by David Wilikofsky
In Alternative Canon, we take a closer look at an obscure or underappreciated album from the past that deserves more recognition. Some of these albums may be hard to find, but they’re always worth the effort to seek out.
Most stories written about Klaus Nomi begin with David Bowie. In 1979, Nomi appeared with Bowie on Saturday Night Live as a backup singer. That performance has gone down as a classic, with the show airing it to honor Bowie after his death in 2016. It was the most high profile performance Nomi would have in his brief carrer; four years later he would be dead, one of the earliest victims of the AIDS epidemic. But starting the story here does Nomi a disservice; he was a one of a kind performer who deserves to be remembered for his art, not his proximity to celebrity.
Klaus Nomi was born in Bavaria, Germany in 1944. In 1972 he moved to the United States, where he quickly became involved with the downtown New York music and performance art scene. He became known for his alien onstage persona; he wore white makeup and black lipstick, along with elaborate costumes (the plastic tuxedo seen on the album cover became something of a signature look). The clip below, a live performance of “Nomi Song”, shows you the full vision of this project.
At its best, Nomi’s music is a natural fusion of glam rock, opera and performance art. Take “Total Eclipse”, perhaps the strongest song of the album. The instrumentals sound like something straight out of Ziggy Stardust era Bowie, but Nomi does things with his voice Bowie could never hope to do. He begins the song in a “normal” singing voice, only to soar several octaves into an operatic countertenor on the chorus. The vocal range he utilizes isn’t typical for pop music, but it gives the music a real wow factor.
Although not out publicly during his lifetime (many just assumed he was asexual), the lyrics in this album clearly reference his double life as a gay man. “You Don’t Own Me”, a song that mixes glam rock with doowop harmonies, starts out with the lyrics “You don’t know me / I’m not just one of your little toys / You don’t own me / Don’t say I can’t play with other boys”. The song reads as an ode to sexual liberation; Nomi sings about not wanting to be tied down and living his life the way he wants. It’s a radical statement of queer liberation for the 1980s.
Although Klaus Nomi stands on its own as a stunning piece of avant-pop music, Nomi’s live performances add new dimension to the songs. The visual and musical components add up to more than the sum of their parts. Nomi was presenting a fully realized vision to the world, but the world wasn’t quite ready for him. He would go on to record one more album, 1982’s Simple Man, only to fade into obscurity after his death. Although critics have begun to reassess his legacy, he is still unjustly not much more than a footnote in music history. More people should, as Klaus would put it, “know me Nomi”.