You Will Never Be As Fabulous As Sylvester
All week long, the Stranger‘s music blog has been excerpting from The Faber Book of Pop, a collection of pop crit and history that writer Terry Miller discovered while in England, and this seven-day cycle is capped off with a nice potted reminiscence over drag-disco icon Sylvester that’s worth checking out if you’re unfamiliar with one of the era’s most idiosyncratic figures. And in honor of Sylvester James, I present to you the classic, low budget clip for “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” where our hero(ine) ecstatically warbles over Patrick Cowley’s synth-disco–like Kraftwerk cranked into a dancefloor delirium–while looking like a.) a young Whitney Houston, b.) Colonel Sanders, and c.) a fortune teller/geisha mash-up with some wicked fan action. (Also: How much do the skinny, feather-haired scenesters doing the bump in gym shorts look like an American Apparel ad in situ?) Ladies and gentlemen, the most gloriously gay 3:46 you will watch all week.
Sylvester – “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” [YouTube]
Reading From The Faber Book Of Pop Pt. 5: Sylvester [Line Out]
