antipopper

On the heels of Zooey Deschanel, and spiralling further into terminal unhipness, I present two more irresistible chanteuses-out-of-time: Kristen Vigard (left) and Mary Margaret O’Hara.

      

I’ve written elsewhere about Vigard’s definitive rendition of Bacharach and Costello’s “God Give Me Strength” for Allison Anders’ Grace of My Heart soundtrack. Hers is a tangential story. As a child, Vigard had the starring role in the original production of Annie, and appeared in The Black Stallion (which was shot by Zooey Deschanel’s father Caleb). She later acted in a few soaps, and in the late ’80s fell in with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, with whom she recorded her one and only album in 1988. (To fall out of step with blogospheric consensus, the Chili Peppers aren’t an open and shut case of suckitude — I’ll have you know that their last album is free from cock-in-sock dudeness, and is actually quite delicate and moving.) “Slave To My Emotions“, written with the Chili Peppers’ John Frusciante, is delivered gorgeously, but also suggests that if she doesn’t fade into obscurity, her destiny lies in interpretation — Burt Bacharach and Elvis Costello really fumbled the ball when they failed to immediately write her an album’s worth of material in the wake of “God Give Me Strength”. I mean, if Costello could write an entire album for Transvision Vamp’s Wendy James…

Mary Margaret O’Hara also only recorded one stand-alone album, also in 1988: the haunting Miss America, which inspired a generation of skewed indie songstresses. It opens with “To Cry About“, which recently received a lot of attention via Everything But the Girl’s Back To Mine compilation. O’Hara followed the album up with an EP of (yes) Christmas songs, from which this version of “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve” is taken, and then nothing. But like Vigard, she’s done some recent soundtrack work — 2001′s Apartment Hunting — for which her fans are thankful.

As always, the only way I can make this post sound like I don’t have a hopeless crush is to say blah blah blah, the polished mirror spanning the aural unconscious, blah blah blah. Yeah.