When Cindy Lee Saved my Sanity
Brief Reflections on the Hypnagogic Queen of Pop
I’m probably the least diligent person on this platform. Here it is the first of November and I’ve written nothing since Wide Eyes and Crawling Skin (submitted this past March.) I felt like writing something today. This piece will be significantly less extensive than my previous one, and a tad more personal, but it remains music-based for the most part.
My inspiration for today comes from seeing a new video by Cindy Lee, called “If You Hear Me Crying.” I have fond internal feelings for Cindy’s music after discovering it during COVID isolation. I loved it and identified with it, but I also felt Cindy was one of those artists who would be perpetually underground, never known to music lovers en masse unless there was a preexisting penchant for “outsider music.” After today’s reintroduction to this unique performer via this beautiful video, I soon discovered that many music sites are referring to Cindy’s latest album, “Diamond Jubilee,” as the best release of the year.
For those who don’t know, Cindy Lee is the drag personality of Canadian musician and artist, Patrick Flegel, formerly of the ‘2010s-era noise/pop band, Women.
Flegel introduced his Cindy Lee persona sometime around 2012, stating it “became a way to reinforce me doing something that I love doing that I often withhold from myself. I have been perplexed by the novelty in peoples eyes of what I see as a very basic and very traditional performance on my part.”
[Note: Patrick Flegel identifies with male pronouns. Reportedly, Patrick doesn’t seem to have a strong pronoun preference regarding his Cindy Lee persona, but I will refer to Cindy with female pronouns here.]
I have always possessed a fascination and a high amount of respect for rock and roll drag performers. I find them beautiful, brave, and essentially a strong counterpoint to the negative, hyper-masculine stereotypes generally associated with the genre. Sure, bands like The New York Dolls, KISS, and the countless hair metal bands of ‘80s-era Los Angeles challenged what male musicians could and could not be, but most of those individuals were still very much defined by standard male traits, (ego, debauchery, hyper-sexualization of women, etc.) For me, a good drag performer can offer new takes on beauty, mystique, and femineity.
I have excellent memories of one such performer in my former town of Richmond, VA, a rocker named Trixie Delicious. In her everyday persona, I knew her as a quiet individual who worked at a local record store. But when Trixie hit the stage with her band? She let it loose. Rocking and rolling, and blowing all kinds of minds. When I first discovered Cindy Lee/Patrick Flegel, I was instantly taken back to those fun days in RVA, rocking out to Trixie.
I was a late comer to Cindy Lee. A discovery I made one evening during the COVID years when I was sitting alone in a cold office inside of a mostly vacant building. My job at the time made us come into work during that surreal pre-vaccine era of the pandemic. My schedule required me to work into the evening. Most of the time, I'd see maybe a few people per week. From my office, I'd watch the sun go down and watch the building go dark due to inactivity from the motion-detected lights. Most nights, my only illumination was the glow from my computer. Eerie times.
Personally, it was a rough time for me, just as it was for countless others. There was the "new-normal” of constant fear and confusion over the pandemic, and the vile politics of contemporary America. It was an going challenge to fight against the darkness that had such a stronghold over our lives.
One night, while sitting in there in my cold, dark office, skittering across the Internet, trying hard to tame my mind from the incessant storm of the insanity, I came across Cindy's video, "I Don't Want to Fall in Love Again." It captured my attention immediately. The storm in my mind came to a complete stop as I watched this strange video. I felt like I was watching an old film reel from the 1940's that held some long lost secret. It was twisted and beautiful.
Comparing Cindy to a Lynchian, Twin Peaks fever dream is putting it too cheaply. I could easily tell there was some deep artistry to Cindy. An amazing ability to capture sounds and visions of bygone eras, while adding the jagged deconstruction of experimental artists from the '60s through the guise of an underground, lo-fi indie rocker from the early '90s, while also blending a weird flavor of 2010's “digital retro.”
I immediately purchased some of Cindy's music online, which wasn't easy. At the time, she didn’t have much of a Bandcamp presence, and there was zero social media presence. The only “official” web presence I could find for Cindy was an early ‘aughts-style geocities site. I soon learned she also possessed an inherent desire to operate outside of the contemporary, algorithmic trappings that most musicians endure. Cindy once shared some choice words for Spotify’s Daniel Ek.
"THE CEO OF SPOTIFY IS A THIEF AND A WAR PIG."
For me, Cindy's music was a balm for the soul. The surreal beauty of it lifted me from the conflict-driven madness of America during the COVID years, and allowed me to see and feel beyond my punishing inner-monologues. Since, then I've tried to hold onto that feeling, that dreamy detachment, trying to remember how the music made me feel free and empowered in the here and now. The music is visionary, but immediate, and familiar, but unique. It made me long for the memory of a place I’d never been. I once saw Cindy Lee's music referred to as "hypnagogic pop," which has to be the best sub-sub-subgenre term I've ever heard.
Cindy just released a staggering 32-track album called Diamond Jubilee.
The album makes me feel like I'm in 1990 with a head full of drugs and dreams, with pre-generational sounds and images blending with visions of late night coffee-guzzling alongside the smart, cool kids in my class, making plans to leave everything I've ever known to hit the road with no set destination, feeling free for the first time in my young life.
You may not have the same response to Cindy's music as I did. But? Maybe you will.
Wow, cool stuff — and totally new to me!
Sold!