They'll never break the shape we take
Oh, ooh
Baby let all them voices slip away"
Michael Hadreas (born September 25, 1981), better known by his stage name Perfume Genius, is an American singer-songwriter and musician. His music is known for exploring topics such as sexuality, namely the dangers faced by gay men in contemporary society (as he himself is gay and faced serious adversity for it growing up), and his personal struggles with Crohn's disease and domestic abuse.
Michael began his music career in 2008, setting up a MySpace account under the name Perfume Genius. The name was derived from a comment made by a friend he watched the 2006 film Perfume: The Story of a Murderer with; the film centers around a perfuming savant who moonlights as a serial killer, and Michael's friend repeatedly jokingly referred to him as a "perfume genius". Michael reportedly chose the name on a whim without much planning, but stuck with it as more people found his music.
He released his first album, Learning, on June 22, 2010 to critical acclaim. The songs on the album are notably in chronological order (that is, the first song was created first, and so on). His second album, Put Your Back N 2 It was released on February 20, 2012, his third, Too Bright, on September 23, 2014, and his fourth, No Shape, on May 5, 2017. His fifth, Set My Heart on Fire Immediately, was released on May 15, 2020, followed by his sixth, Ugly Season, on June 17, 2022.
Set My Tropes on Fire Immediately:
- Camp Gay: "Queen," which is about being unabashedly gay and flamboyant.
- Collector of the Strange: Mike collects needle points.
- Driven to Suicide: The titular character in "Mr. Peterson" jumps off a building.
- Epic Rocking: "Eye in the Wall" is 8 minutes and 42 seconds long.
- Face on the Cover: Nearly all of them.
- I Am the Band: Perfume Genius is Mike Hadreas.
- Kids Are Cruel:"I can boil [high school] down to smoking a pack of Newports 200 yards away from campus, dodging spit and death threats from many white people wearing backwards hats."
- Loving a Shadow: "Sides."Where do you go sometimes?
Idle and empty-eyed?
Why still no love? - Murder Ballad: "Lookout, Lookout" is about murderess Mary Bell.
- New Sound Album: Too Bright is slightly more upbeat than his other works and features more of a noisy studio-based sound.
- Ugly Season is a largely instrumental, Genre-Busting album taking cues from Industrial, Ambient and contemporary Classical Music.
- One-Man Song: "Alan" and "Jason."
- Precocious Crush: "Mr. Peterson" is about Mike falling in love with the titular teacher, who let him smoke marijuana and made him a Joy Division tape.
- Soprano and Gravel: Subverted on "Sides," where Mike sings partially in falsetto and Weyes Blood sings in her lower register.
- Unrequited Love: "On the Floor" is about this.
