Lana Del Rey and the blogosphere of exhaustion.

Lana Del Rey has yet to release an album, and she is already the “new singer music bloggers love to hate.” If you follow my link, you'll find more links, and I'll provide you with even more links, ad nauseam. I might beat the dead horse that I'm slightly frustrated and complaining about. The rehashing, reviewing, self-conscious writing I provide is a necessary evil and part of the whole point.

The source of Lana-Del-Rey-induced blog-angst is her image. Her music video for “Video Games” was the trigger, drawing a lot of wanted (or perhaps unwanted) attention. The lo-fidelity video reminded me of disconnected nostalgia: vapid celebrities, young people having way too much fun, and Lana, with collagen-filled, pouty lips and a retro coiffure. The song is deliberately paced, and the modern lyrics about video games and 21^st century disconnect contrast her “gangster Nancy Sinatra" package. The aesthetic and sound has appeal but at the same time feels calculated.

“Video Games” has given Lana Del Rey internet fame or infamy. The internet fame has generated a large amount of attention. With a little research, people learned that Lana Del Rey is the reincarnation of Lizzy Grant, a normal-looking blonde with normal lips, hair, and clothes. Lizzy Grant flopped a couple of years ago, ignored by the same medium that has carried her in the past couple of months. Is Lana Del Rey a phony, alt-poser? Is she sincere? Is she a reverent calculator? There is no doubt that Lana Del Rey is calculated. It doesn't matter who is doing the calculating. What matters (but isn't that important) is that the blogosphere has super-sized “Lana Del Rey's” image.

For better or worse, the music blogosphere has become an exhaustive, saturated form of entertainment. The content is overwhelming, too interconnected, constantly moving, creating torrents of not-that-important controversy. There is too much commentary on commentary; and then there is the commentary on the commentary about commentary; and most of the commentators take themselves very, very seriously. They want you to read their ideas, agree or disagree with them, and generate a bigger commentary with your friends. The content generators enjoy their roles as taste-makers, a sort of gate-keeper of cool. Some writers are sincere. Some are self-absorbed. And the serious ones like to think that they are upholding something bigger and meaningful.

With too many people wanting to do the same thing, writing about music has to deal with the limitations of time and space. The writers who want to be read must distinguish themselves. How to do this? Stay extremely, intensely current; create a musical stream of consciousness with a lot of noise. It turns out that everyone has the same idea. The same things are being covered over and over. In recent years, the meta-blogger has filled the space traditional bloggers left unoccupied, rising in prominence. Writing with a lot of pretense, using irony as a guard, some meta-blogger make fun of someone or some blog while trying to make some bigger, serious point. The serious point is made in between the lines of tired humor.

Lana Del Rey is central to this post because she incited the music blogosphere's symptoms: guarding, rebound tenderness, paranoia, malaise, hyper-sensitivity, etc., etc.. The sad thing, though, is that the symptoms are self-inflicted, not Lana's fault. Blog A supports Artist X. Blogger B claims that Artist X is a phony and takes a shot at Blog A. Blog A indirectly responds to Blogger B, explaining their stance re. Artist X. Blogger B makes fun of Blog A for being defensive. You get the picture. Blogs read each other; meta-bloggers read a lot of blogs and push buttons, creating an environment where everyone is pushing each others' buttons. The music blogosphere has a sizable readership that demands constant information and stimulation. With an increasing readership and self-perceived sense of importance, how will music blogs react to this demand? Will “the indie underground’s self-conscious [cause] slippage toward E!-networkreality-show fodder”? If online music writers have trouble writing about meaningful things, will "u still [bb] in2 blogs"? 

With respect to Lana Del Rey, the blogosphere has proved to be informative and exhaustive. An artist's image affects our perception of their music. Artists have consciously or unconsciously used images to enhance their agenda. As consumers of the music (especially indie music), though, we hope that the image is sincere, true to the artist. If an image is fake, it's easy to associated the work with a dirty, cheated feeling.  When I listen to Lana Del Rey's other songs, I hear something different from “Video Games.” The music is closer to Lizzy Grant's strengths, i.e. jazz-pop; it's like LDR wants to develops a persona; she wants to be an entertainer; and that is how I will evaluate her. Sure the blogs have influenced the way I hear and see her perform. I hope that I can still form opinions on my own, though.