MUSIC FROM SPACE: The Dresden Dolls - COIN-OPERATED BOY

Amanda Palmer is a very strange, very talented, very busy lady. She's currently promoting her solo album, Who Killed Amanda Palmer?, and recently completed work on a book of the same name (featuring artfully posed photos of herself dying, over and over again) with text by Coraline's Neil Gaiman. She's also at work on an honest-to-gosh high school musical, set to debut in May at Lexington High School in Lexington, Massachusetts. (Don't worry, she's not about to go all Vanessa Hudgens on us. She's going back to her old school to appear with current students in a musical about the fantasy life of Anne Frank, in a show that promises to be at least as dark and weird as everything else she's done.)

And somewhere in all that, Palmer still finds time to front the Dresden Dolls, the "Brechtian punk caberet" band that made her name a (haunted) household word. The band first got noticed in a big way with 2004's single Coin-Operated Boy, off their self-titled album. (Click the photo above or this text link to purchase the CD on Amazon.) The story of a girl so embittered by the search for love that she seeks solace in the arms of an endlessly accomodating gentleman made of plastic and elastic, it's a funny, sad and absolutely beautiful song.

Oh, and just for the sake of equal time... The crude, fratboyish yet also surprisingly sweet parody, Beer-Activated Girl.

Dresden Dolls - Coin-Operated Boy Music Videos SPIKE.com

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