Best Female Album of the Year?

[kvnrp 48,352]

Just now, Quasi said:

Stranger has every characteristic of an iconic pop song. And I mean iconic in the most LITERAL sense. The production is one of the best I've ever heard. 

#StrangerForSecondSingle

It could be her DWUW (except for the video mess)

[Mister Gaga 21,883]

Female albums had been great this year. Most of them served quality. Imo:

1) Lust For Life

2) Melodrama

3) Rainbow

[Bloody 64,631]

Tell me you love me was my favorite.

[juju 18,907]

25 minutes ago, kvnrp said:

Honey, Stranger and She Dont know But she knows have me boping

And Disco Tits is THAT song

Tove is generally underrated tbh

Struggle had me by the throaT  

[wahkeenasitka 1,965]

 

[ItsTommyBitch 12,640]

This is tough...

Melodrama, Lust for Life, MASSEDUCTION, and CTRL are probably my top 4.

My deeper thoughts in the spoiler about each record:

Spoiler

 

LFL has to me some of Lana's best songs in her career, but also a few that while are good songs kind of distort the concept of the album or fragment it, and I think one concise, 12-14 song record would have potentially been my favorite Lana album ever and my undisputed AOTY. Somewhere among the 16 tracks is this concept of a folky, 60's girlgroup record about a tragic heroine thats growing and maturing with the backdrop being the political climate of the country changing in a truly undesirable way. A true concept album. Resisting change, but changing in the process. Her story is a beacon for the youth out there who have always felt a bit different fundamentally, and prone to drama, sadness, etc. Lana says she is attracted to Folk and Hip-Hop because they are two genres that lend themselves to telling truly important tales of struggle and protest and action. Here, we see the potential of her using these genres (more so folk than before), but I wish she had doubled down and gone all the way in. Like, Coachella-Woodstock in My Mind  could have been JUST Lana and a guitar, or a very simple beat, with a grainy microphone, in true 60s fashion. And if she was going to use rappers, use them with verses that aren't just playing up her mythos, but contributing to the story of the record; Use MC's, not rappers, ya know? There are a lot of truly profound thoughts about the nature of protest and change and resistence sprinkled throughout the record, its very honest too. She's not suddenly Buffy Sainte-Marie, she's got her own unique thoughts about things that are in character with her sometimes controversial past actions and glorification of icons like America. And the title and concept of Lust for Life is just so beautiful, I wish she had saved it tbh  Like, the idea of coming from being Born to Die to having a Lust for Life... It just seems like she didn't really get there yet and it would've been better suited on her next release or the one after that. (I get the feeling she purposefully put out that image of Lost for Life because she felt the title didn't fit quite yet with what the record turned out to be, but obv. she can't change the entire album's name when its already shipped  )

There's so much potential for this marriage of folk and hip-hop and 60s American music, but it all kinda blended together and a few tracks could do with either more complex hip-hop production, or none at all. I think she was a bit afraid to truly embrace these things, and theres still a tint of "pop" that permeates this release.  But this apprehension is indicative still of Lana's mental state. She's not fully confident in herself, and she's working to get there. She's not "happy" yet, this isn't a happy record, but its something.

We could analyze all the "pop" releases since Trump and the political shift in the last year and a little before that, but who would've expected it from Lana? When I heard Love and Lust for Life, I was HYPED. I broke down on a bench and cried when I saw the Love music video. There's something beautiful about timing and social climate. While this video and the song were not written and filmed directly in response to Trump and that whole shitstorm, they were released in a time that kind of cast a political light on them if you are willing to go along with it. And it was truly powerful, subversive, but understated in true Lana fashion. This concept of retro-futurism aesthetically too could have been fully fleshed out. It's a beautiful thread that could tie her own struggle for "change" aesthetically with the political climate of today. Love is done so beautifully, that kind of detail and plot and thought with a song like God Bless America - And All The Beautiful Women In it could be a truly thought provoking political piece. Same with WTWWAWWKD and Change and even Coachella. And apparently there were 2 or 3 more decisively political tracks that didn't make the cut  It's still a very good, beautiful record, and my most played this year. I just see the potential it had conceptually, and I hope little vestiges of this can be realized in the future as Lana becomes more sure of herself as a person and an artist, because the potential there is massive. 

CTRL is consistent from top - bottom, but the concept is very loose and you can tell that there are a few musical ideas she was exploring but decided "nah, ill get to it later" and released the record (Like, Anything, the end of Prom, a bunch of other little bits)

Melodrama is thematically loose, but executed very well. It's a very beautiful album sonically and conceptually, however it works better as a full unit. I'm also just a bit disappointed by the lack of upbeat? It's all very moderate tempo, but explosive, which to me sometimes seems at odds with the concept of the record. If I'm listening to this record and thinking of the concept, relating it to myself, and having a truly immersive experience, this record is incredibly moving and impactful and every song becomes a dance-worthy bop. It can be taxing to do this though, so while it's probably the "best" album released by an English speaking female, it isn't always the most enjoyable. Complicated.

MASSEDUCTION is truly like Alternative-Pop, which Is probably my go to genre or manifestation of pop music. It's lyrically minimalistic, but sonically (for Vincent) maximalist to me. There are some "bangers", but really its the sonic production and nuance and just raw life you can feel in every song. Like, she lived these things, there were tears and laughs and fights and arguments and life in the recording of these tracks. While I'm a pretty big "big picture" person, I do think that little interludes while conceptually important, can be kind of boring to listen to, so there are a few of those (and even just a few little 2 minute songs) on this record that I am just SAD about because I want them to be longer. Similar to Melodrama, I rarely listen to this for individual songs other than a few like Hang on Me, Pills, Los Ageless, New York, etc.