Decoding Ocean Blvd｜Modern Classics Month

And I thought 461 Ocean Blvd…

This imitating Our Mothers is Pathetic

and hilarious

Great review for one of several LDR masterpieces and your lyrical interpretations are insightful and on point. Although it doesn't have the same immediate impact of NFR and Ocean Bvld, I think Blue Banisters is a quiet masterpiece in its own right (it sounds like you also like that album as well). I didn't even know BB was put together from various recording sessions: it sounds like a cohesive statement to my ears.

hey love the video ive been such a big fan for ages! just so you know, Rock Candy Sweet was the original title for Blue Bannisters announced the day after the release of Chemtrails

I had to go acquaint myself with this artist , and was glad this presentation awakened me to such a talent. I am always intrigued by a woman's outlook on life, because they do the same things as males, but see things so differently.

Abby might be the illegitimate daughter of Davy Jones?

A great artist of ur time . Thanks and Good Luck . 🎉

Some time ago I was watching a series on Netflix or some other service and one of the characters referred to Lana Del Rey as the "queen of sad". Is that true? Love this video. Love Lana!

If Lana Del Ray herself came to me and gave me all of her albums for
free I would set them aside and never listen to them.
Maybe I just don't get what she is about, but I Do Not care.

Expertly crafted this is not, If your descriptions didn't make it obvious enough, Ocean Blvd. is a mess that doesn't really seem to be about anything despite the various themes that pop up. Apparently the record consists of first take improvised lyrics Lana made on the phone at 3am, or other people's songs she straight up stole. The track order is terrible, the editing is horrendous, and the album is once again way too long. Few if any albums have made me this angry upon listening, and I can promise everyone here that I will never listen to it again…at least, not in its original track order. The awful Judah Smith Interlude completely destroys the flow of the album, and it did not recover. Having another filler interlude two tracks later only made things worse. I still cannot fathom how many people on Youtube bend over backwards to give her the benefit of the doubt here instead of just saying that it's awful and shouldn't be on the record. But then we wouldn't get all of that sweet extra cash from releasing a double album. Ocean Blvd. will not and should not ever be considered a classic, because Lana made so many poor decisions to tank the record in an effort to seem like a cool pop star I guess, or to throw as many tracks on as possible to get clicks. I guess that's what they do today now, and it explains a lot. Trust me, you feeling the record start to drag halfway through was not your fault.

That said, many of the songs that aren't incoherent ramblings or recordings on her phone in her pocket are fairly phenomenal. A hypothetical album that lasted a bit under 45 minutes might be extraordinarily meaningful to me, in that exact "hitting you like a ton of bricks" way you described. It's a pity you glossed over Paris, Texas, because if that song was, say, first in the track order rather than tenth, it might have succinctly encapsulated the themes of the album and given it focus. Kintsugi likewise has a similar effect, and is much more focused than Grandfather… and especially Fingertips. There is a great album buried within the mess, as there is on most of Lana's records, and I guess it makes me old to say all of the extra stuff that also appears and ruins the record matters to me. But editing and track order still matter, and Lana very clearly didn't give two craps about that here. Even if the younger generation is more than happy to forgive this, I cannot and will not. But there may not end up being a Lana album that means more to me personally than this one, at least the good parts. (Fun fact: Jon Batiste can be completely cut out of Candy Necklace and you don't miss him at all.)

Congrats on the podcast. And may you continue to also do great music work as long as you can and want.