Julee Cruise: Floating Into the Night Album Review

Table Of Content

• Julee Cruise, otherworldly crooner on 'Twin Peaks,' dies at 65
• Dickey Betts (1943– , Allman Brothers Band guitarist and...
• Cruise on working with Lynch
• Morgan Wallen Addresses Nashville Arrest for Reckless Endangerment: “I’m Not Proud of My Behavior”
• Surprise: Taylor Swift’s ‘Tortured Poets Department’ is a double album, ‘The Anthology’
• Come for the Torture, Stay for the Poetry: This Might Be Taylor Swift's Most Personal Album Yet

The former featured the song “Falling,” the instrumental of which would serve as the opening theme music for the Twin Peaks TV series. A vocal version of the the song with lyrics written by Lynch became a worldwide hit and was featured on Cruise’s 1989 debut album, the ethereal Floating Into the Night. “Mysteries of Love” kicked off a period of collaboration between Cruise, Badalamenti and Lynch that spanned records, stage and screen.

Julee Cruise obituary - The Guardian

Julee Cruise obituary.

Posted: Mon, 13 Jun 2022 07:00:00 GMT [source]

Julee Cruise, otherworldly crooner on 'Twin Peaks,' dies at 65

"She will be forever grateful to them. When she first stepped up to the mic with Fred [Schneider] and Kate she said it was like joining the Beatles. She will love them always and never forget their travels together around the world." "She left this realm on her own terms," Grinnan wrote of Cruise in a Facebook post Thursday evening. Grinnan later told NPR that his wife died by suicide and struggled with "lupus, depression and alcohol and drug addiction." But by the time listeners get to the album’s final track, “The World Spins,” Cruise has long since transported them beyond the imagination of Lynch and the mood-setting of Badalamenti. For better or worse, “Floating Into the Night” will always be tethered to the audiovisual work of her collaborators and indebted to those partnerships. But a little more than a year after her death, this rerelease puts a spotlight on the particular significance of her sometimes under-appreciated contributions to the trio — as a mysterious, gentle and warming voice, putting into words sensations that otherwise transcend language.

Dickey Betts (1943– , Allman Brothers Band guitarist and...

“Floating Into the Night” mostly evaporated upon release in 1989, and Ms. Cruise resumed waiting tables. Then Lynch used an instrumental of the song “Falling” as the theme for “Twin Peaks” in 1990 and cast her in the pilot as a singer in the central roadhouse bar — and she became famous. “Falling” went to No. 11 on the Billboard chart, and the album penetrated the Top 100.

Cruise on working with Lynch

In 1990, Cruise starred in the musical film Industrial Symphony No. 1. The following year, she sang Elvis Presley’s “Summer Kisses, Winter Tears” for Wim Wenders’ film Until the End of the World. She released a second album, The Voice of Love, in 1993, but later lamented its poor production values; Sacred Bones reissued the record in 2018. She joined the B-52s, replacing Cindy Wilson as lead singer in 1992 and 1993. Twenty years later she released a new album, “The Art of Being a Girl,” which departed from the dream pop sound and showcased her more full-bodied warble, as did “My Secret Life” in 2011.

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Its mix of lilting jazz and cabaret styles with a discreet side order of electronica proved that Cruise was capable of far more than being a mouthpiece for Lynch and Badalamenti. Cruise’s unique vocal stylings attracted a host of collaborators over the years, including DJ Dmitry and the bands Hybrid and Delerium. She can also be heard on Handsome Boy Modeling School’s song “Class System,” which was produced by Prince Paul and features Pharrell Williams.

Julee Cruise, Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks Singer, Dies at 65

Despite her stint with the New Wave band from Georgia, Cruise was best known for her collaborations with Lynch, first working with the director on the 1986 feature film Blue Velvet. Recommended by Badalamenti, with whom she had worked in the New York City theater scene, Cruise was recruited by Lynch to sing “Mysteries of Love”, the lovely, vaguely funereal song that ends the film. Julee Cruise, whose ethereal singing could conjure both nostalgic innocence and a menacing present, making her an ideal musical collaborator for David Lynch and the Twin Peaks director’s go-to composer Angelo Badalamenti, died Thursday. The trio worked together on the 1989 album Floating into the Night, with Lynch writing the lyrics and Badalamenti composing the music. The LP included Falling and other songs that would go on to feature in Twin Peaks the following year. Before releasing her 2002 album, The Art of Being a Girl, Cruise sporadically toured with the B-52’s, filling in for Cindy Wilson.

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Now she will roam forever.” Speaking on the phone with Pitchfork, Grinnan remarked, “She was the most creative person I ever met, and I think I married her for that creativity.” Julee Cruise was 65 years old. Cruise’s best-known song was Falling – its instrumental, written by Angelo Badalamenti, was used as the theme to Twin Peaks, Lynch’s iconic TV show that debuted in 1990. Lynch wrote lyrics for Cruise’s vocal version, which reached No 7 in the UK charts, was a hit across Europe, and topped the Australian singles chart. It was included on her debut album Floating Into the Night, released in 1989. The trio reconvened to record Cruise’s debut album Floating Into the Night (1989), a skilful mix of retro 1950s-style influences with dreamy and mysterious textures, all focused around Cruise’s shimmering vocals.

An instrumental version of the song would become the indelible opening theme of “Peaks.” She also appeared on the show several times as a singer at the bar, and her music was included on the show and the soundtrack. That this dream pop feels effervescent without seeming frivolous exemplifies all three of their talents — Lynch’s as a writer, Badalamenti’s as a musician and hers as a vocalist. The gently swinging track professes exactly the kind of love that was shared by the show’s teenage characters; “I want you, you want me,” Cruise sweetly sings, which is why Lynch literally put it into their mouths during several key sequences. Together, they’re a reminder of the desperate yearning — for love, and for hope — that is an underpinning of Lynch’s work, making the darkness bearable.

Julee Cruise, Singer Who Worked With David Lynch on ‘Twin Peaks’ and ‘Blue Velvet,’ Dies at 65

Cruise recorded a second solo album, The Voice of Love, with Lynch and Badalamenti in 1993, and Lynch directed her in an avant-garde one-hour concert film, Industrial Symphony No 1, in 1990. Cruise’s long association with Lynch and Badalamenti began in 1986 when Lynch was looking for a song to accompany a scene in his bizarro classic Blue Velvet. When Sinead O’Connor pulled out of “Saturday Night Live” in May 1990 as a protest over guest host Andrew Dice Clay, Cruise stepped in as a last-minute musical guest. At the end of that Pitchfork interview, Cruise mused about her late father and her family's cemetery plot in Minneapolis. "We have our own great graveyard there," she said, "but I'm not gonna get buried. I'm going to have my ashes mixed in with my dogs. They're gonna spread my ashes across Arizona, and Arizona is going to turn blue." A modified sample of Cruise's song "I Float Alone" was used as the backing track in the Dean Blunt song "The Narcissist".

During an interview with Pitchfork in 2018, Cruise shared her own plans for when she died, saying her family has a cemetery plot in Minneapolis. Cruise was born in December 1956 in Creston, Iowa and worked with Lynch for her album "The Voice of Love," which was released in 1993. She then took a break from music, and her next album, "The Art of Being a Girl," wasn’t released until 2002. Lynch shared a video on YouTube when he heard the news about Cruise’s death Friday.

She also sang alongside Pharrell Williams on Handsome Boy Modeling School’s 2004 song “Class System.” She released a final studio album, My Secret Life, with Deee-Lite’s DJ Dmitry in 2011. She suffered from lupus for decades, and consequently lost her hair and “had the bones of an 85-year-old woman at 33,” she said. She also battled “depression and alcohol and drug addiction,” her husband told NPR. The instrumental version of Cruise's "Falling" was the title music for Lynch's 'Twin Peaks' series. Other songs from the album were used in Twin Peaks and also in Lynch’s Industrial Symphony No. 1, an avant-garde concert performance staged in 1989 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York, in which Cruise appeared with the actors Nicolas Cage, Laura Dern and Michael J Anderson.

“There’s always that voice that says, ‘It’s going to go away,’” she explained. “That voice can be very disturbing and destructive, and that voice is talking all through the album.” If Lynch’s work remains a confounding acquired taste for some, then Floating Into the Night is a record that anyone can at least understand. It is the sound of a burgeoning crush accompanied by the quickening realization of their power to hurt you; it is your hometown at night, with a familiar stillness so quiet it can keep you awake; it is the voice on the other line, distant and mysterious, but close enough so you can hear every breath. David Lynch paid tribute to his musical collaborator Julee Cruise following the news of the cult singer’s death at the age of 65.

Born Dec. 1, 1956 in Creston, Iowa, Cruise was known for her unusual vocal presence, so intensely calm and collected that it could be unsettling — which found a receptive audience in Lynch and score composer Angelo Badalamenti. For the 1986 film Blue Velvet, the two were looking to mimic the effect of This Mortal Coil's version of "Song to the Siren" by Tim Buckley, whose rights proved too costly to clear. The result of their collaboration was the original track "Mysteries of Love," in which Cruise's dreamlike vocals are set to a slow-moving fog of romantic synths and strings. KNOWN best for the theme song of Twin Peaks, singer-songwriter and actress Julee Cruise died on June 9, 2022. Even with these specific reference points, there is no true precedent for Floating Into the Night, and its greatest asset remains its timelessness. Describing her inspiration, Cruise pinpointed the feeling of paranoia that accompanies any surge of joy or new love.

When Julee Cruise died last year on June 9, David Lynch fans lost another of the essential, even inextricable collaborators who became a part of their lives as a result of being part of his art. Her ethereal singing is synonymous with both “Blue Velvet” and the many incarnations of “Twin Peaks,” the latter of whose title theme she performed. Following her 1989 debut album Floating into the Night, which included the Twin Peaks theme “Falling,” Cruise would go on to release additional LPs including The Voice of Love (1993), The Art of Being a Girl (2002) and My Secret Life (2011).

Get our big stories about Hollywood, film, television, music, arts, culture and more right in your inbox as soon as they publish. She was drawn to the arts at an early age, acting and playing the French horn while in high school. After graduating from Drake University, she spent time with the Des Moines Symphony but felt pulled toward the theatrical stage. Leaving behind the French horn, she then moved to Minneapolis, where she became part of the Guthrie Theater and, by the early 1980s, was a member of the Children’s Theatre Company. "Now she will roam forever. Rest In Peace, my love, and love to you all."

Over the years, she would collaborate with such musicians as Moby, the Welsh electronic music group Hybrid, former members of Deee-Lite, Pharrell Williams, and Depeche Mode’s Martin Gore, among others. The series premiered on ABC in April 1990 and became a sensation, sweeping Cruise into the spotlight. “Falling,” the vocal variation of Badalamenti’s haunting theme song, reached charts in the U.K. And Europe, while “Floating Into the Night” became a cult hit in the U.S. Cruise often appeared on “Twin Peaks,” singing in the biker bar the Roadhouse, her soft, gentle presence providing a compelling contrast to the roughneck setting. By the mid-1980s, Cruise had relocated to New York, settling in the East Village.