Julee Cruise – The World Spins

Album

Floating into the Night is the debut studio album by American singer Julee Cruise. It was released on September 12, 1989 on Warner Bros. Records, and features compositions and production by Angelo Badalamenti and film director David Lynch. Songs from the album were featured in Lynch's projects Blue Velvet (1986), Industrial Symphony No. 1 (1990), and Twin Peaks (1990–1991).

Background

Filmmaker David Lynch and composer Angelo Badalamenti's collaboration with Cruise first came about during the scoring for Lynch's 1986 film Blue Velvet, in which a key scene was intended to feature This Mortal Coil's version of "Song to the Siren" by Tim Buckley.

With the rights to the song proving prohibitively expensive, it was suggested that Badalamenti compose a pop song in the same style and recruit a vocalist with a haunting, ethereal voice. Badalamenti recommended Cruise, who had sung in a New York theater workshop Badalamenti had produced.

The result was the track "Mysteries of Love". Lynch and Badalamenti were impressed with the results, and elected to record subsequent tracks with Cruise.

Composition

Floating into the Night was produced and written by Badalamenti and Lynch; Badalamenti composed the music and Lynch wrote the lyrics.

Cruise initially regarded herself as "a Broadway belter" and had a reputation for letting "angry and aggressive emotions power her work," but Lynch "felt that Cruise had a 'soft, sad side'" and encouraged her to sing in a softer tone and in a higher register; Cruise's vocal style on Floating into the Night has been often regarded as "ethereal" and drawn comparisons to Elizabeth Fraser on the earlier releases by the Cocteau Twins.

Cruise's vocals on Floating into the Night feature heavy use of digital reverb. Early recording sessions were difficult until Cruise heard her vocals treated with effects, upon which she recognized that Badalamenti was creating "mood pieces," and also took to Lynch's lyrics. Nonetheless, she expressed concern about the album's sound, stating that:

I wasn't quite sure how the hell we were going to pull it off. One night I played some demos for my husband's friend and his wife, and she said, "white wine Muzak." Aaaahh! I took it home for Christmas — and everyone in my family hated it. They were like, "What are you singing about?" One of my lawyers at the time said, "This is a novelty." I said, "Like Tiny Tim?"

40 songs

According to Lynch, 40 songs were written for the album in total, with the final track listing including 10 tracks. Badalamenti noted that

"when [the album] came out, radio stations said they had no slots for it. Is it pop? Not really. Is it R&B? Certainly not. What is it? Even the more avant-garde stations found it unusual, so it was difficult getting airplay."

Floating into the Night has been characterized as a dream pop album, with heavy elements of jazz and traditional jazz instrumentation; Rolling Stone considered Floating into the Night as a definitive development of the dream pop sound, describing how the album "added depth to [the genre] " and "gave the genre its synthy sheen", particularly on the track "Mysteries of Love".

Release

Floating into the Night was released on September 12, 1989 on Warner Bros. Records, although the album was originally set for release in late April. It was originally issued on CD, LP and cassette, and it has since been reissued on several occasions. The album received a CD reissue in Europe in October 1998, a 180-gram LP repressing by Plain Recordings in the United States in October 2014 and a separate 180-gram LP repressing by Music on Vinyl in Europe in February 2015.

Two singles were released from the album: "Falling" and "Rockin' Back Inside My Heart", both of which are featured in the television series Twin Peaks. In addition to the album's two singles, a number of other tracks from Floating into the Night appeared in Twin Peaks, including "Into the Night", "The Nightingale" and "The World Spins".

"Mysteries of Love" had been previously featured in David Lynch's 1986 film Blue Velvet; "Rockin' Back Inside My Heart", "Into the Night", "I Float Alone" and "The World Spins" were performed in the 1990 Lynch production Industrial Symphony No. 1; and "The World Spins" is featured on the soundtrack to the 2003 film The Company.

Lyrics

Lynch's lyrics on Floating into the Night have been the subject of analysis, especially from fans and academic studies of Twin Peaks—a television series he co-created and in which several songs from the album are featured.

Academic The Cinema of David Lynch: American Dreams, Nightmare Visions Richardson said that Cruise's considerable use of reverb sound as if she sings

"from a distance that clearly parallels the distance between the other world that [Twin Peaks character] Laura Palmer has fallen into and the primary diegetic world of the other characters"

He considered the lyrics to "Falling"—an instrumental version of which was used as the theme song to the series—as "reinforc[ing] this impression since they can easily be understood as representing Laura's point of view". Cruise, however, considers Lynch's lyrics to have been written about his then-partner, Italian actress and model Isabella Rossellini.

Artist

Julee Cruise (Creston, 1º dicembre 1956) è una cantante e attrice statunitense.

Biografia

Appassionata di musica sin da bambina, inizia studiando il corno e la tromba diplomandosi in corno francese. Successivamente suona in diverse orchestre sinfoniche; nei primi anni ottanta partecipa a diverse produzioni televisive e si aggiudica un posto nel coro di un musical western di Angelo Badalamenti.

Il suo successo è in gran parte legato alla fortunata serie televisiva I segreti di Twin Peaks, di David Lynch e Mark Frost, oltre che al precedente Velluto blu dello stesso Lynch, due lavori ai quali la cantante ha prestato la propria voce.

In particolare nel film Velluto Blu è presente il brano Mysteries of Love, mentre per la colonna sonora del serial Twin Peaks, la Cruise ha cantato i brani The Nightingale, Into the Night, la celeberrima Falling, The World Spins e Rockin' Back Inside My Heart.

Queste cinque canzoni sono state pubblicate sul disco d'esordio solista dell'artista, Floating into the Night (1989), mentre su quello della colonna sonora del serial, ossia Original Soundtrack from Twin Peaks sono finite solo le prime tre.

La Cruise è inoltre apparsa come attrice nella suddetta serie televisiva nel ruolo della cantante di un locale notturno eseguendo tutti i succitati brani. È apparsa anche nel finale del 17º episodio della ripresa della serie nel 2017 nel quale esegue The World Spins.

Il suo stile è caratterizzato da una voce particolarmente eterea e suadente e ben si presta alle atmosfere torbide e sensuali del cinema lynchiano.