Biography
In the closing years of the 1990s and the opening years of the following decade, Boston’s music community hosted several distinctive acts, from the retro-soul and funk ensemble Superhoney to the eccentric synth-pop and new-wave threesome Freezepop, with its pronounced 1980s sensibility, to the stylistically elusive Moonraker, which eventually relocated to New York City. Among these, the Dresden Dolls stood out as perhaps the most singular proposition: an unorthodox duo formed in 2001 by lead singer and pianist Amanda Palmer, who writes the material, and drummer Brian Viglione.
The pair’s sound fuses alternative pop and rock with riot grrrl directness and the cabaret aesthetic that thrived in Germany under the Weimar Republic throughout the 1920s and the first years of the 1930s, before Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime seized power. Their name partly references a song by the British punk band the Fall yet also signals the German lineage, since Dresden denotes the city devastated by Allied bombing in World War II. Palmer, however, performs exclusively in English; no lyrics or vocals appear in German. Even so, the Weimar-era sensibility registers unmistakably in both the music and the visual presentation the duo cultivated during their early-2000s Boston performances, which gradually built a small but fervent local cult following.
Their stage attire and makeup merge gothic and Weimar burlesque elements, bridging disparate eras and geographies. The same eclectic range shapes the songwriting, which draws from Marlene Dietrich and Kurt Weill as readily as from alternative rock figures such as Tori Amos, PJ Harvey, and Courtney Love, the polarizing founder of Hole who later worked as a solo artist. Like the London-born, New York-based singer-songwriter Nellie McKay—who can evoke Doris Day in one moment and Alanis Morissette or Randy Newman in the next—the Dresden Dolls integrate these historically distant sources so that the juxtapositions feel organic rather than artificial.
Their recorded output commenced with the live collection A Is for Accident, issued in 2003 by the Important label, followed by the self-titled debut studio album on 8ft. Records in 2004. The tour-and-video compilation Paradise appeared the next year, and the second studio album, Yes, Virginia…, arrived in 2006. Two years later the duo released No, Virginia…, which paired B-sides and outtakes with five newly recorded tracks.
The pair’s sound fuses alternative pop and rock with riot grrrl directness and the cabaret aesthetic that thrived in Germany under the Weimar Republic throughout the 1920s and the first years of the 1930s, before Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime seized power. Their name partly references a song by the British punk band the Fall yet also signals the German lineage, since Dresden denotes the city devastated by Allied bombing in World War II. Palmer, however, performs exclusively in English; no lyrics or vocals appear in German. Even so, the Weimar-era sensibility registers unmistakably in both the music and the visual presentation the duo cultivated during their early-2000s Boston performances, which gradually built a small but fervent local cult following.
Their stage attire and makeup merge gothic and Weimar burlesque elements, bridging disparate eras and geographies. The same eclectic range shapes the songwriting, which draws from Marlene Dietrich and Kurt Weill as readily as from alternative rock figures such as Tori Amos, PJ Harvey, and Courtney Love, the polarizing founder of Hole who later worked as a solo artist. Like the London-born, New York-based singer-songwriter Nellie McKay—who can evoke Doris Day in one moment and Alanis Morissette or Randy Newman in the next—the Dresden Dolls integrate these historically distant sources so that the juxtapositions feel organic rather than artificial.
Their recorded output commenced with the live collection A Is for Accident, issued in 2003 by the Important label, followed by the self-titled debut studio album on 8ft. Records in 2004. The tour-and-video compilation Paradise appeared the next year, and the second studio album, Yes, Virginia…, arrived in 2006. Two years later the duo released No, Virginia…, which paired B-sides and outtakes with five newly recorded tracks.
Albums
