This reminds me of an artist I've recently discovered called Antony and The Johnsons. He also sings in the falsetto voice - his voice is positively amazing - and sings about a lot of transgender type topics "For Today I am a Boy" goes on to talk about how he will grow up to be a beautiful woman. But he also sings songs that aren't quite so much transgender stuff if you aren't into that! Personally, I find the songs achingly beautiful and touching, esp when combined with his haunting voice and piano arrangements. The style is like what you might hear at a very intimate cabaret performance. Mostly just vocals, piano, maybe a touch of drums. One song, one of my favorites "Fist Full of Love" gets all jazzy with a horn section. I love it! Boy George, Rufus Wainwright, and others lend their talents as well in various duet performances. Anyway, not powerpop, but this post reminded me of it and its excellent music so I thought I'd pass it along. The link to eMusic (you can listen to samples even if you aren't a member) is here: http://www.emusic.com/album/10852/10852188.html but I don't know of any othere places to listen to any samples of it. Stacy np: Brookville - very cool, like Ivy or Saint Etienne! On 4/20/05, Mark Eichelberger wrote: > This past weekend, I attended some films presented by the Philadelphia Film Festival and one was a documentary titled "The Nomi Song" on the German singer Klaus Nomi, who was an early casualty of AIDS in the very early 80's (before they even called it AIDS). It was a good documentary on a very unusual but tender and gifted artist who, sadly, never really rose above cult status and died after only 2 albums. > > For anyone unfamiliar with him, he was a classically trained singer with a falsetto voice (he sounds like Maria Callas!), who believed he was a space alien, wore bizarre stylized outfits and kabuki-style makeup, but who also loved pop music and loved to sing both arias from operas and techno-pop songs. Not surprisingly, the documentary contains a lot of material of live performances, including a absolutely hysterical version of the Lou Christie hit "Lightning Strikes" and his appearance as David Bowie's backup singer on Saturday Night Live. The documentary also provides lots of insight into his sad, lonely personal life and bad record deals via interviews with friends, supporters and band members. > > A very good, if melancholy, documentary. > > For anyone interested in a life just a bit left of center, check it out. > > http://www.thenomisong.com/ > > Mark E. >