Jun Togawa is sort of like what you'd get if you crossed Kate Bush and Mike Patton. Togawa, who became known in Japanese culture after appearing in a bidet commercial, was half of the electro-cabaret band Guernica, which sometimes sounded very classical and sometimes sounded very new wave and sometimes much stranger. Somewhat more straightforward is her rock outfit Yapoos, which similarly varies quite a bit in sound and style. Her solo work, unsurprisingly, is quite melodramatic, with some very interesting arrangements, both parodically poppy and funky. I particularly like her covers of All Tomorrow's Parties by the Velvet Underground, Brigitte Fontaine's Comme à la Radio, and – weirdly – Pachelbel's Canon.
posted by Rory Marinich on Apr 21, 2013 - 14 comments

Just Say No To Cabaret [slight nudity]
posted by nadawi on Oct 20, 2012 - 23 comments

Cabaret's Don't Tell Momma performed by a young Judi Dench, or by Molly Ringwald, or Chris Moore, but what would she want with me?
posted by The Whelk on Jul 9, 2011 - 21 comments

A timeless monologue on the mechanics of likelihood. Tage Danielsson's talk about "sannolikhet", which he wrote in 1979 after the Three Mile Island accident remains a Swedish classic. [more inside]
posted by Namlit on Jan 25, 2011 - 7 comments

Kinktrepeneur, former evangelical missionary, and “Rent-a-meanie” the Twisted Monk: "I guess is some ways, I’m finally fulfilling the calling I had when I was a kid and being that evangelist, changing the world one bedroom at a time." ... [most links contain no nudity but might be NSFW anyway] [more inside]
posted by internet fraud detective squad, station number 9 on May 5, 2010 - 16 comments

Just Tiger Lillies is a YouTube Channel devoted to three-piece band The Tiger Lillies, whose music style the band members describe as either satanic folk or death oompah, though they are usually considered a cabaret band. On the YouTube Channel there are uploads from fan collections and links to most every Tiger Lillies video on YouTube, from blasphemous appearances on radio shows to MeFi's own Amanda Palmer covering their song Flying Robert to a collection of hamster images accompanied by The Tiger Lillies ode to the activity Richard Gere is purported to enjoy. If you are not familiar with the band the best place to start is probably the Official Videos playlist. Or you could check out these three songs: Mountains of Madness, Bully Boys and Lily Marlene. [A large percentage of The Tiger Lillies' material is NSFW, though the last three links aren't]
posted by Kattullus on Dec 19, 2009 - 18 comments

Bollywood, the 1960s and 70s: "For years, the favorite setting for the big dance number has been a cabaret, with its atmosphere of forbidden liquor and sexual permissiveness, with its mixed audience of privileged Indians, industrialists, playboys, princes, and its foreign decadence..." And no one was more at home this exotic milieu than an Anglo-Burmese refugee who began dancing in films at 13 to support her family. Her pale skin and vaguely foreign looks, along with a collection of colored contacts and wigs, allowed her to play white women, Asian women, whatever titillating role was called for. She was Helen, Queen of the Nautch Girls (part 2, part 3, part 4). [more inside]
posted by bookish on Aug 10, 2008 - 24 comments

Unfortunately there is not much on the web about the greatest cabaret singer who ever lived, the wonderful Mabel Mercer. So I am adding this new animated Guinness commercial made for the Rugby World Cup to pad out this post. [more inside]
posted by vronsky on Sep 15, 2007 - 6 comments

Maude Maggart-- Fiona Apple's sister-- does cabaret. She doesn't sound anything like her though, her voice is more soprano than alto.
posted by brujita on Jan 22, 2006 - 13 comments

R.I.P. Bobby Short. One of the finest cabaret singers of all time, and a Manhattan fixture at the Carlyle Hotel since 1968, Short died of leukemia yesterday. He was 80. Listen to an NPR tribute. Time Magazine once said of him, "In an increasingly inelegant world, Bobby Short is the very symbol of elegance." Thankfully, many of his best recordings are available on CD. (Requisite Wikipedia entry.)
posted by goatdog on Mar 21, 2005 - 10 comments

Colin Powell in cabaret performance in Viet Nam. "As Powell acted out his death throes at the end of the song, [Japanese Foreign Minister Makiko] Tanaka - in traditional Vietnamese dress - flung her arms around his prostrate body and kissed him on the cheek." Apparently these kinds of performances are regular occurences at these things.
posted by donkeymon on Jul 27, 2001 - 16 comments