I woke up this morning and read that one of my favourite new artisits 'bombed' on her North American live performance debut last night. At first, it was unclear to me if they meant 'bombed' as in "Lana Del Rey was the bomb!" or if they meant "Lana Del Rey crashed and burned badly, like a bomb." Upon further reading, I realized that the public reaction was not a positive one. I was surprised because this girl and this band are extremely well trained, the music is fresh, and they seem to be ahead of the game as they have skill, talent, and uniquness oozing out of every melody.
So, I came to the internet to watch what happened last night. As it turns out, Perez Hilton and Huffington Post are sorely confused about the deffinition of what is good music and a good performance.
It may not have been mainstream: she did not gyrate on TV, she sang differently (always on key), and it was not your regular pop-song. SNL is having Bon Iver on this season as well, I wonder what the mainstream press will say about his performance!? I am sure it won't be hip-hop enough for them, and thus he will 'bomb' too. (For those of you who are unfamiliar with Bon Iver, he is NOT hip-hop, the music is also labelled as Alternative).
As for Juliette Lewis, who tweeted her dislike of Lana Del Rey last night, I expected more from you. For a woman who has starred in many indie productions and has played many off-beat characters, I thought you would understand the beauty in non-conforming. I think it is cool to speak your mind, and please twitter away, but realize that last night, you were introduced to a band that plays Alternative music, not Pop music.
In the early 90s mainstream press used to downplay Nirvana's live musical talent all the time, saying that they were just a bunch of punk rocker wannabes, unable to keep a tune or play in time during their live performances. It was not until people who attended their concerts and stood-up for the band's musical skills and talents, that those critics stopped airing their 'mainstream' opinions.
Excellent music does not need to be manufactured and engineered to someone's idea of 'perfection', to be perfect. I was recently told by a musician friend of mine that Garageband (GarageBand is a software application that allows users to create music or podcasts) is better than the studiorecording equipment that The Beatles used when they were recording their music. And look how their music has spanned the decades!
A beautiful red-head in a white dress does not need to sing a pop song in a particular way to rock the socks off of her viewers. And for the record, I thought that Lana Del Rey did, in fact, rock last night on SNL.
Woot woot!
Namaste
