amanda palmer is fuckin' rad

Music: Dresden Dolls: Yes, Virginia New music Tuesday brought Amanda Palmer back into my life with the arrival of the new Dresden Doll's album, Yes, Virginia. I had discovered a couple of singles from the album before its release, "First Orgasm," a song about the ennui of masturbation, and "Sex Changes," a lovely comparison between plastic surgery and sleeping with that person you shouldn't sleep with (because having "sex will change you"). These, however, turned out to be the weakest songs of the set! The new album is effin' phenomenal . . . so much more powerful than the debut.

For those unfortunate readers who have not heard of them, the DD are a boy drummer and a girl pianist that play warped, cabaret-style music, a little creepy, certainly dark, but also very funny. The piano-playing style of Palmer is mad--think Tori Amos on speed at times, and Fiona Apple on codeine playing ballad at others. What makes the sound special, though, is Palmer's style of vocal (she sings deep alto and brings it back up to her normal range) with Brian Viglione's occasional harmonics. What's truly choice are the lyrics of this album: at times on the debut record the lyrics were too cliché ("Coin Operated Boy") or cheesy. This time around, there is still some cheesiness, but it's a full-bodied embrace of this cheesiness--of kitsch-as-love, if you want (shout-out here to Zac). Lyrical themes still swirl around body-image/disfigurement, but there are also, this album, screeds against bad people (namely, GWB in "Sing").

Two songs stand out to me as most excellent: First, the song "Backstabber" fucking rocks-out, and the lyrics are choice:

backstabber! hope grabber! greedy little fit haver! god, I feel for you, fool….. shit lover! off brusher! jaded bitter joy crusher! failure has made you so cruel….

rotten to the core rotten to the core

rotten like a crackwhore backing out out the backdoor show us what you’re good for stick it to the noise board come on join the bloodsport show us some support, still working at the drugstore is it because you’re A FUCKING

backstabber! hope grabber! greedy little fit haver! god, I feel for you, fool….. shit lover! off brusher! jaded bitter joy crusher! failure has made you so cruel….

so don’t tell me what to write and don’t tell me that I’m wrong…… and don’t tell me not to reference my songs within my songs

so here we go the open road is covered with taco stands and you can stop we’ll drop you off and write to you when we land

The song has that Smith's "happy sound with warped lyrics" thing going on, a jazzy amble with lots of cheery, high-hat percussion from Viglione. The chorus is divine; the harmony between Palmer and Viglione gives me goosebumps. Whomever the "greedy little bitch" is, she's really paying the price now with this song! (I'd hate to have a really good song written about me that expresses such cheerful hatred! Ouch!).

The other marvelous song is "Sing," a sad show-closer that ambles long like a Mogwai tune, but with perhaps the happiest message ever penned by Palmer: "sing! sing! sing!" for no reason at all, she pleads. It reminds me of Edward Ka-Speil's motto for the Legendary Pink Dots: "sing while you may." The song builds to an awesome crescendo. After hearing this album twice through yesterday, I really wanted a cigarette.

You can pick it up at Best Buy and Target (doh!) for $8. It's worth the price; lets support our artists that deserve supporting!

PS: I'm not ignoring Whitley's reply to my post on Monday; I'm going to field the class today for questions to ask him about his book and his experience with aliens, and then email/blog them. Stay tuned!