5th
I watched a video posted on my friend Nick’s tumblr blog and was introduced to an artist I’d never seen before and very much enjoyed. As Nick put it, she seems so casual and carefree about it, which I agree. But I also saw shades of this girl, back at the height of her game, with her tiny, electric body and strange, spooky, almost sad vulnerability, as in this live performance of “When You Were Mine” (itself a cover of a song by another very eccentric artist, Prince). It’s a shame in some ways because the vocals in the recorded version of this song (sung by Cyndi) are so tight, really one of her best, but here, live, it kind of falls apart while she’s painting sarcophagi or something and shaking in the most “unusual” way. Still, one of the most culture-defining performances for me.
