Lana Del Where?--New Zealand?

dukeofdelridgedukeofdelridge urgent.monkey.mice 2,453 Posts
edited December 2013 in Strut Central
Has the Strut discussed this strangest of all developments in the weird anti-rappeur pop song from the Kiwi teen girl? I thought the clown band's cover would be the pinnacle of its WTFness. But now pine tar is involved and I'm tripping double.

And will Jimmy Fallon make a parody flipping the lyrics about pooping pants?



Insane.
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  • What does this have to do with Lana Del Ray? Am I missing something?

  • dukeofdelridgedukeofdelridge urgent.monkey.mice 2,453 Posts
    Herm said:
    What does this have to do with Lana Del Ray? Am I missing something?

    Well, nothing really. Except you could've told me Lorde's song was Lana Del Ray and I would've believed you forever. And then to keep the Lana Del ____ name riff going after Lana Del Raer and yeah.

    Nothing really. Except something.

    I would've thought the Strut would be hyped at discussing a teenage white girl from New Zealand seemingly calling out American rapp image (surely clocking much NZDollars in the process) and then holy shit she was inspired by a 37-year-old pic of George Brett in NatGeo.

    And then fuck it I love George Brett's body language as he's telling that story too.

    Nothing really. Just logged into the Strut for the first time in a while.

    Hi!

  • dukeofdelridge said:

    Nothing really. Just logged into the Strut for the first time in a while.

    Hi!

    been too busy instagram'ing pictures of snow and your beard and snow in your beard.


    a couple of weeks ago Lorde signed a $2.5million publishing deal, i wonder if george breezy ever got a taste of that kind of money.

  • so i felt the need to check out what the duke is talking about, i had never heard of this chickyboo or this song "royals". Stray observations: first, how is this any kind of "hit"? secondly, how the hell can a person manage to rip off lana del raer who is herself a ripoff and flavorless melange of styles and poses? If lana del raer is stone temple pilots, this shit is like creed or sublime. whatever you call this formless, gormless, overchurned style or genre, i fucking hate it. it's supposed to be "oh, so sophisticated!" but there is nothing to it all.

  • mrmatthewmrmatthew 1,575 Posts
    crabmongerfunk said:
    so i felt the need to check out what the duke is talking about, i had never heard of this chickyboo or this song "royals". Stray observations: first, how is this any kind of "hit"? secondly, how the hell can a person manage to rip off lana del raer who is herself a ripoff and flavorless melange of styles and poses? If lana del raer is stone temple pilots, this shit is like creed or sublime. whatever you call this formless, gormless, overchurned style or genre, i fucking hate it. it's supposed to be "oh, so sophisticated!" but there is nothing to it all.

    Just wait.
    That shit will be stuck in your head soon enough.

  • Even in the context of wack navel-gazing pop music I will admit to being mystified at this song's appeal. Lacking in original message, musical appeal, etc. I cram to understand.

  • I ride for that Royals single... better than a lot of other crap I seem to hear on pop radio or whilst shopping.

  • Typical soulstrut. In terms of popular music, meaning big amongst the masses, I think she's great. She's 17 for one. The production on the album is pretty nice and it plays well as a whole album, which is pretty rare these days. Royals is pretty played out, but I ride for the album.

    Hate away.

  • More like Borde

  • DelayDelay 4,530 Posts
    I'm not really mad. A young person with the confidence to come out and say something with almost no musical accompaniment? What else do you want? Jessie Ware? I'm feeling "ribs". Let the girl live

  • OkemOkem 4,617 Posts
    Yer, I kinda like it too. I don't think she sounds particularly like Lana Del Whatever either. For a pop song, and what's more a pop song writen by a 16 yr old, I think the lyrics are pretty decent and way above the average tripe. It's not exactly a new, or particularly controversial IMHO, opinion to dislike raps love for rabid consumerism, or to feel as a non-American outsider that it's kind of cultural hegemony is something worth pushing against. Some people just like getting their panties in a bunch over nothing much, I mean, calling her racist because it? C'mon son.

  • jamesjames chicago 1,863 Posts
    Four things:

    One, compared to whichever half-dozen songs you're likely to hear played before it and after it, this song is unhurried, quiet, and unadorned, which always stands out amid the jam-packed clatter of radio (see the G.O.A.T., "Ode To Billy Joe," the similarly antipodean "Somebody That I Used To Know," et al.). I go back and forth on the extent to which I like "Royals," but it's never not been cool to turn on the radio and hear it.

    Two, I think I know where she's coming from, and believe that in her heart of hearts and at the purest moment of creation she was crtiticizing the rap aesthetic as the globally and economically dominant cultural force that it has become, not criticizing it as the racially specific subculture it came in as.

    However, three, whiteys don't really get to decide when something is and is not about race. Ever. Sorry, girl. And sorry, soulstrut. You're allowed to like the song all you want, but to not understand why some people are mad about it is hella dimwitted. She's twelve or whatever, and thus might get granted a measure of plausible deniability, but your old ass should know better, soulstrut.

    Four, while it has settled into a pretty conventional (though not uninteresting) loved it/hated it type thing, folks need to take a minute and appreciate how fucking ill this thread started off. I've said it before and will say it again: for anyone who cares, dukeofdelridge is the livest dude here right now.

  • DocMcCoyDocMcCoy "Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,917 Posts
    I would simply add that there is a serious absence of this kind of thread these days. A common complaint used to be that certain board regulars/provocateurs would contribute little or nothing to the discourse on here beyond snarks and withering dismissals of the taste of others. Now that many of them have moved on, instead of one hundred flowers blossoming and one hundred schools of thought contending, shit moves slower than a Screw tape playing on a boombox with flat batteries. Perhaps those provocateurs did more to keep shit popping on here one way or another than some of us would care to admit.

    Case in point being that this whole Royals business was a discussion the rest of the world was having two months ago. On here? Nothing, until now. In days of yore, this would have been a 10-pager taking in trends in modern pop, popular culture in a broader sense, current rap vs. Grandpa Simpson rap, Meriman vs. Euroman vs, Downunderman, cultural appropriation and that hardy perennial, race, at least. But, whatever, we're having it now, so here's my two-bob's worth. Although it's finally dug its way into my head after months of hearing it involuntarily, I can't honestly say it sounds that much better or worse than any other milky-bar vicodin r&b ballad I've heard this year. Its alleged critique of the present-day rap aesthetic (I'm going to follow james' example here and give Lorde the benefit of the doubt) does seem to have given it a degree of traction it mightn't have earned on merit otherwise (those thinkpieces won't write themselves, y'know), just as Macklemore's one-man crusade against homophobia (in an age where there are more out gay rappers than ever) and materialism (during the golden age of the no-budget rap video) has won him a huge audience amongst people who barely engage with rap on any level unless it involves some sort of controversy or moral turpitude.

    Before I'd even heard Royals, I'd seen it praised in numerous quarters for showing how young people are turning away from the kind of materialism exemplified by performers who give themselves names like 2 Chainz. Whether that was Lorde's intent is anyone's guess, and I'm not even sure I care that much anyway. But it certainly provided the "LOL Rappers" crowd with another stick to beat their favourite pinata with. Things like homophobia, misogyny, gang violence, conspicuous consumption and the objectification of women all existed before the birth of recorded sound, never mind hip-hop, so I'm a little mystified that dumping the blame for things of that nature on rap's doorstep remains quite such a popular pastime, much less the slam-dunk QED so many believe it to be.

    I'm not sure if there was a great deal more of it than normal, or whether I just noticed it more, but white people telling black people what was or wasn't racist (as well as what was wrong with them generally) definitely seemed to have become A Thing by the fourth quarter of 2013, and on one level at least, Royals appeared to be part of that. Still, given how many people nowadays will earnestly try to insist that mainstream pop no longer has anything to say or that it lacks the power to trigger any sort of debate, I think Lorde deserves a little credit for proving them wrong, if nothing else.

    And, yeah, +1 for His Dukeship for setting it off. I know less than the sum total of fuck-all about baseball, so I had to Google all that shit about pine tar and, er, shit, but the end result of that is that I feel I learned a little something, which is never a bad thing.

  • KineticKinetic 3,739 Posts
    Her album is pretty damn good. I like James' first two points re the appeal of 'Royals.' It's an understated kinda thing. The other thing I like about Royals is I think it speaks a little bit more on the Antipodean view of hip-hop / bling / stardom. It all seems a little other worldly to the average kid over here, I think.

  • JimsterJimster Cruffiton.etsy.com 6,947 Posts
    As a real-world dweller, with obligations to ride in the wife's car and listen to #1 son have the radio on while he plays Call of Minecraft, it would appear that the song is omnipresent, and has been for some time.

    It's always a relative oasis of audio-calmness in between the overly-shrill K-Pez and My-Cy product ("This studio has 256 tracks, and we want them all pinging the LEDs off the board, like the final moments of the Kobayashi Maru".) I've never interpreted the lyric as a condemnation of rap, let alone racism. It's more of an acceptance of what is rilly rill.

    Why no discussion here?

    I think the Strut still lives in fear of the shadow of F*uxy and dem; you know, the days of when I asked who, after The Golden Age rappeurs, were actually doing it properly in this decade, and not one self-proclaimed "Authority on t3h rappse" would come forward with a name for fear of ridicule, a move I believe akin to keeping your clothes on at an orgy.

    Actually, I think Batmon or Harv posted an uncaptioned image of Z-Ro. So, at least someone dropped their pants momentarily.

  • FlomotionFlomotion 2,390 Posts
    Come on...it's a pretty unremarkable song. Other than the fact a 15 year old from NZ has had a big hit there's not much to say... What's controversial or new about criticising rap braggadocio? Lots of those Soulstrut 10 pager cultural slogathons from the Days Of Yore - including the Lana Del Raer - seemed to kick off with a foxy girl and a would you/wouldn't you line of debate. Not saying that interesting things didn't come out of those threads but Soulstrut has never been that high minded...

  • JimsterJimster Cruffiton.etsy.com 6,947 Posts
    You can find racism in anything if you look hard enough for it, in the same way you would find illuminati namechecking in Destiny's Child product or getting wood when you see a pair of adjacent melons in the grocers.

    Or is that just me?

  • OkemOkem 4,617 Posts
    If the level of racism we have to be concerned about these days is a pop song being mildly critical of one small aspect of African American culture then we must be golden.

    Unfortunately it's probably more the case that some people have become obsessed with seeking out any perceived racism so they can jump on their moral high horse and tell everybody how they should feel about it. And then that game becomes the new entertainment.

  • jamesjames chicago 1,863 Posts
    Okem said:
    If the level of racism we have to be concerned about these days is a pop song being mildly critical of one small aspect of African American culture then we must be golden.
    Don't be a blockhead. The level of racism we have to be concerned about these days is that which, however indirectly, facilitates a teenaged white girl making a dent in the popular/white marketplace with a breezy, sustained critique of an aspect of African American cutural that is sufficiently widespread and un-small enough to have apparently achieved significant social penetration in New Fucking Zealand.

    I mean, if you don't wanna attach a word as strong as "racism" to this song, that's fine--I won't necessarily argue. But it's ridiculous to act like this song is magically rendered un-problematic by the fact that there's a lot of shit out there that's even more racially backwards.

    My feeling is that I personally will end up filing this song under "Yeah, it's a little fucked-up, but I still kinda like it. (It really is sorta fucked-up, though.)"

  • FlomotionFlomotion 2,390 Posts
    But every song's like gold teeth, grey goose, trippin' in the bathroom
    Blood stains, ball gowns, trashin' the hotel room,
    We don't care, we're driving Cadillacs in our dreams.
    But everybody's like Cristal*, Maybach, diamonds on your timepiece.
    Jet planes, islands, tigers on a gold leash.
    We don't care, we aren't caught up in your love affair.



    It's anti shit-rappist, is what it is.

  • batmonbatmon 27,574 Posts
    When this got into rotation at Hot 97 (the only time i listen to that shit is on my alarm-radio), they applauded her critique, but cats have been looking in the mirror within Hip Hop since the late 80's.
    Its a cute song but shit is Asher Roth hype steez........lasting power of a celery stick.

    Whatever happen to that chick yall debated for 7 pages. She was some wafer from SF and used the N-bomb?

  • FrankFrank 2,372 Posts
    So these:

    gold teeth, grey goose, trippin' in the bathroom, Blood stains, ball gowns, trashin' the hotel room, Cristal, Maybach, diamonds on your timepiece.
    Jet planes, islands, tigers on a gold leash

    are "an aspect of African American cutural (sic)"?

    and saying you don't care for these things is somehow racist?

    Where? In middle class US suburbs plagued by white guilt?

    Forgive the rest of the world for a) not understanding and b) for not caring

    To my ears this song is remarkably inoffensive and offers an almost entirely painfree if slightly boring listening experience.

  • pcmrpcmr 5,591 Posts
    batmon said:
    When this got into rotation at Hot 97 (the only time i listen to that shit is on my alarm-radio), they applauded her critique, but cats have been looking in the mirror within Hip Hop since the late 80's.
    Its a cute song but shit is Asher Roth hype steez........lasting power of a celery stick.

    Whatever happen to that chick yall debated for 7 pages. She was some wafer from SF and used the N-bomb?

    v nasty and her main bitch kreashawn
    milkcarton as fuck

  • I think the use of a snap-style beat along with the lyrics is questionable. Simultaneously using the rap aesthetic while distancing herself from the lyrical content (because she would never be able to pull it off convincingly) is some borderline hipster tourist schitt. She should stick to songs like "A World Alone," which is a decent indie pop song. But she's 17, so...

  • batmonbatmon 27,574 Posts
    pcmr said:
    batmon said:
    When this got into rotation at Hot 97 (the only time i listen to that shit is on my alarm-radio), they applauded her critique, but cats have been looking in the mirror within Hip Hop since the late 80's.
    Its a cute song but shit is Asher Roth hype steez........lasting power of a celery stick.

    Whatever happen to that chick yall debated for 7 pages. She was some wafer from SF and used the N-bomb?

    v nasty and her main bitch kreashawn
    milkcarton as fuck

    Bingo

  • i got my first dose of lorde in the spring of this year when suddenly every girl with a tumblr and a pinterest had a 4 song EP on infinite loop. the only thing i ever came away with from hearing her first insemination [from upstairs in my girlfriends design studio] is that she wasn't doing anything bigger than could be described as "cute" or "fashion". that said, i remember complimenting the change of a more clean and subdued production value from the more busy and obtrusive art house femme-pop (sleigh bells?) i was used to hearing from inside that room. also, i cant help but still think there isn't an unsung hero in all of this.... a svengali of sorts.... because there are many small and fleeting moments in the music and production itself that is certainly not 17 year old girl, but grizzled hip hop studio carpet producer who finally got sick of being nowhere.

  • jamesjames chicago 1,863 Posts
    pcmr said:
    batmon said:
    When this got into rotation at Hot 97 (the only time i listen to that shit is on my alarm-radio), they applauded her critique, but cats have been looking in the mirror within Hip Hop since the late 80's.
    Its a cute song but shit is Asher Roth hype steez........lasting power of a celery stick.

    Whatever happen to that chick yall debated for 7 pages. She was some wafer from SF and used the N-bomb?

    v nasty and her main bitch kreashawn
    milkcarton as fuck
    It's possibly worth noting that the then-no-name Kevin Federline look-alike aggressively texting and stagily avoiding eye contact in the background of the offending video eventually became the one Riff Raff.

  • BrianBrian 7,618 Posts
    I think I've only heard this song during some deblasio thing
    is it really that big?

  • batmonbatmon 27,574 Posts
    PatrickCrazy said:
    I think I've only heard this song during some deblasio thing
    is it really that big?

    Its already peaked around summertime.

  • OkemOkem 4,617 Posts
    james said:
    Okem said:
    If the level of racism we have to be concerned about these days is a pop song being mildly critical of one small aspect of African American culture then we must be golden.
    Don't be a blockhead. The level of racism we have to be concerned about these days is that which, however indirectly, facilitates a teenaged white girl making a dent in the popular/white marketplace with a breezy, sustained critique of an aspect of African American cutural that is sufficiently widespread and un-small enough to have apparently achieved significant social penetration in New Fucking Zealand.

    I mean, if you don't wanna attach a word as strong as "racism" to this song, that's fine--I won't necessarily argue. But it's ridiculous to act like this song is magically rendered un-problematic by the fact that there's a lot of shit out there that's even more racially backwards.

    My feeling is that I personally will end up filing this song under "Yeah, it's a little fucked-up, but I still kinda like it. (It really is sorta fucked-up, though.)"
    The thing is, I don't especially care what you attach to it, imho it's forgotten about already and nowhere near important enough to sustain the level of debate it already has.

    Besides, if you've already got to the point of calling 'blockhead' nothing I say is going to sway your opinion so it's pointless to argue it out with you on here. There's enough self righteous indignation on the internet as it is. And unless the endgame of the internet truly is to define and catalogue every single occurrence of perceived racism, that once completed magically puts an and end to it, I recon I have more productive ways to spend my time.
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