While I was admiring the Red Carpet pictures from The Great Gatsby premiere, I got word about the famous Young&Beautiful song performed by Lana del Rey on Gatsby’s soundtrack as Lana premiered it on stage in a sold-out concert in Luxembourg.
We discussed this before and all agreed upon the amazingness of Baz Luhrmann’s release of The Great Gatsby. The final countdown is on. Almost a week from here, it will be in all and every theater near you. In 3D! Nowadays if a movie really respects itself and the new cinematic standards, it’ll have to go 3D. Otherwise it’s just soooo last season! Scott Fitzgerald himself couldn’t have dreamed of a better way to bring his imagination to life!
But we all know that with every Baz Luhrmann visual movie comes an equally spectacular audio soundtrack. And this time is no exception. Jay Z, Beyonce, Florence and The Machine, Gotye, The Bryan Ferry Orchestra and so many more lined up to enchant our ears during the two-hours long movie! And let’s not forget Lana del Rey, whose style is perfect for the spiritual depth of this story! Her song is aptly chosen as it nonchalantly asks ‘Will you still love me when I’m no longer Young&Beautiful?’
We live some pretty interesting times, my dahlings. The fashion reflects that. Music reflects that. Every social manifestation of our exuberance talks about us. About who we’re becoming. About our beliefs and values. About our interests and passions. And this song worries me. Honestly.
I’ve always been one to love alternative music, indie, rock, folk and so forth. The musical undercurrents were always more interesting to my ears and my heart than the current week’s TOP 100. I understand that Lana del Rey had made it into the mainstream with a ‘indie pop’ label and that she’s enjoying tremendous success with her music and her lost soul image. I also understand that she used to have a life, she used to perform even before this mainstream success she’s enjoying right now. And that ‘before’, Lana del Rey was Lizzie Grant. And that her mainstream breakthrough came with ‘Video Games’. Which also marked Lizzie Grant transformation into Lana Del Rey. Visually. Pouty and retro, provocative and highly appealing. I haven’t witnessed something similar since the becoming of Marilyn Monroe.
Lana Del Rey before and after plastic surgery
I’m not familiar with her music, outside the Video Games hit. But listening to Young and Beautiful it seems I haven’t missed out on anything. The Great Gatsby’s hit sounds almost exactly like Video Games! Creative much? But let’s get back to the Young and Beautiful anthem. For it is an anthem. Of this generation. And Lana del Rey is perfectly representing for the new living philosophy. Plastic surgery is the new perm. The new straight hair. That’s how ordinary it has become, and how important for the general perception of the human representation.
As such, The Great Gatsby applied to the 2013 standards as opposed to the 1920s period it refers to talks about a new decadence. A new economic growth. A new partying standard. Same as before only different. Flappers only work with the appropriate tummy liposuction, everybody weighs the same only different. Every pout is modeled after the same person, every hair is styled after the same do, every breast, every body, every makeup is copying someone else’s. Excess in the uniformity is no excess at all, but who are we to judge that? Let’s just party because we’re young and beautiful, we’ll worry after. When we’ll no longer be young and beautiful, inflated, perfectly smooth, straightened, sparkling and so forth.
I may be taking a movie too seriously. I may be taking a song too seriously. But everybody else seems to be taking both the movie and the song too seriously and I fear for our future. For our kids’ future.
For the values they’ll believe and live in. For the music they’ll listen to, the movies they’ll watch, the books they’ll read and the clothes they’ll wear. I fear for when they’ll be young&beautiful and what they’ll choose to do with that. What will you do? When Young&Beautiful?
3 comments
I like this well written piece Kpriss and feel the worries for your children’s future. I reply later…when I feel younger and beautiful especially inside…..;)
thank you, Appollonia! Always motivating :*
The ‘natural’ Lana looks beyond lovely! Much better than the ‘Lana after…’ What a sad waste of youth to worry yet about getting older during your twenties about getting older……it’s such a useless fight. Taking good care of yourself is a good thing though. It works.
When I was younger and perhaps more beautiful I only enjoyed life and did not worry at all about the future. Simply because at that age when our minds were not poisoned with this madness. Although we ‘poisoned’ ourselves with other things perhaps? I have no regrets whatsoever. On the contrary. I have great stories to tell. Stories I cherish….;) :)
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