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It's that dignity that really grabbed me, too. There is humour in some of Nomi's music (Ding! Dong!) and aspects of his presentation, but he is definitely not a joke. He gives the impression of someone who takes artifice-as-such very seriously, which is so much more interesting (to me) than just having a "shtik." He had also, it seems, a kind of naive disconnect from the reality of the music industry and American public taste of the time - he really thought he was on the road to SuperStardom - which is kind of touching, but also a little sad. His primary experience of American Life was the few blocks of the Village in NYC in the flare of the New Wave scene, miles away from, well, anywhere really. This illusion did, however, allow him to pursue his craft with the straightforward earnestness that is so striking, walking the most crowded downtown club stages as though his ascension was inevitable. He "believed his own myth," at least to a point.*
The tragic elements of his performance are also underscored, in hindsight, by his untimely death (Nomi was one of the first people in the Village scene to die of AIDS, when it was still known as "gay cancer" and the risk of contagion wasn't well-understood - he died alone in the hospital, because his friends were afraid to visit him). It's hard to hear him sing "I can scarcely move or draw a breath / Let me freeze again...to death" without thinking of his final days - or the fact that it was (apparently - cite needed) the final song of his final performance before he was hospitalized. Terribly maudlin to think about, but if he hadn't done it on purpose, he probably wished that he had.
Rereading my first paragraph, I should add that, while he was virtually unknown in the US outside of NYC, both of his studio albums went Gold in Europe, during his lifetime (his second gold record was delivered to him in the hospital).
Incidentally, conservative windbag Rush Limbaugh has long used Nomi's version of "You Don't Own Me" to introduce his (fairly repugnant) commentaries on gay culture, and a number of Nomi fans claim to have first encountered him this way.
*I should say that I'm basing these tentative statements on what I have read about Nomi thus far. The documentary (arrive today, please!) may well cause me to revisit some of these points with a different view. |
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