The Turning Gate

Make way for Kristeen Young ... NOW!

2006's Best Album That No One Heard

My grandmother would hate Kristeen Young. Your grandmother would probably hate her too, unless she’s a vampire. Our grandmothers don’t know what they’re missing. Kristeen Young is a musical powerhouse, a banshee on vocals, playing a piano made of the bones and sinew of the damned. And her latest album, The Orphans, kicks more ass than any other record released in 2006. In fact, it probably kicks more ass than any album released since her last album, 2004’s X (pronounced Ten).

I’ll be honest with you. I’ve had a lot of trouble turning people onto Kristeen Young. Most people don’t seem to enjoy music this brash and exciting. I think because most people are boring. While a great many bands, mainstream or otherwise, tried to release kick ass albums in 2006, most of them came off sounding loud, but trite (Muse, Pearl Jam, I’m looking at you). Kristeen Young rests far and away on the other end of the spectrum – the end that doesn’t suck; the end those other bands wish they could hang out on, if only for a few minutes. Young is an artist wielding such strength and personality, it’s criminal to ignore her. Morrissey, a musical legend in his own right, recognizes this; that’s why he invited Kristeen to open most (all?) of his shows in 2006 – an honor most performers only receive in their wildest dreams.

Draw no comparisons to Tori Amos. Aside from the pianos and the vaginas – and being brazen enough to unabashedly sing about the latter – they have nothing in common. If comparison be necessary, then Kate Bush. But old Kate Bush, before the twelve year hiatus, and before the double-CD wussfest, Aerial (which wasn’t bad, but has got nothing on Hounds of Love).

Young’s collegiate musical studies focused on piano and opera singing, but the apple (thankfully) fell far from the tree. She keeps classicism locked in an iron maiden these days. Intense and idiosyncratic, Young is a demon on the piano. Her music is dark and bristling, a crushing onslaught of brute force, a mainstream shattering behemoth of sound, capable of liquefying minds and leaving pop expectations hanging in tatters.

Too many metaphors?

Young reigns from St. Louis, an adoptee of Germanic and Apache descent. In the mid 1990s, she plunged into the independent music scene, fronting two short-lived bands and releasing as many CDs, before going solo in 1997 with drummer Jeff White. On her third solo album, Breasticles, she dueted with David Bowie; on her fourth, X, she dueted with Brian Molko of Placebo. The Orphans may lack a famous duet, but is nonetheless a tour de force. And while Breasticles and X were brilliant albums, The Orphans dwarves them.

The Orphans opens in irreverent style, as befits Young. An orphan herself, once upon a time, in “Kill the Father” she makes herself an orphan again by tearing down rock idols of yesteryear, the fathers of rock in whose steps she now follows.

Push Prince off his heels and feel… free
Deflate to their death, Led Zep… free
Forget Gang of Four. It’s not hard… free
Silence Kurt Cobain’s life pain… free
Look at our stage now.
Full of Fathers now.
Get off our stage. We’ll take it from here now.
KILL THE FATHER.

She also rips into Blondie, Jimi Hendrix, The Cure, Lou Reed, the Beatles and even David Bowie, with whom she once dueted. In doing so, she sets the stage for the rest of her album; sets it for herself and no one else. In a later chorus, she sings, “This is my stage I’ll take it from here now.” And away she goes …

On “Mixed Kids”, Young creates an anthem for the misunderstood – those orphaned by the social mainstream – drawing upon her own mixed blood, her music, and the people who attend her shows.

Strange combination, strange combination, strange combination can pop the lock. All my life, I’d be walking down the street, and people would stare until they’d finally spit it out, “What are you?” … Now , there are those who look at the people at my shows, and ask, “Who are they?” “What are they?” ‘til they finally spit ‘em out.

She rails back in her own defense and in defense of those she represents:

We’re liberation, sexually the sharp shot; the revolution’s fertility that you forgot. Here. Now. Mixed kids get it. Mixed kids pop the… Mixed kids know it…Mixed kids can’t be… Mixed kids see it… Mixed kids are magical.

“(But It’s All Just) Imagined” is a song of heartbreak and the realization of loneliness. “I can’t get off the ground he broke for me,” Young sings. The song is quieter than much of the album, but retains the heaviness of its louder brethren, complete with circus inspired keyboard runs. “And I’ve imagined the love. / And I’ve imagined the freedom. / And I’ve imagined everything working out. / But it’s all just imagined.” The song ends, and Young has once again been orphaned, now by love.

Scorn and sarcasm are important components to “You Ruined Everything”, which finds Young angry over her hitherto lack of commercial success, orphaned by record buyers and record companies alike.

After only 10 years, there’s 553
on my worldwide e-mail list.
It’s all happening for me.
Then, like Adam’s Eve, I ate from your tree,
and tasted how sweet life could be.
And it ruined everything.
I’ve met everyone who is loved.
They say I’m a star.
They work with me in their spare time
‘cause it could do no harm.
And every label who’s heard me
says I’m interesting.
Now, I’m sure that’s a good thing.
It’s gonna happen for me.

The Orphans continues in this vein of abandonment, some of it actively sought, and some circumstantial. In “Under A Landlocked Moon”, Young defends Middle America to its many detractors, calling the boring Mid-West stereotypes into question. On “Life’s Not Short, It’s Sooo Long”, Young slips into a quiet, pretty place, where she waits … and waits, and waits, and waits … for life to play out in some positive direction. “Where is my childhood dream? Life’s not short, it’s so long. / Please, change my course. / Life’s not short, it’s so long. / Please, change my stars. / Life’s not short, it’s so long. / Sorcery, intervene!” she cries. Orphaned by fate?

“This Is The Dawn Of My D-Day”, a throbbing mass of drum and piano, kicks the album’s tempo back up to par as Young incites flight from a life of which she says, “I’ve had enough. It’s not enough. Get me off … Just take my hand, we’ll runaway.”

In the album closer, “Before”, Young expresses love for her music – music often loved by few others.

Before the drummer can say, “It’s gay,”
it’s my baby.
Before the producer can take parts away,
I’ll play all day. Hey!
This is my song. I love
it just how it is,
right now.

Throughout the album, Young riffs on the piano as if it were an electric guitar, as if she were pounding it into submission. I imagine a wake of pianic carnage wherever she goes.

Breasticles took a feminist theme, and X challenged the Ten Commandments. The Orphans finds Young making reprisals, lashing back against anyone who has ever doubted her, attacked her, or lent her empty compliments behind a false smile. More importantly, there’s not a weak track in the bunch. The Orphans is Kristeen Young’s best and most consistent album, and one of the best rock albums I’ve heard in ages.

Modern indie artists tend to be very emo (and by “emo”, I mean “boring”). And anyway, indie credibility is questionable these days; indie is the new mainstream, and the new mainstream sucks almost as much as the old one. Thankfully, Kristeen Young doesn’t fit into the current indie mold. In fact, she smashes the indie mold over your head. Record companies are afraid of Kristeen Young, afraid of music so challenging to the norm, and probably afraid she’ll eat them. The Orphans may contain a lot of bitching about her lack of commercial success, but that doesn’t mean she’s ready to sell-out. Young is holding to her guns – black guns with sequin grips, glittering chrome, and thick eye-liner on the sights. These are the guns of glam – true glam – not the sell-out KISS/Marilyn Manson faux-glam that gets a rise out of record companies and gets musicians banned in the Bible belt … though the Bible belt would probably ban her anyway. If it’s glam you want, then Kristeen Young is the real deal, however scary you might find her.

What’s more, she’s backed by a man with one of the finest resumes in music and thick roots in glam: Tony Visconti. Over the last three decades, Visconti has worked with some of the biggest names in rock, including David Bowie, T.Rex, Thin Lizzy and The Moody Blues. He’s also produced Kristeen Young’s last three albums, and has been a major part of Young’s camp.

Of Young, he’s written:

In a time when Pro Tools assembled vocals are industry-prefered to real genius talent, when female rock singers are barred from Rock radio formats, when Hip Hop is laureled as the “new Rock,” at the wrong time but the right place comes Kristeen Young.

She is too important an artist to be ignored. She is a serious rock musician who composes passionate rock music and sings in a unique voice that is powerful and emotional, heard once in every generation.

Despite her extraordinary vocal power Kristeen is not a rock chick, a biker chick or a weightlifter. She is, ironically, a lithe, glamorous, raven-haired female. Each of her live performances are a memorable experience. Wherever she plays she makes new fans of her audiences.

But is she really so full of hate as her lyrics suggest? I don’t think so. Theatricality and exaggeration are staples of glam. Glam without either is like tomato sauce without herbs and spices. Probably there’s some real angst against the record labels and the mainstream music industry. She might be a little frustrated – or even more than a little frustrated – by her lack of commercial success. But does she really want to kill Lou Reed, David Bowie or any of those other important rock guys? Probably not, and I hope not. If not for David Bowie’s appearance on and endorsement of Breasticles, I’d likely have never heard Kristeen Young. But there’s no doubt in my mind she’s ready for the spotlight.

Furthermore, I’m on her mailing list and I’ve exchanged a handful of brief emails with Kristeen over the last year or two. She’s always replied in due course, and I’ve always found her to be personable, friendly and helpful – nothing like the angry persona of her music.

I could go on and on, but I think I already have …

So, who should check out Kristeen Young? Anyone who’s tired of the watered-down drivel that passes for “rock” on mainstream radio; anyone interested in an unrelenting, uncompromising rock album; anyone who misses the days when rock music was challenging and original; anyone who appreciates true glam rock; anyone who wants a CD that will melt their face off … Oh! And vampires.

 

Resources:

To buy Kristeen’s records or to become #554 on her worldwide e-mail list, visit her official website.

To hear a few songs and catch the latest updates, visit Kristeen’s MySpace page.

For a more thorough biography, try here.

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