goth of sex

[metaphortunate]

But tonight I'm not up with the baby! Tonight the baby's sleeping peacefully!

Tonight I'm up with a racking chest cough that's making it impossible to sleep! Isn't that funny? Isn't life funny? LAUGH YOU BASTARDS.

Ugh.

Hey, I've figured out what it is about Lana del Rey. She's like a goth, but just for heterosexuality!

You know how goths look at life and go "The thing about this is: death, decay, corruption, pain, despair, and also vampires. Let's have a bunch of songs called things like "This Corrosion" and "Bela Lugosi's Dead" and "Dead Stars" and "Stigmata Martyr" and "Now I'm Feeling Zombified". And we'll make them cool and fun and sexy!"?

Well, Lana del Rey looks at heterosexuality and goes, "The thing about this is: infidelity, exploitation, prostitution, domestic violence and statutory (maybe) rape! Let's have a bunch of songs about all of that! And I'll make them cool and fun and sexy!"

It kind of works, too.

Comments

[jesse_the_k]

Wow, because I am old and out of touch, you have just introduced me to Lana Del Rey, who belongs to that snappy niche, "angry women with pianos" (see also Kate Bush, Regina Spektor, &c.)

Sorry about the chest cough, thanks for the intro, have some of my soup (it's got lots of ginger).

[metaphortunate]

But...I'm not at all sure she's angry. What I was trying to say is that her songs seem to be in love with sexism in the same way that goth songs are in love with death.

[veejane]

I am sure I believe you, except that I could not name a single lyric I have ever heard in a Lana Del Ray song. (I am the sort who listens to music as nonverbal sound, and never as lyric-delivery devices.) She's got a distinctively low range, which is refreshing, and may indeed be part of the ennui shtick you are recognizing.

I wonder how the gothiness of the songs would come across if they were re-sung by a Chipmunk?

[metaphortunate]

Things I would never, ever have tried to imagine.

Except she kind of does some Chipmunk in "Off to the Races."