Five Years of Lana Del Rey’s “Question for the Culture”
The Friday Post.
Five years ago this week, Lana Del Rey logged on. “Question for the culture,” she began ominously in a message posted to her Instagram on May 21, 2020. The font was some type of weary, weathered Courier New. It wasn’t a Notes app apology it was a typewritten ransom note holding our attention captive. “Now that Doja Cat, Ariana, Camila [Cabello], Cardi B, Kehlani and Nicki Minaj and Beyoncé have had number ones with songs about being sexy, wearing no clothes, fucking, cheating etc - can I please go back to singing about being embodied, feeling beautiful by being in love even if the relationship is not perfect, or dancing for money - or whatever I want - without being crucified or saying I’m glamorizing abuse??????”
It was Kendrick Lamar’s “Control” verse1 for the poptimists, an “Imagine” video-level of chaos for people who have the entirety of “Born To Die” memorized.2 It was May 2020, pre-race war summer, and Lana Del Rey was already starting fires. Beyoncé in it? Cardi B?? Nicki in it too??? I’d never considered a level of white privilege where you don’t fear Barbz.
“I’m fed up with female writers and alt singers saying that I glamorize abuse when in reality I'm just a glamorous person singing about the realities of what we are all now seeing are very prevalent emotionally abusive relationships all around the world,” Lana continued. “With all of the topics women are finally allowed to explore I just want to say over the last ten years I think it’s pathetic that my minor lyrical exploration detailing my sometimes submissive or passive roles in my relationships has often made people say I’ve set women back hundreds of years.”
When in reality I’m just a glamorous person. WHEN IN REALITY I’M JUST A GLAMOROUS PERSON. They can get mad at Lana … they can say she’s glamorizing abuse … but they cannot doubt the power of her pen.
The post meandered from there, with some interesting ideas about feminist theory (“Let this be clear, I’m not not a feminist — but there has to be a place in feminism for women who look and act like me … the kind of women who get their own stories and voices taken away from them by stronger women or by men who hate women”), and complaints about her percieved critical reception to her music (“So I just want to say it’s been a long 10 years of bullshit reviews up until recently and I’ve learned a lot from them”). Importantly — critically — it culminated in “And I’m sure there will be tinges of what I’ve been pondering in my new album that comes out September 5th.” (That album would be “Chemtrails Over The Country Club.”)
Lana’s “question for the culture” became a strange and mysterious prophecy. Almost every person she named was later embroiled in some sort of controversy: Kehlani’s ex said the singer was in a cult, Doja Cat was “in racial chatrooms showing feet,” Ariana Grande married that real estate guy and divorced that real estate guy, not even the chart-topping power of Drake could elevate a very good Camila Cabello track to song of the summer (the real controversy here was her history of racism online), Cardi B married her greatest Opp-set,3 Nicki Minaj married a convicted sex offender. Only Beyoncé has been spared, in Jesus’ name.
By her own admission, when Lana Del Rey isn’t writing she’s sitting on Starbucks wifi “talking shit all day.” (“I feel very much that writing is not my thing: I’m writing’s thing,” she told Billboard in 2019. “When the writing has got me, I’m on its schedule. But when it leaves me alone, I’m just at Starbucks, talking shit all day.”) I know her barista heard some things.
What the paid list got this week
A ranking of the Secret Lives of Mormon Wives cast, including some of the husbands and Taylor’s mom.
The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives Cast, Ranked
My pitch for The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is always the same: in the first one or two episodes alone, a woman withstands the fallout of exposing the swinging scandal that ended her marriage and a few of her friendships, she finds a boyfriend no one in her life approves of, takes a pregnancy test, has a miscarriage, gets arrested, and still manages to pull focus from her friend confessing that her husband was on Tinder throughout their marriage. This show is pulling the stunts of OG RHONY and OG RHOA. Season two is just as excellent: catty, absurd, sometimes downright tragic. Here are season two’s major players power ranked from worst and most shameless to best and most entertaining.
More more more
I’ve re-read this
I have this open in a tab to read tomorrow morning: “How the Black Portraiture Boom Went Bust: The racial reckoning of 2020 sent prices soaring. Now, no one’s buying.” (Vulture)
SZA stood on business when it comes to the torrents of online abuse directed at Megan Thee Stallion: “The density !!!!! I’m actually SO shocked at the amount of ppl fully comfortable bullying a woman that’s proven to be a victim of assault,” she wrote online. (Billboard)
Semi-relatedly: If you say something crazy about the Diddy trial, I will never forget it. Gunna called Kid Cudi, who testified this week about Diddy allegedly blowing up his car to scare him out of dating Cassie, a “rat” for taking the stand. (r/KidCudi)
I had no idea kids went this hard for Stitch, of Lilo fame. (NYT)
I know brown clothes-lover Jeremy Strong ghostwrote this. (WSJ)
One year since the first Hung Up live event :,)
“Lemme Say This” is back! Watch the season two premiere featuring Joel Kim Booster:
That’s all this week! Thank you for reading. There will be paywalled Last of Us and The Rehearsal season finale chats live in the Substack app on Sunday night. You could say it’s my destiny to newly be a lifelong Knicks fan :) Have a good weekend!
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A Big Sean song where Kendrick’s verse memorably gave list of 11 rappers he declared himself superior to: J. Cole, Meek Mill, Drake, Big K.R.I.T., Wale, Pusha T, A$AP Rocky, Tyler, the Creator, Mac Miller, Big Sean, and Jay Electronica. “I got love for you all but I'm trying to murder you niggas,” he said. “Trying to make sure your core fans never heard of you niggas” I wish I could add a footnote to a footnote and say that it’s so funny that A$AP Rock was brought into it.
🙋🏾♀️
Offset. And when you think about everything that man put her through suddenly it makes sense why she hasn’t had time to put out another album!
Relatedly, I’ve been watching and loving Forever on Netflix. A little slow at the start but the Martha’s Vineyard episode is so good.
May of 2020! The children must teach their children about this fucked time.
“Please delete this we’re not a big fandom” is so funny to me like inject it into my veins