Music Monday: Amanda Palmer

The people have spoken. Most of the comments to this morning's post wanted to see music. So this is a new weekly post here, replacing BioWare Monday. Every Monday, from now until I run out of artists, I'll post about a musician that I love, share a bit of my personal history as a fan, and embed some videos. This is Music Monday.

If you know me and had to guess which artist I'd choose to start off this weekly post, there's a pretty good chance you'd guess Amanda Palmer AKA Amanda Fucking Palmer AKA one half of The Dresden Dolls AKA Neil Gaiman's wife. I have written about her in my crowdfunding series (where I also wrote about Neil) and in my podcast series. She's been an important influence on me in a variety of ways. But today I want to talk about the music.

I first encountered AFP on Neil Gaiman's blog. He and Amanda had recently become friends, and he was writing stories to go along with the photos in a book that would accompany her first solo album, Who Killed Amanda Palmer. Here's a thing about Neil Gaiman: He is a terrific curator of culture. When he talks an artist up, I check them out. I am usually rewarded for the effort. I got the album.

Who Killed Amanda Palmer

I could literally play every song from this album, and the videos are all great - and all connected. But let's start with Ampersand, the third song on the album. With its mocking of street harassers and rejection of toxic relationships, it's profound and lovely.

Next, let's have a listen to Strength Through Music, in which Palmer - never one to shy from the difficult things - takes on school shootings. Content warning for that.

Finally, for this album, let's go for Oasis, the most melodically cheerful song I know about... well, rape. Generally speaking, art about rape is very difficult for me. But when told from the victim's perspective, it can be incredibly powerful, and this song is. Once again, though: content warning.

Yes, Virginia

After listening to Who Killed Amanda Palmer about a million times, I figured it may be time to listen to the Dresden Dolls stuff. No surprise: I loved it. My favorite Dolls album is Yes, Virginia. It is so great. So dramatic, but always with a wink.

Once again, I could easily put every song from the album, but let's start with one of Palmer's angriest songs: Backstabber.

Another song I dearly love on this album is the very clever and musically brilliant My Alcoholic Friends

Next is a controversial pick. Well, probably my most controversial is not playing anything from the Dolls' first album, particularly Coin Operated Boy (which I DO love, but... less), but as far as stuff included, it's this one. See, some people think it's tacky. Those people are wrong. This song doesn't have the wink and irony so prevalent in Palmer's work. It is heartfelt and true and I love it with every bit of my soul.

Amanda Palmer Goes Down Under

Early in 2011, Amanda released a live album, containing a mix of her own songs and covers. I'm gonna put just one song from that one here, but it is a powerful one. It's In My Mind.

The Live Experience

Also In 2011, after winning a gameshow, I used some of the money to go to the World Fantasy Convention in San Diego, California. The guest of honor? Neil Gaiman. Neil and Amanda had just gotten married, and Amanda was performing in the city during the con. I went, of course. It was incredible. You can find a million youtube videos of Amanda's shows because she encourages it. And, fortunately, there's video of the one I went to (and dragged two friends to). You can see her usual talking with the audience style, and then a song!

Theater is Evil

In 2012, Amanda released this video and a crowdfunding campaign:

I backed this campaign twice. First, at the "go see her in an intimate show and then a public show in Berlin" level. And I also joined a group that got together to buy the super big reward: the "Amanda will come to wherever you are and give a home performance" level. For the Berlin show, I got Haaretz, where I was writing at the time, to send me to the show - paying my airfare, hotel, and also for the piece I wrote (link in Hebrew), so I came out ahead! And I interviewed Amanda Palmer! Of course, I also got the album.

I'll do 3 songs from this one as well. We'll start with one of Palmer's best ever anthems, The Killing Type. She's not one. Neither am I. But she would kill to make you feel, which is just perfect Amanda Palmer.

It is quite possible that Amanda's best pure pop song is this one, Want It Back. The video is very much NSFW.

Finally for this album, there's the song I first heard during the Berlin show (it predated the album, though some of the songs had been released already. The Berlin show was the first one in the tour) and I cried. Because The Bed Song is absolutely gutting. It will gut your soul like a fish and serve to you for dinner.

One of many covers

All of the previous songs in this post were written, lyrics and music, by Amanda Palmer. But she's also great at covers. And never has that been more obvious than when she covered No Surprised by Radiohead:

And that's my Amanda Palmer journey. These days, she releases most of her stuff on her very successful Patreon. which you should definitely check out! And, yes, of course there's a video.

Listen to ALL THE SONGS

If you want more Amanda Fucking Palmer (and why wouldn't you?) visit the Deskflip and Chill discord server, where the bot is now playing everything I have!