Courtney Love on 29th November last year hinted that she would be touring with the bedazzling Lana Del Rey in a series of tours spanning all over America. She took to Twitter, announcing:
“See you in London in ten hours @LanaDelRey we are going to own that town xxc #excitingnews2come.”
Love carries the heavy burden of her late husband’s death Kurt Cobain, the front-man for Nirvana. Her music has been criticised by rogue Nirvana fans as copying Kurt’s. Her grunge music and her latest song definitely do not portray the sadness and pain that Nirvana scream about, and is rather angry and to the point… take her latest single ‘Miss Narcissist’, for example. It’s punk as hell, in your face and riveting.
‘Miss Narcissist’ is art. It is raw and messy. In fact, everyone can relate to narcissism; viewing something so incredibly heinous that it makes you inherently wonder, ‘you could be doing something else with your time besides focusing on external proportions.’ Narcissism – to the extreme extent – is the killer of functionality and individuality. If we all succumb to the same beauty standards and ideals, what will be left?
Miss Love is no stranger to controversy in her outspoken nature. In an article published by Rolling Stone, Love tweeted this to Del Rey after she had performed a cover of Nirvana’s ‘Heart Shaped Box’:
“You do know the song is about my vagina right? ‘Throw down your umbilical noose so i can climb right back,’ umm. On top of which some of the lyrics about my vagina I contributed. So umm next time you sing it, think about my vagina will you? lol xc. You are gorgeous and very talented, it was all in good humor love, it is true however.”
It put a spin on the meaning behind ‘Heart Shaped Box’… a terrifying if not hilarious satirical stab on Kurt Cobain’s music. We think of the front-man to be this figure that is beyond his years and not quintessentially singing about his wife’s vagina.
So what will the hidden meaning behind ‘Miss Narcissist’ hold? There seems to be no innuendos or play on words – it’s just taking the piss out of narcissism, and I feel like this is something we should all get on board with. Speaking of laughing at beauty’s exterior, can we all recap on P!nk’s ‘Stupid Girls’?
You would honestly think there should be more songs from our time that would tease the idea of narcissism, because it seems that narcissism is the latest trend, manifested in society as borderline healthy behaviour. Where does the line for such behaviour get censored? What is entertainment and what is rubbish?
As articulated by Kenneth Slessor:
“You find this ugly, I find it lovely.”
Each to their own, I suppose. Another film clip that was released today is the Beyoncé and Nicki Minaj collaboration for ‘Feeling Myself’. The song that taunts what the name implies is acted out in sexy dance moves. It is in your face and has the degree of narcissism that makes people either respond with the following: “YAS QUEENS” or “What shit did I just watch?”.
I feel that the world is quite disturbed by a lack of understanding and this is perhaps why people draw strange and mortifying conclusions on what is acceptable. Do you ever listen to someone talk about empowerment and wonder what exactly sparked such a thought in their mind? Is doing what you want really a form of freedom?
Everyone has the right to feel and be the best versions of themselves, although what you sell and brand yourself as as a person speaks volumes about the portrayal of what is real.
Confidence is a beautiful asset and characteristic to learn and practice throughout life. It can come and go and people often pause on outer beauty as being the key to this confidence. Confidence is a truth that stems much deeper than the exterior and takes practice through talent.
On the topic of Lana Del Rey, her song ‘Carmen’ from her most famous album Born to Die is the epitome of what happens when fame and fortune can turn sour. Some of the lyrics to ‘Carmen’ include:
“She says, “You don’t want to be like me, don’t wanna see all the things I’ve seen. “I’m dying, I’m dying. She says, “You don’t want to get this way, famous and dumb at an early age.” Lying, I’m lying. The boys, the girls, they all like Carmen. She gives them butterflies, bats her cartoon eyes. She laughs like God, her mind’s like a diamond. Audio tune lies, she’s still shining like lightning, oh, white lightning.”
To be quite blunt, it seems being mindless, wanting to be famous and dumb at an early age is a twisted onset aspiration that has been sold to us with devastating consequences. May we never forget this part of Brad Pitt’s speech in the independent cult classic film Fight Club (1999):
“Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need. We’re the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War’s a spiritual war… our Great Depression is our lives. We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off.”
The facet of entertainment and watching people do mundane or extravagant things with their money has become sub-par. The interest that is placed on reality television is highlighted in society. Keeping Up With The Kardashians is the biggest and most successful example of reality television and has most of us secretly watching snippets or even seasons of the show for enjoyment to escape our every day lives. We get it; it’s relateable or it is so shocking that it makes you laugh. It is a form of vulgarity that encapsulates narcissism, ad our reactions say a lot more about us than you would think.
The urge to mindlessly watch and to escape from what we know can be healthy, but at what cost? When we start projecting what we are watching and transfer the behaviour we see to acting out the behaviour then this becomes a complete behavioural and social disaster. The normalisation of the extravagance has us chasing the things that we don’t need in order to impress people with what is going on externally.
We are all impacted by narcissism because it is a problem that if scaled in large doses will destroy reality. Narcissism is accepted in society by celebrities, film stars and musicians as part of their persona. If there is one thing we can learn from narcissism it should be thought of as: “who else will believe in me if I don’t?”
A lot of high profiled people believe in this mentality and act upon it. In turn, they lose privacy, normalcy and even the cost of sanity. The most alarming factor about this lifestyle is that everyday people can strive to be this way and then spend their whole lifetime emptily following these trends and people, and for what? Perhaps said individual will get 15 minutes of fame, or perhaps in the unlikely event they will remain famous by imitating these lifestyles.
Can you even imagine a life without Kim Kardashian? That show would have just been pitched to another family with similar qualities and riches. Hate the game and not the player. Music as a form of expression has undoubtedly led to the expression of narcissism to be normalised through catchy songs. Artists that plainly sing about themselves in a struggle to understand what it is that is going on in their deep and dark thoughts have made people wonder about all the things they don’t have rather than everything that they work for.