Matt's New Music:
Klaus Nomi

by Matt Keeley

This is the first of a series of reviews and previews of contemporary artists and their music by Matt Keeley, editor of KittySneezes.com, a Webzine, and our resident 20-something. We're suggesting you listen to music you might otherwise avoid. You might even like it.
— DN

Klaus Nomi — "Klaus Nomi" and "Simple Man"

Klaus Nomi was an opera singer, a countertenor — a male singer who sings in the falsetto, in the soprano range — who broke into the New Wave rock scene without changing his singing style. His two albums feature a mix of opera (including arias from "Samson and Delilah" and "Dido and Aeneas") and pop songs that show off his huge range, yet sung as if they were arias as well.

A third album (Za Bakdas) was recently released — I haven't heard it yet, and I've heard it isn't a true Nomi album. Reports say the album wasn't close to being finished when Nomi died, that the producers created a "Nomitron" — a Mellotron, a keyboard-controlled playback system loaded with tape loops of Nomi singing each note — to create the album.

Sadly, it's his death Nomi was probably most famous for — he was one of the first AIDS victims, in 1983, when little was known about the disease. Nomi was openly gay — for instance, his cover recording of "You Don't Own Me" doesn't change the song's feminine gender, and in fact Nomi sings the line, "Don't say I can't play with other boys...", with obvious relish, which did nothing to end the prevailing belief that AIDS was a gay-only disease.

Oddly enough, being an "out" gay performer and something of a gay activist didn't keep him from becoming one of the favorite performers of Rush Limbaugh, who's known to play Nomi's music on the air frequently — accounting, most likely, for most of Nomi's radio play! Seeing Nomi on Rush's list right next to Ted Nugent is kind of funny.

Anyway, Nomi's music might be a bit of an acquired taste (as opera can be — I haven't yet acquired it, outside of Nomi), but if you're open to it, or a "serious music" fan, his albums are definitely worth checking out. They're relatively easy to find as imports, and there are about five hundred "best-of" compilations, each a different combination of songs from the albums. None of these present the two albums on one disc, though they'd fit.

There's an excellent documentary, "The Nomi Song," which might serve as a better introduction than picking up one of his albums cold — it places him in context, and eases you into his blend of synth beeps, rock grooves, and traditional opera.

Typically, Nomi's straight opera pieces are faithfully arranged and performed. He was a huge opera buff who loved and respected the music and wanted to broaden its audience. I'm not sure this worked. If anything, Nomi was more successful introducing opera fans to pop music. Either way, Klaus Nomi will open your ears to some really amazing work.