Did "Carmen" always have an Erik Satie sample at the end, or is this just a special add-on for the video? Is Erik Satie's oeuvre public domain, and if so, how much does one pay for a sample of Gymnopédie No.1? So many questions, which I could easily find answers to if it somehow didn't seem more appropriate, in this case, for blind conjecture. Also curious if people are already prematurely over Lana Del Rey since bigger phenomena like Kraftwerk at MoMA and Fiona Apple have arrived on the internet to fuel our polemical fires. In any case, Del Rey has returned to "Video Games" form for "Carmen," pairing interspersed Super-8-looking reels with found Americana, a visual match her old-timey croon and pop-cultured brain, that blend into a strange brew of forgotten/never-experienced memories. In Brazil they've got a word (and a day!) for the feeling this produces, somewhere near but strangely more acute than nostalgia, and I've personally anointed Lana and her flower crown its patron saint.
