Et In Arcadia Ego

September 9, 2023 4:54 PM

The urban fog that has trailed shibboleths of progress to the Pacific Rim hovers over a reflection in once-clear water that looks final in its murkiness: finding the barbarisms of modernity exacerbated and multiplied on the outer cusp of the American continent, settled under the false assurance of beginning anew, we can no longer dispute that the monsters are us. It is through [Lana] Del Rey, a moody transplant with a made-up name, that this lineage finds its most opportune and poignant expression. A damsel in distress inured to the fatalism of our time, her songbook is a secular Revelation for the coming fall, illusions of redemption having all but burned out. from California Gothic [The Baffler; ungated]
posted by chavenet (4 comments total)

I've never been that into Del Rey's music, but this Mike Davis person's books seem interesting.

Each school has pushed the semiotic needle of L.A. further in the direction of salvation or damnation, but it is the Noirs—in which he includes hard- and soft-boiled modernists James M. Cain and Raymond Chandler, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Nathanael West, Harlemite tourists Langston Hughes and Chester Himes, Joan Didion, the science fiction and postmodernism of Aldous Huxley, Kim Stanley Robinson, Ray Bradbury, John Rechy, Philip K. Dick, Bret Easton Ellis, James Ellroy, and movies from The Big Sleep to Blade Runner—who are most responsible for electing Los Angeles, and not Las Vegas, as “Sin City” in the minds of the pious and starstruck throughout the world.

That seems like an interesting group to file under N.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:58 PM on September 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

Lana Del Rey is a singularly boring artist, but Mike Davis is brilliant.
posted by Just the one swan, actually at 8:37 PM on September 9, 2023 [3 favorites]

Personally, I've become a fan of Lana del Rey, but only recently. I enjoy her early character work, posing as the ultimate West Coast Bad Girl, but it's just another flavor of posed pop. Her more recent work is much more about family and real feelings and is pretty stunning at times. If you know her primarily from her first hits, or even from NFR, I'd definitely recommend listening to her most recent album.

She's a polarizing figure for sure, with her "Question for the culture" and her mesh mask and her hanging out with that homophobe Judah Smith. But I can't argue that she's the embodiment of L.A. culture, both the good and the bad sides of it.
posted by rikschell at 6:23 AM on September 10, 2023 [3 favorites]

I think Del Ray is more interesting than most generic pop/jazz divas. Her lyrics have a tangy jaded weirdness that's something else. She's kinda faking it in a refreshingly candid manner.
posted by ovvl at 11:54 AM on September 11, 2023