Perfume Genius

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Perfume Genius aka Mike Hadreas, 2014
Perfume Genius aka Mike Hadreas, 2014
Chart positions
Explanation of the data
Albums
Too bright
  UK 77 04/10/2014 (1 week)
  US 83 10/11/2014 (1 week)
No shape
  UK 96 May 18, 2017 (1 week)
  US 185 May 27, 2017 (1 week)

Perfume Genius is the stage name of Mike Hadreas (born September 25, 1981 in Everett , Washington ), a musician from the United States .

Life

Hadreas grew up in Seattle , Washington . At the age of 15, he was the only one at his school to admit his homosexuality. Since he did not want to commit himself to his gender role as a boy or a man, he experienced discriminatory reactions that ranged from exclusion, abuse and spitting to death threats and abuse. To make matters worse for the teenager, his parents divorced and his mother, a special education teacher, began to drink. He was hospitalized at 17 after being mugged by several young men on the street. Hadreas then left Seattle and moved to Williamsburg, Brooklyn , where he took various jobs and became a drug addict. In 2005, at the urging of his mother, he moved back to Seattle to undergo drug therapy. From 2008 he worked steadily on his musical career.

Hadreas, who has Crohn's disease , lives in Seattle with his partner Alan Wyffels, a pianist.

Musical career

Hadreas took piano lessons as a child, but his first appearances were exclusively with family. Only after his drug rehabilitation, he began to Myspace videos to post on which he was singing to see the piano. This attracted the attention of a record company, and soon afterwards Hadreas signed his first contract with the independent label Matador Records . Now under the name Perfume Genius, he made his debut there with the album Learning . Put Your Back N 2 It followed in 2012 . For the title Hood contained therein , a video with the porn actor Árpád Miklós was produced, which was temporarily banned from YouTube because it was considered "non family safe".

Two years later, Too Bright was released , produced by Portishead member Adrian Utley. The album received an award from the music website Pitchfork as Best New Music with 8.5 points .

After the content of the first three albums mainly dealt with Hadreas' personal experiences with illness, violence and drugs and were musically considered “piano moritats”, No Shape , released in 2017, succeeded in switching to “glam rock, soul and pop” with themes like self-discovery and love. This time the producer was Blake Mills, who has worked with John Legend and Laura Marling , among others . The title Slip Away was named Best New Track by Pitchfork .

Discography

Albums

  • Learning (released June 22, 2010)
  • Put Your Back N 2 It (February 21, 2012)
  • Too Bright (September 23, 2014)
  • No Shape (May 5, 2017)
  • Set My Heart on Fire Immediately (May 15, 2020)

Singles

  • Mr. Peterson (2010)
  • All Waters (2011)
  • Hood , Dark Parts , Take Me Home (2012)
  • Queen , Grid (2014)
  • Jonathan ( Christine and the Queens feat. Perfume Genius, 2015)
  • Slip Away (2017)

Web links

supporting documents

  1. ↑ Chart sources: UK / US
  2. ↑ biography on allmusic.com ; accessed on August 1, 2017
  3. ↑ William van Meter: Lashing Out at His Tormentors, at Last. An Aggressive New Album From Perfume Genius. The New York Times, September 17, 2014 ; accessed on July 31, 2017
  4. ↑ Charlotte Gush: perfume genius is the queer singer turning his fetishes into pop. On iD Vice, June 8, 2017 ; English, accessed July 31, 2017
  5. ↑ Bayern2 Kulturwelt, May 10, 2017 ( Memento from July 31, 2017 in the Internet Archive )
  6. ↑ pitchfork.com, reviews / albums, September 23, 2014 ; accessed on July 31, 2017
  7. ↑ Christian Lehnert: No half measures. Deutschlandfunk, May 6, 2017 ; accessed on July 31, 2017
  8. ↑ pitchfork.com, reviews / tracks, March 21, 2017 ; accessed on July 31, 2017
personal data
SURNAME Genius, perfume
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American musician
DATE OF BIRTH September 25, 1981
PLACE OF BIRTH Everett , Washington , United States