"...Hail, Hail, The Angst's All Here..."

Loves me some words.

Been putting them together, in one form or another, for as long as I can remember.

And I can remember pretty far back.

Near as I can remember.

And, every now and then, I find myself inspired to add a word or two to the mix.

Just such an inspiration occurred today.

Courtesy of Lana Del Rey.

Here's a quick "whatsheallabout" from Yahoo Music.

How dumb do you have to be to announce to the world that you're a "gangsta Nancy Sinatra"? But Del Rey appears to be dumb like a fox, in that way. And, also, a fox, if we must say so ourselves. Not everyone is crazy about her plumped-lip look in the video for "Video Games," but 12 million video views (and counting) later, she's doing something right. That shrewdness isn't just in her knack for self-marketing, but also the real craft heard in that knockout single, a funereal ballad which makes her lover's fondness for World of Warcraft sound like the stuff of very high tragedy. We'll have to wait till her full-length album comes out in January to find out if her boots were really made for walkin'.


I gave Diva D-R another look/listen while digesting that little description and, somewhere around the two minute mark of her melodrama, the new word popped.

Debut momentarily.

Though she's ostensibly the latest, the lady Lana is not the lone purveyor of this particular song style.

Not by a long shot.

But, it was that Yahoo's description of said style that put me on the path to generating a new genre'.

A genre' that counts, among its subscribers, such talents as Christina Perri, Adele, even, if you stretch the point a parcek or two, Taylor Swift and, of course, now, Lana Del Rey.

Young ladies whose primary presentation is pretty much equal parts love and lament, melodic and melancholic, romantic and regretful.

In other words, a whole lotta angst goin' on.

Which is just fine and dandy, thank you, because, let's face it, there's only so much Michael Buble' one can absorb before the blood sugar cries out for dark chocolate.

The core audience these young ladies has recruited will faithfully sway and swoon, if only internally, to the pretty pathos and the relatable ruminations, never burdened by the perspective of older listeners who will struggle, from time to time, with the continued conflict of hearing dark and dramatic "reflections on a life of heartbreaks" from someone who was in elementary school less than five years earlier.

But, hey, Bob Dylan was only, like, twelve when he was doling out the admonitions of changing times to people five times his age.

So, I say, you go, girls.

Atta way to articulate.

Oh, and as for the new word that came to life in my lobe?

I agreed, and chuckled, at the Yahoo writer's opening opine about the Lana D R's self image as a "gangsta Nancy Sinatra".

Which, frankly, is like calling yourself a "macho Adam Lambert."

But, I understand the spirit of what she's going for.

And I think she actually came pretty close to pegging it.

She was just off a tad.

Mses. Del Rey, Perri, Adele and assorted other prolific poetesses yet to ponder and present, may I suggest that "gangsta" is close, but no cigar.

Allow me.

Angsta.

Happy to help.