another mini-movie, with its own throughline that goes well beyond a simple retelling of the historical facts, while this is a love song that uses Kennedy as a metaphor. 

Either way, the video for National Anthem is a fricken' masterpiece, so to get something this good by cutting it up is impressive as hell. Let's see an AI match that.

For my money, JFK probably isn't a better song. National Anthem is very powerful, a real crowd-pleaser, the kind of number you end a festival set on, everyone waving their arms above their heads from side to side and chanting along, which is freakishly brilliant, since it's also disturbing, bleak and lost. JFK, in contrast, is a gorgeous, lush affirmation of a relationship that works, even when it shouldn't. Lana's speciality.

The real puzzler is why only one of these songs is on an album but then you can say that about literally dozens of Lana's rejects. I have enough first-class examples set by, just from the last few days, to fill the rest of this post and then some but I suppose we'd better give someone else a chance...

Dopamine - Decisive Pink

If Lana's all about the '50s thru the '70s, these two are hard-locked into the '80s. Well, this song is. I dunno if they're like this all the time. It's the first time I've heard them. I know it's a recurring theme here but really, is there anyone out there who's not strip-mining the past?

I'm confident this one would have been a big radio hit back in the eighties. It has that nagging, relentless quality that characterized so many new wave singles acts, coupled with the cod-scientific, art-house sensibility that made short-lived stars of the likes of Thomas Dolby or Landscape. I don't think there's much danger of anything like that troubling the charts nowadays.

You Are Not My Friend - Tessa Violet

Bored of the eighties? How about the aughties? Er, noughties. Whatever. 

Tessa Violet is one of those people who obviously have a picture in the attic. She's been around for years now and I swear she looks younger than when she started. What? You can't see it? Well, no, of course you can't see it in that video. It's just a visualizer. Take a look at this...

Now you can see it, right? Also, is it me or does that sound like a much meatier mix? I saw the short first and loved it. I was a little disappointed when I heard the full song. It sounded thinner, somehow, and I missed Tessa really selling it with those expressions and gestures. Maybe the video, if there is one, will give it the impact it needs. The visualizer doesn't really do enough.

Sword - Natural Wonder Beauty Concept

Which is not to say visualizers never work. This one absolutely does. The claustrophobic repetition complements the scattered nervous energy of the track perfectly. It's like one of those dreams where you run and run but never get anywhere. So many music videos employ horror motifs these days, I see them even when they're not there.

And speaking of horror, anyone up for being torn apart by a pair of horses?

Pocket - Feeble Little Horse

Do you get the impression none of these people really care about selling out sports arenas any time soon? It's as though the kind of things we all did with our pals in someone's garage or basement back in the day have turned into a currency you can spend anywhere. Is this democratization? And if so, of what?

Singing By The Sink - Horse Jumper of Love

I guess this one's almost accessible. It's folk, right? Melted, fused, messed-up folk but you can tell the heritage. I could imagine this on a ramshackle stage in a corner field at a free festival in the 'seventies. It's also all on one chord, which I always enjoy. 

Giddy Up - Jenny Lewis

I was going to put something else in this slot but then I spotted the synergy. I'm all about the horses today. Makes a change from ponies.

I used to like Rilo Kiley and now I like Jenny Lewis. This sounds different, though. I know I hear Lana in everything but this gives me definite Venice Bitch vibes. It's the distorted bassline, I think, and the synth, when it arrives. Very drug-drenched, late summer, heat ripple feel. I could hear a lot more of this. 

Which is something I would never have expected to say of the next song.

I'm Too Sexy - BBNO$ (Right Said Fred cover)

You know when you think you never want to hear a song ever, ever again? You're always wrong. You're always just waiting for the right cover.

This would have fitted nicely in the Stain post. One or more of the guys out of Right Said Fred have said some very dodgy things although don't ask me to remember what they were. I just know they'd be on one of the lists. Is it okay to enjoy this anyway?

Yes. Yes, it is okay. I give you permission.

I have a lot more recent or recently-discovered covers earmarked. I think I'll save them for a proper covers post but I will make an exception for this next one because we haven't had any AIs so far and we really should.

Video Games - Frank Sinatra AI (Lana del Rey cover)

Come on! That's creepy! It's not just the sheer wrongness of Sinatra leaning into Lana's broken little girl narrative, it's those weird, lurching audio artifacts that break the surface once in a while, like shark fins. There's something of HAL in 2001 about it all. 

I've been playing around with the tools myself but so far I can't even work out how to use them so I'm impressed that anyone's getting anything recognizeable at all. Just wait until an app with a genuinely user-friendly front end surfaces. All hell is going to break loose.

After that, I think we're going to need a palate cleanser to finish. This should do the job.

Versechorus - Two-Man Giant Squid

I know. Don't ask. You'll only encourage them. 

And with that, I think we're done. Until next time, when it'll most likely be same channel, same acts, same tunes. It's getting to be that way and I can't say I'm sorry about it.