Diamond Jubilee by Cindy Lee

Mystery and suspense have an affect on my musical tastes. I can’t define exactly what the impact is, but mystique adds a little something to the music. Underground or up-and-coming bands are part of it – getting to hear them before anyone else has. But there’s also something positive to a band themselves being mysterious. Look at Sault, for instance, who were #1 in 2022 and have appeared three other times on the list, despite not ever definitively naming the artists behind the music.

Cindy Lee, the artist whose unbelievably good double-album Diamond Jubilee shows up here at #7, brings mystery of a different kind: limited availability. You won’t find this album on any streaming sources (at least not legally – the artist is constantly having to fight fake accounts posting their beautiful work to Spotify). I first heard of the album from my friend Pete, via text back on April 12, of which he said “Interesting album” and linked me to the glowing Pitchfork review of the album (the 9.1 they gave the album is the highest rank of any album of the last four years — music discovery in 2024 is very different from music discovery of old.) At that time of the text, there were two ways to listen to the album: a full-album YouTube link (shown above, as it is literally the only video related to the album that has been put out, and whose 2-hour length breaks the mold on length of video posted on my site) or a freemium download from Cindy Lee’s Realistik Studios GeoCities website. Today, the only way to “own” the album is to purchase the album for download or on vinyl on Bandcamp – and I highly recommend that you do.

Cindy Lee is the alter ego of singer/songwriter Patrick Flegel. Flegel cross-dresses as Cindy Lee whenever he performs live, which is currently not often. When he released the album he booked a nationwide tour that started on April 6. On April 12, the Pitchfork review happened, changing the dynamic of the tour drastically. Just shy of a month later, on May 4, Flegel canceled the rest of the tour due to personal reasons. Between the canceled tour, and “going rogue” from the music industry (as Flegel has said in the past), it’s easy to draw conclusions that he is a recluse, scared of fame. Apparently at one of his last shows, Lee said on stage “I feel like a caged fucking animal,” which would seem to back up that story.

The album is a wonder to behold. It is free of time – it could have come out in 1965, 1985, or 2025. The album is two hours of non-stop jaw-dropping indie rock that Flegel mostly plays all by himself. The voice he brings to the songs – sometimes doo woo girl band (but with only one girl), sometimes folky Nico-esque, sometimes baritone crooner – is almost always sung with so much reverb it sounds like he’s standing in the back of a cavernous hall. The music is equally muted – sounding as if you’ve put on an aged vinyl record.

Diamond Jubilee is Cindy Lee’s seventh album. Only two of those albums are available for streaming, so this coy “just try and find me” vibe is not new. Despite all the hoops, Lee has built something magical here, and the people have come. Perhaps we’ll get something new from him yet, but honestly these two phenomenal hours will suit me just fine.