Lana Del Where?--New Zealand?
dukeofdelridge
urgent.monkey.mice 2,453 Posts
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.
And will Jimmy Fallon make a parody flipping the lyrics about pooping pants?
Insane.
Comments
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!
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.
Just wait.
That shit will be stuck in your head soon enough.
Hate away.
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.
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.
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.
Or is that just me?
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.
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.)"
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.
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?
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.
v nasty and her main bitch kreashawn
milkcarton as fuck
Bingo
is it really that big?
Its already peaked around summertime.
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.