Camp as the Choir
China, who writes the marvelous Choir Croak Out Them Goodies, frequently pops by here to correct my errors, improve my generally slapdash approach and make a valiant attempt to plug the vast, gaping holes in my musical knowledge.
Today she has a stab at topping the screamingly camp Alan Cumming, as suggested by JC of The Vinyl Villain, in the quest to find the campest song in the universe. Clearly shaken by JC’s excellent performance, she seems to be suffering a crisis of confidence and has opted for two songs. Clearly this should be against the rules, but seeing as I have no intention whatsoever of running a fair and unbiased competition here, it isn’t.
So, camper than thou, or not quite silly enough? You decide.
Edith Massey – Big Girls Don’t Cry
And the killer – and perhaps even the new hot favourite, seeing as even the gay community reckon this is a bit too camp for words: Divine with Walk Like a Man.
I’m proud to recall seeing Divine play a show at Strathclyde Yooni in either 83 or 84. I wore my best disco pants that evening..
So if Mr Cumming ain’t in the lead anymore, can I offer up for consideration the 1998 Eurovision Winner – ‘Diva’ by Dana International??
No, you can offer up you in your disco pants at a Divine gig. Ladies & gentlemen we have a winner!
Woo hoo!
Vinyl Villain, that was a very difficult match you set up.
It’s all well and good to play the obese transvestite card and then declare victory. I feel that the Nomi Song remains the ubercamp champ and I feel the results were grossly biased by the fact that both JC and China got visuals to go with their choices. I can’t help but think that the voting would have looked a bit different had Matthew’s readers gotten a load of this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKYpepxGkyY
You know, the two-minute mark of that video is indeed pretty fantastic (so much purple!)…did you check out the Simple Man video? (Here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHZ3yIKczN4&mode=related&search=)
Personally, I can’t think of Klaus Nomi as campy, regardless of his synth/makeup/spacesuit formula, partially because he had a great voice, and partially because after seeing Nomi Song all I can picture is him dying alone of AIDS in a hospital. Plus, nothing beats an obese transvestite (even one who died presumably alone of sleep apnea).
Jeez, way to ruin everyone’s buzz, man.