Dark Cabaret

...Dark cabaret music usually features passionate, deep female or male vocals, in a style influenced by Marlene Dietrich's singing or the singing in a Kurt Weill operetta. The vocals are usually accompanied by a sparse piano accompaniment, along with strings (cello or violin) and other instruments such as the accordion or trumpet. Influential Dark Cabaret artists include Rozz Williams and The Dresden Dolls.

Right on.

But there are other names that I think fall right into that category, names that are not usually brought up as much in the context of Dark Cabaret but I think well deserve it as they were at the roots of what later was labelled as Dark Cabaret. Being Russian, I am, of course, more familiar with the European influences. The purpose of this page is to introduce many artists who are unfortunately unknown to the vast majority of Americans, who have nevertheless significantly impacted and are still impacting contemporary Dark Cabaret.

Kurt Weill of course, is classic. Not too many people know him in the US but at least Wiki talks about him plenty.

Marianne Faithfull, my personal favorite, did a spectacular version of Alabama Song, later covered by Jim Morrison, David Bowie, Dalida and many others.

I personally fell in love with this song at first sight (what-evah!) and I am going to officially release a cover in late 2008 - early 2009.

There is also Alexander Vertinsky (whose picture you can see at the top of the page) and his idea of dressing up as Pierrot. He was quite successful in Europe with his witty, soulful lyrics and his intimate manner of singing, even though he sang in Russian. Many a Russian singers covered his songs later, including my childhood idol, a huge underground rebel and later an official President Putin medal holder (oh well, c'est la vie, rebels calm down), Boris Grebenshikov a.k.a B.G..

By the way, if you want to dig deeper into Alexander Vertinsky and his time, you gotta check out Vera Kholodnaya, a goddess of the silent film era.

Then of course, there is French Chanson represented by gems like Edith Piaf and later Mireille Mathieu and many, many others.

And there is Russian romance rooting in Slavic and Gypsy folk music. A good example of this (at some point extremely popular) genre is Yulia.