First of all girl, the blues, gospel and jazz (all Black American made) have been staples for decades narrating the hard times and hardships of our lives! From Mahalia Jackson to Mary J. Blige to Etta James. And First of all again girl, one of the first sad-depressed Rnb songs I ever heard was from Meshell Ndegeocello... she's been out.
She didn’t name Adele, Lorde, Melanie Martinez etc. who have the same lane of music as her. Betty Wright, Deborah Cox, Mary J. Blige and many more came before her with the sad girl music. She had the audacity to name artist who have nothing to do with her argument. “There’s no place in feminism for me”, Girl there’s literally white feminism that ignored the black artist she named and even white feminists HATE ON the black artist she named, especially Beyoncé and Nicki. Her coke trip has her thinking it’s really the 1950’s 🙄. Lizzy pressed because: 1.) Another summer for the girls!!! 2.) she don’t jump into her pants 😭😂
Lana covered a song called “the other woman” which was popularised by Sarah Vaughan and Nina Simone and written by a black woman called Jessie Mae Robinson in 1958/9. & That’s a sad girl song if I ever heard one. She tried it
She's crazy fr. I was mad as hell she doubled down. Like bish recognize your mistakes and LEARN. I'm tired of these beckies and Karens and their "woah is me!" She could have said what she said about critics without slighting the artists she claims are "her favorite." Idk WHY she think she made up singing about toxic relationships and trifling men. Literally EVERYONE does it.... Janet Jackson, Whitney, destiny child...umm hello, LEOMONADE?! Oh but wait those are black ppl so you know Karens don't consider black women women.
Omg!!! She is so entitled and her comments are racially motivated. She seems jealous, because the system is designed for her to succeed. It eats them up when black women with talent show up and take what they think should be theirs. It’s completely delusional.
She needs to criticize the other sad girls whisper tone girls that had number 1 like Halsey lorde Billie Eilish Selena Gomez who ripped off her style. Edit: the reason she gets more criticism than the other sad girls is because she never takes any accountability in the relationship or stand up for herself or even gets over the shitty relationship at the end of the album in lemonade Beyoncé at least gives Jay Z the ultimatum if he cheats again he’ll lose his wife Lana just wallows in sorrow from album to album about the same abusive bullshit. She’s in the same lane as Taylor Swift lyrically
@@laurenjackson2810 some of us know who sis was since she was May Jailor. She depended on the general public not knowing who she is or how she fumbled the bag.
I think the part that bothers me the most is how people ;who defend her don’t understand the deeper implications...of put making herself seem like her music isn’t as harmful or it isn’t as hyper sexualizing. Even though she does have a song called Lolita which is based off the book Lolita which is about the sexual abuse of a child. I’ve been a Lana fan since high school. She also has a song called Carmen that talks about a young sex worker/street walker with a alcohol addiction.
flickchic238 he literally wrote it to expose the perverted mentality that contributes to pedophilia, but somehow society accepted the twisted notion that Lolita was the seductress.
Yes!! I'm a huge ldr fan and I'm so disappointed in her but especially her fan base. Majority of her fanbase is white pretty much and so many of them just dismiss what black people are trying to say and write them off as haters and clowns etc.. must be nice being white and to ignore things and look the other way.
I am the biggest fan of Lana Del Rey from lizzy grant days but this whole argument makes no sense, I don't even understand why she felt offended. She should be offended by Billie Ellish, Melanie Martinez and or Adele. Those are people that took here genre of depressed sad girl or trap sad music. Like, what the hell what she offended by Beyonce for? Beyonce?! Really, I have no idea where she comes from being offended by. But lol, "He hit me and it felt like a kiss" it Isn't about a man, it's about the drink Jimmy Bean whiskey and her alcoholism!
exactly. it’s a whole list of sad girls in her peer group. Melanie, Lorde, Halsey (I know she mixed), Adele, Billie, Florence Welch, etc. climbing the charts and she act like its Say So’s fun disco revival that has ha fucked up lol. Smell a rat for real...
There was a ton of sad girl music starting in early 2000's. I mean my goodness the genre was there way before she got famous Emily Haines was a freaking favorite of mine she was putting out music in 07. Cat Powers, Birdy, Azure Ray, Fever Ray. List goes on and on. The fact is I was listening to all that stuff and then Boom Lana shows up and people are losing their minds but it's just because she was the one to be the first real big time radio on the big radio stations. Other stations have been playing that music years before. She just was the break out artist. I mean I like Lana but they're so many great women singers out there and I can tell she was influenced by them but couldn't say it and had to say older generation singer's because she ripped off those artist and couldn't tell everyone about them because they might rise to her fame.
This reminds me of when MIA woke up one day and decided to just come for Black celebs who grew up well off (then ended up loud and wrong when she named Michael Jackson). Didn’t name nary a White artist though. Another one who dibbles and dabbles in Black art and turns around throwing these uncalled for and hateful tantrums. It’s so gross and bratty.
MIA is another one that also RANDOMLY named Beyonce. She complained about Beyoncé’s Black Panther SuperBowl performance and asked when is Beyonce gonna talk about ‘Free Palestine.’ HUH?
Thing I just remember, SZA and Elizabeth were using the same producer around the same time and She got much more success than SZA doing the same things
she sprinkled in camila and ariana. i agree she could’ve mentioned her own peers, adele, halsey, lorde etc. and some other sad pop girls if she really meant all that.
I love me some Lana, Born to Die will always be in my top 5. But her latest antics got me viewing her differently. Thought she was unproblematic but alas. 🤦🏾♂️ Edit: she’s not pop like Doja either, she’s definitely alternative so she’s capping 💯 Doja could REALLY swerve into the alternative lane right quick if Lana wanted the smoke fr fr
Azalea Banks is “crazy” but she stay calling out all these other problematic girlies. I remember when she called her out when she was white womaning before
Her "there's no place for somebody that looks like me in the industry" sounds like a thinly veiled cry of 'reverse racism'. Also, it seems like she threw in those OTHER names to throw off the racist scent....it didn't work BRO. She could have easily used her platform to congratulate her 'peers' and instead chose to "why not me" the whole situation. Man I wish this was a live so we could drag her in real time 😈
She brought up mostly women of color in the rb hip hop spaces. Even if we don’t see Camila as Latina, most people do. And Ariana sings rb and a lot of people forget she’s white and think she’s Latina because of her image. It seems pretty direct who she meant. She didn’t say Gaga, Taylor, Katy, Miley,Billie, and the slew of other white women who do what she says gets you a no1.
I find it interesting that she speaking as if the women she mentioned don’t receive backlash for the content they put out. They definitely receive backlash (if not more). The only difference is that she is not as high on the charts as the women she mentioned.
I feel like the whole letter should have been directed to Billie Eilish because that’s whose she’s really mad at. Billie stole Lanas whole career with acclaim, number ones, and Billie won the Grammy while Lana was just nominated. She won’t come at Billie because she cannot play that victim role against a teenager. Lana had no one to blame but herself because in 2011 the critics rolled out welcome mat for her only to feed us high school musical lyrics and choke while singing live. Maybe she would get a number 1 album /single if she could sing live and promote her music
been such a big fan of lana since i was 15/2012 and have felt disconnected to her the past year or so. her dating a cop turned me off and now this. i hope she learns but i will not be holding my breath.. the letter was all types of delusional to say the very least. like all of the black women singers who have been singing on the subjects for decades. and that first paragraph felt very "these dirty jezebels won't let me be my lily white self" smhhh. the twitter memes had me rolling tho
The women she's talking about who "aren't allowed to have a voice" are women who don't fit the "ra ra go wymyn" feminist mode, who value more traditional forms of femininity. Lana came on the scene at a time where the most successful songs by female artists were one-dimensional "girl-power" anthems, and she was ridiculed and lambasted for not fitting in that mold. Thankfully, it looks like now there is more openness in the mainstream for women other than dull white feminist stereotypes, but instead of welcoming this, Lana got "salty" like you said, and reacted emotionally. It wasn't the best look for her, but I still think she's a phenomenal artist and a decent person at heart.
This is a fair comment & I want to respond with something I said to someone else: She’s essentially saying there’s no place for fragile and vulnerable women because ‘strong and powerful’ women like Beyonce are taking up space yet she’s totally Ray Charles to the fact that Black women aren’t even ALLOWED to be fragile and vulnerable. We are stereotyped as ‘strong black woman’ constantly and it takes a lot for women like Beyonce and Nicki - who she named - to be more vulnerable about personal situations in their lives and music. She glossed right over that then said there wasn’t a racial element involved. Yes, there is! Her point would’ve made more sense if she had aligned herself with these girls instead of against them and said something like all women should be allowed to embrace all aspects of their femininity at all times.
And she still borrowed heavily from Black American genres like blues and trap then acts like these Black artists are unfairly getting something SHE deserves which is ugly. She’s repackaged Billie Holiday meets Nina Simone in a white palatable body (gangsta Nancy Sinatra 😒), but feels there is no place for her??? If Nina and Billie carved out a niche as Black women she has more than enough space to do it as a Caucasian. She didn’t create this sound, look, style, or subject matter and has sour grapes about Black artists being successful?? She should be ashamed any way you slice it.
LOL You can't make this shit up, 'He hit me and it felt like a kiss' were lyrics directly lifted from a song of the same name from The Crystals, a black girl group like back in the 60's if I'm not mistaken. HAHAHA Classic.
Woah I’m gonna scroll up and delete my Comment we literally said the same thing word for word that’s mad! This was the comment I wrote: “You always come through with the facts 👏🏾. The “he hit me and it felt like a kiss” line from lana is lifted from a song of the same name by a black 60s girl group called the Crystals.” Eek our minds. Anyway😂🙏🏾
Anthony Fantano's video about this was in my recommended, and I watched it too. He also said there was no reason to call out names.. which there wasn't. If she wants to vent, cool. There was no point in women artists who are poppin right now. And YES ohmygoodness so many people think to be racist they have to be the most extreme type of racist! You don't have to be a damn conspiring nazi to be racist.
Yes, you made the great point about her doing jazz and the blues. She just recycles black folks music and tries to pass it off as if she’s avant garde for it. Amy Winehouse (another white woman she could have mentioned) made HER blue print and she wants to act like she’s the revolutionary.
Something else I just thought about.....Ariana Grande, and Ku Klux Cabello have never had a "strong woman" stage persona, if anything they're just the grown and sexy versions of their teen selves. Ariana is still the mousey soprano, and Cabello is still a less talented Colbie Caillat. That's how you know Elizabeth is salty about this black girl magic.
Born to Die came out in 2011, who was even still talking about Lana Del Rey like that? Why are you here in 2020 after a massively successful album still bitching about criticism from almost a decade ago? Also her whole post made no sense, no one ever said she shouldn't talk about abusive relationships or drug abuse or sex - things people have been singing about forever - people were (in my opinion pretty fairly) criticizing the way she portrayed that subject matter. Rhianna's Love the Way You Lie - which came out the year before Born to Die, I think? - was also about toxic partners and being in an abusive relationship but was very clearly portrayed as something no one would want to be apart of not even the people in the song. Beyonce was never out here talking about how tragic but desirable a cheating spouse is. Side note, "He hit me and it felt like a kiss", which is probably one of her most famous lyrics, isn't even hers it was lifted from the song "He Hit Me" preformed by the Black American girl group The Crystals in the sixties. She knows she didn't invent sad girl music, she used sad girl lyrics from sixty years ago.
Lana fell off somewhere after Honeymoon and she knows it, that’s where all this mess stems from. How does she not understand blues, jazz and R&B history involving black women expressing themselves, but actively out here covering Nina Simone and Billie Holiday on her albums and claiming they’re her ‘inspirations’??? It’s like white women are completely oblivious to how dumb they make themselves look. Is Lana talented? ABSOLUTELY. She’s a pretty good writer, “Young & Beautiful” was a great song fore sure. However, she isn’t the first woman to make depressive music for girls or pretend to be “The Other Woman” as a alter-ego. Black American female artists have been doing that for CENTURIES. She needs to get some therapy and get out of her bubble.
First of all, Black artists been getting criticized for "glamourizing" dark situations, moreso than any other race. Number 2, this bitch actually fixed her mouth to say she didn't have an opportunity to express herself when her rich dad literally bought her whole platform for her to express herself on. Then she had the boobs to name Queen B? Beyonce was running laps at 4 a.m. to prepare to perform songs about shitty relationships loonng before Elizabeth sobered up enough to start a music career; and it took her years even to feel comfortable making personal projects like 'Lemonade,' due to the specific pressure of being a Black woman in the public eye. Liz tried it, thought I'd still love her when she's no longer young and beautiful, but she managed to piss me off before then 😒.
This was the part that lowkey offended me. She’s essentially saying there’s no place for fragile and vulnerable women because ‘strong and powerful’ women like Beyonce are taking up space yet she’s totally Ray Charles to the fact that Black women aren’t even ALLOWED to be fragile and vulnerable. We are stereotyped as ‘strong black woman’ constantly and it takes a lot for a woman like Beyonce (Rihanna comes to mind as well) to be more vulnerable about personal situations in their lives and music. She glossed right over that then said there wasn’t a racial element involved. Yes, there is!
There is a difference between sad and this sort of uglier sad music. I'd say Lana Del Rey's content is a bit darker because she talks aboht death and abuse like Amy Winehouse. While I think Norman Fucking Rowell is great the past few albums really were glamourizing a lot of toxic subject matter. Black blues did do it first. Speaking of which check out Adia Victoria. Sort of a modern day Billie Holiday.
I like Adia Victoria’s stuff!! And yes there are def variances in ‘sad music.’ In terms of mainstream success I def think Lana is moreso in the same lane of a SZA and esp a Summer Walker personally in terms of Black artists, their material can get very dark (esp Summer) and imo they have a somewhat similar dark goth glam image. But part of why Lana’s rant came across as sour grapes was that she for sure targeted girls who are popular but aren’t even in her lane. Billie Eyelash is WAY IN LANA’S LANE in terms of sound/subject matter and wasn’t mentioned at all. And I’m glad you mentioned Amy because, again, here is a white woman directly in Lana’s lane and who came before her & succeeded before her untimely death... there’s a whole genre of ~sad wave~ pop/r&b that’s done very well and she’s crying like she was some poor indie artist who invented some BRAND NEW shit and got shafted while the mean Black/WOC artists went on to succeed in her place 🤦🏾♀️ The criticism of her subject matter was warranted esp in the beginning and she STILL has had a very successful career, she wasn’t discriminated against for being a fragile white woman. This entire thing is so deluded.
Sensei Aishitemasu It's true. By the way, I make some music under the name Vae Holloway. You should check out some of my stuff. It's more sad piano acoustic music. Some classical/blues influence stuff. www.vaeholloway.com
Her lack of decent music lost me years ago, but this really did it. For one, she's not the only woman who's sung about abuse, sex, drugs and toxic relationships. Two, all of those women she mentioned faced backlash, especially Nicki Minaj and Beyoncé. Hell, Beyoncé can't even cut her hair without being criticized for it on CNN. Third, Lizzie didn't have to stop writing her experiences. If her art was important to her, she would have pushed through despite what the critics said, just like the women she named did. I don't feel sorry for anyone who "sells out" their artistic vision, then gets mad at other artists who successfully persevered with theirs. Bye, Lizzie. And I see her using (black) outrage to promote her work. It's disgusting and she should feel ashamed of herself. However, given her past, I already know that she doesn't.
I'm also such a fan of Lana but I can't say I was surprised she came out of pocket here. I wish she didn't double down on her statement and instead reflect and apologize. This quarantine got celebrities bored bored
