The mystery diva

May 30, 2006 12:41 AM

There's a myspace page for Q Lazzarusbut you know she didn't create it herself. One of the biggest mysteries of modern Hollywood, how a singer could get a song on "Silence of the Lambs" but not appear on its soundtrack album, and a song on "Philadelphia" but not appear on its soundtrack album. And drop off the face of the earth. The mystery? In the age where one-hit wonders will to suffer any indignity to make a comeback attempt, Q Lazzarus disappeared. She's nowhere to be found. Maybe she's driving a taxi again.
posted by surplus (26 comments total)

You are totally going to get razzed for this.
posted by nightchrome at 12:46 AM on May 30, 2006

Last link is dead.
posted by slater at 12:46 AM on May 30, 2006

It's got to be some kind of inside Hollywood joke, to name a singer after a man who was dead and buried, then brought back to life. And never bring her back.
posted by surplus at 12:46 AM on May 30, 2006

dang. last link was to her wikipedia bio.
posted by surplus at 12:47 AM on May 30, 2006

nightchrome writes "You are totally going to get razzed for this."

No. This is a good post. Good post.
posted by mr_roboto at 1:45 AM on May 30, 2006

First link is dead now too...but, I guess it could make a comeback at some point...

:)
posted by HuronBob at 2:46 AM on May 30, 2006

Barely-known pop singers "vanish" all the time. Even after a (relatively insubstantial) amount of success like having some music licensed for movies, not all of them feel the need to dredge up their often-agonizing music industry experiences again later in life. I'm waiting for the actual mystery on this one...
posted by mykescipark at 3:32 AM on May 30, 2006

Tons of songs show up in movies that don't make it to the sountrack.
posted by furtive at 4:37 AM on May 30, 2006

At first glance, I thought this might be about, er, that singer-songwriter woman who is constantly disappearing and reappearing, possibly busking in Paris, to the extent that her career is more of a game of hide and seek with her label than anything else. (Can't for the life of me remember any more details - anyone have any idea of the woman I'm talking about?)

You are totally going to get razzed for this.

Huh?
posted by jack_mo at 4:54 AM on May 30, 2006

Tons of songs show up in movies that don't make it to the sountrack.

Amen. Case in point: "Notably, Queen's version of 'New York, New York' [from Highlander] was never released."

And a damned shame it wasn't, too.
posted by grabbingsand at 4:55 AM on May 30, 2006

I think I've seen her, was she a great big fat person?


Thanks for the post, I'm going to listen to this song all day.
posted by Divine_Wino at 5:00 AM on May 30, 2006

mykescipark: One time I was stuck in a hotel room and ended up watching a large chunk of a VH1 "One Hit Wonder" countdown. I noticed that they tend to come in a variety of different flavors:

1: Lucky one-offs. Performers who have their 15 minutes and go back to insurance sales.

2: Professionals. Quite a few one-hit-wonders are professional musicians who keep chugging away doing studio work, or working the regional live performance scene for decades.

3: Crossover artists. A subclass of the professional. People who are successful in a "niche" genre like jazz, alt. country, folk, musical theatre and even comedy. This sometimes overlaps with...

4: Internationals. Performers that do most of their work in a language other than English, and get "one-hit-wonder" status in the English speaking world only after releasing an English language song.

5: The Tragics. Performers who get recognized then self-destruct or die before a followup.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 5:17 AM on May 30, 2006

anyone have any idea of the woman I'm talking about

Madeleine Peyroux? She's done a vanishing act before.
posted by TheDonF at 5:47 AM on May 30, 2006

Ok, so I'm in love with this post but I'm mighty hurt that I can't download the song. I didn't know until just this minute that I need to hear it every other day to keep my chakras balanced so what now? What now? Surplus, are you hanging on to the single like the supercrack it is, setting the stage for the billions to come pouring in? If I had the billions I would just hand them over. But I don't! So just hand that song over right now or Precious gets it.
posted by melissa may at 6:04 AM on May 30, 2006 [1 favorite has favorites]

melissa may,
Check your email.
posted by Divine_Wino at 6:36 AM on May 30, 2006

Divine_Wino,
I kiss you.
posted by melissa may at 6:58 AM on May 30, 2006

"It puts the song on the mother-f***ing soundtrack!"

Seriously, cool post, though I wouldn't qualify Vanilla Ice as a One-Hit Wonder. If only we had to endure one of his "hits".
posted by mkultra at 7:31 AM on May 30, 2006

Perhaps she's embarrassed at the gawdawful stage name she chose and just doesn't want to show her face again.
posted by dobbs at 7:50 AM on May 30, 2006

Why did she not make the Silence of the Lambs soundtrack? It could be because the song had appeared on the Married To The Mob soundtrack a year earlier.
posted by dw at 7:51 AM on May 30, 2006

When I posted this I was hoping somebody would tell me her real name.

Her last credit is music in "Twisted". (1996)

As easy as it is nowadays to self-produce, it seems like whoever she is, we'd have heard from her in the past 10 years. Unless she had a recording contract problem so she used a disposable stage name so her songs got into the movie but couldn't be released as part of the soundtrack. Maybe she skipped out on an advance.

It's probably not a great story. I don't know why those two songs have grabbed me. I'm probably a fool to think there's something more interesting which keeps her out of the spotlight.
posted by surplus at 8:22 AM on May 30, 2006

Madeleine Peyroux? She's done a vanishing act before.

Ah, thanks TheDonF, that's who I was thinking of (and looking at her site I think I rather embellished her story in my head...).

That mySpace profile is hysterical, by the way:

[Goodbye Horses] represents all that is good and evil in the world. It is what the world would be listening to on a Saturday night if the Nazi's had won the war, only if the Nazi's had good taste... Yes, it is the only good song Q Lazzarus every made and granted she only made two, but hey at least she made one that CHANGED THE FUCKING WORLD

And there was me thinking it's a rather tepid synth pop song by someone doing a poor impression of Alison Moyet. Each to their own, though, of course.
posted by jack_mo at 8:54 AM on May 30, 2006

Well whaddya know, I stand corrected.
posted by nightchrome at 9:24 AM on May 30, 2006

Fun post, I like learning about lesser known musicians who scraped the edge of the spotlight and went back to their lives. Plus the song's good. Thanks!
posted by ktoad at 11:27 AM on May 30, 2006

And there was me thinking it's a rather tepid synth pop song by someone doing a poor impression of Alison Moyet.

Sir, I love the Alf as much as anyone has ever loved the Alf, but I never heard her sing against a background quite so weird and dark. Even without the memory of old Bill tucking his junk delicately away between his legs in preparation for donning his icky dress, this song is so delicately spooky. It sounds like pure white-knuckled 80s death to these ears, is what I'm trying to say. Also, Alison has pipes deeper than the Aqueduct. It's not fair pool to invoke her -- not many singers could hold a candle to her. Lady Lazarus here has her own strange and worthy gift. But as you note, to each of us our own.

(Sidenote: can anyone guess at what the flippety fuck was done to that synthesizer -- is that just a ton of compression on those two really high repeated notes? Or is it a really tweaked out guitar? I honestly can't tell!)
posted by melissa may at 3:58 PM on May 30, 2006

Hey, even The Fall are left off the Lambs soundtrack. Their song, "The Hip Priest" is playing whilst Clarice is fumbling around the blacked-out cellar. On the other hand, maybe it has just been packaged up in the track "The Celler" (sic).
posted by UbuRoivas at 4:13 PM on May 30, 2006

Sounds like Hip Hop Artist Swayze (second article down @ left) who was featured in this month's Blender. No one can find this guy, he never shows up for appearances. He doesn't return calls from any of raps heavyweights and doesn't care for the spotlight.

Interesting read, but does not appear to be available online.
posted by vaportrail at 5:57 PM on May 30, 2006