Inspired by the emergence of Kreayshawn, or more precisely the inability to wrap one’s brain around it, my friend Edith wrote, in an essay for the New York Times that was published back in November, the following: “The Internet is a new kind of barometer for keeping track of exactly how old you feel: how many things you don’t get, how many mini-Internet worlds you can’t find the door to; exactly how many crickets in the world you can no longer hear chirping…Everywhere you go on the Internet there are rooms you don’t understand, people playing games you don’t know the rules to, teenagers doing drugs you’ve never heard of and can’t even pronounce.”
She was lamenting the fact that when she’d first encountered Kreayshawn’s “Gucci Gucci” video in her role an the editor of a website, she tossed it off as a passing fad no one would be talking about a week later (“some random stupid video that no one needs to know about”), only to see her become downright ubiquitous. My point in telling you this is because I feel the exact same way about Lana Del Ray.
I’m still not quite sure where Lana Del Rey came from, but suddenly she, in the same manner Kreayshawn was unleashed upon an unsuspecting public by the internet, is everywhere. And much like Edith did with Kreayshawn, I reacted in a blow-her-off-as-a passing-fad sort of way to Lana Del Rey when she first crossed my radar: I thought, “Pretty girl with a decent voice released a kinda catchy song on the internet that some people are talking about…I’ll pass.” (Judge her recorded tracks for yourself here.) But now friends whose opinions on music and culture I respect are still fawning all over her and she Just. Won’t. Go. Away. — last night appearing as the musical guest on SNL, FREAKING SNL, where she laid an egg so big and rotten that it seemed more like something you’d see in one of those rejected American Idol auditions. I mean, her debut album hasn’t even been released yet, and won’t drop until next month!
So now, today, I’m beating my head against the wall. I don’t get it. Lana Del Rey last night on SNL gave what may be the worst musical performance in the history of the show. To say that she looked unpolished would be like saying Sasha Grey likes boys. She looked and sounded terrified, utterly not ready for prime time, almost like Kristen Wiig performing the character of a bad lounge singer. Frankly, it was cringeworthy and I felt sorry for her. Lana Del Rey appears unprepared for the spotlight that’s been thrust upon her, and I’m sure there’s plenty of blame to go around for that.
Here, see for yourself. Here she is performing “Video Games”…
And here she is performing “Blue Jeans”…
So I guess I’m gonna have to stop ignoring her and start writing about Lana Del Rey now. At least I can take comfort in knowing that I’m not the only one who just doesn’t get it…
Others, however, remain steadfast…
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Well it’s comforting that she sounds the same way live as she does on her songs =]
I actually dig both those tracks but these live performances are TURRible. I’ve heard a couple of her in studio live performances before and she didn’t sound nearly that bad. Maybe meeting Harry Potter threw her way off her vocal game. For all I know she always looks likes she’s holding off a roaring piss while she’s singing though.
I’m not sure sharing an opinion with Juliette Lewis something to be comforted by though.
I’m not defending Lana here, but Ke$ha’s performance with the flag cape and the weirdo spaceman backup dancers is still the gold standard of horrible SNL performances.
Excellent point. I’d actually forgotten about Kesha, probably because my brain tends to compartmentalize horribly unpleasant shit away into dark places so I’ll be less likely to ever think of it again.
But that moment when she opened up the cape, clearly expecting huge applause, and was met with a near total silence was just. So. Damn. Amazing.
Since I have no idea who she is, I am concerned she is only popular because she’s a transvestite or something else gimmicky. It wouldn’t be the first time I was tricked.
Her lips have been fawned over as the perfect blowjob lips, which in turn probably makes them great trannie lips as well.
So funny, because when I was watching the performance, all I could think of was Kristen Wiig. I thought maybe Lana cancelled and they just decided to throw her in at the last minute as a joke. It was such a lifeless performance. I kept skipping through to see if maybe her voice would hit a high note and she’d redeem herself but nothing.changed.
If you listen to her recorded tracks, she’s not as bad as she came off live. Still, I think she’s ridiculously overhyped.
I realize I’ve reached the age where I’m going to be out of touch with who is the latest flavor in the music world (I also think SNL is notorious for having their musical guests sound like shit). I’m also used to my wife giving me the WTF look out of the corner of her eyes on just about every artist or band that performs on SNL. Usually she frowns but remains silent in case I’m actually enjoying the performance, but after a minute she finally blurted out, “Jesus, she sucks. It’s like she’s a parody!” I couldn’t help but agree.
I am so glad that I’m not the only one in this boat. She was horrible and her attempts to torch up the songs just looked so affected. My reaction was “this is the best that they can do? 3000 new recordings a month and this is what they give us?”. So sad.
Band did good though.
I’ve found that life in general is a lot easier to deal with when you stop caring about pop music. That said, I’m a little baffled by the torches and pitchforks. Yeah, she’s out of place on SNL, but so what? SNL has sucked for coming on two decades now.
Care about pop music? Nope. I generally dismiss what I don’t like and leave it at that. No torches and pitchforks from me, but I just thought she gave an outstandingly awful performance – to the point I was wondering if it was parody, or she just couldn’t give a crap about being on SNL (and if that was the case, why go on?). If her performance style is always that low-key, well, okay. But her singing was terrible too. And she didn’t seem to care. Maybe she was ill and she was a trooper and went on anyway. I’d like to hear that’s the case, honestly. As I sat listening to her I thought that this is a song I might really like, and she was doing her best to make me not like it.
I really don’t like to pile on and trash anyone, really. But man, it was one of the worst performances I’d seen on the show, and I can’t say I’m surprised a lot of people agreed.
I tuned in during the middle of her performance and I honestly thought it was a parody too. I chalked it up to one of their funnier skits.
That’s really the thing. Her singing isn’t particularly GOOD, but it’s not particularly BAD, either, especially in the modern era. She’s got a weird voice and singing style, absolutely, and it’s not my cup of tea. But I popped on the clip expecting something awful and instead just got her standing very still singing a song that sounds exactly like the YouTube video.
The worst? Nah, man. Kesha was way worse.
Ke$ha was slightly worse.
Ke$ha, this lady, and Jessie J were the 3 worst musical abortions to ever be on SNL. She should have been in that “You can do Anything” skit.
I don’t know what makes someone good or bad at performing. She seemed fine to me. I guess I’ll just defer to Juliette Lewis and Eliza Dushku, the experts on such matters, but calling her the worst ever? You guys remember Ashley Simpson, right?
Lana Del Rey is great. She is a great writer with great melodies and lyrics. The author of the post admits that she is new, so some stage fright is to be expected. I disagree with anyone saying she didn’t care, I believe she cared VERY much, which is usually when we tighten up the most.
Her recorded material is exceptional, check out either track she performed on SNL, as well as what I consider her best yet, “Born to Die”. The comparison to Kreayshawn is a bit too much. Kreayshawn wrote a great pop song, very fun and bouncy. Lana Del Rey digs much deeper for her inspiration. If anything, I think Lana Del Rey could have been too excited about SNL, b/c she changed at least half of her melodies, and one of the great things about her songs are the huge variety of melodies within each song. The other mistake I believe she made was playing with a band that was absolutely too loud. With more understated musical accompaniment (think Adele on “Someone Like You”), her lyrics and melodies will pack more punch. Saturday night she was struggling to keep up.
Like Tim Tebow, she will just keep getting better and better.
I was totally with you, but you lost me at the Tebow bit.
I saw this and didn’t think it was great at all, but to call this one of the worst performances in SNL history is simply delusional. I can’t imagine you’ve been watching the show for very long. Admittedly, I don’t even watch the show any more, but this STILL wasn’t close to the worst performance.
Couldn’t agree with you more. Any comparision to Ashley Simpson or Kreayshawn is just stupid.
Have we already forgotten about Ashlee Simpson!? NEVER FORGET. This chick just needs some singing lessons and for the diamond to be removed from her clenched ass cheeks.
As if you never had a bad day. Please.
Beautiful couture.
Didn’t think it was all that bad. Not a fan, but I’ve seen much worse. It was classy, at least. Something seriously lacking in our society where it seems, performances must have the right combination of gratuitous swearing and various body parts hanging out to be “good.”