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Julee Cruise, otherworldly crooner on 'Twin Peaks,' dies at 65

Lars Gotrich

In the '90s, Julee Cruise filled in for The B-52s member Cindy Wilson on tour. The singer is best known for her work with David Lynch on Twin Peaks and Blue Velvet . Ted Town/Toronto Star via Getty Images hide caption

In the '90s, Julee Cruise filled in for The B-52s member Cindy Wilson on tour. The singer is best known for her work with David Lynch on Twin Peaks and Blue Velvet .

Julee Cruise, the singer best known for her collaborations with director David Lynch and The B-52s , died Thursday. Her husband, author Edward Grinnan, confirmed to NPR that Cruise died by suicide, and had struggled with "lupus, depression and alcohol and drug addiction" in the past. She was 65.

"She left this realm on her own terms," Grinnan wrote of Cruise in a Facebook post Thursday evening. "No regrets. She is at peace. I played her [the B-52s song] Roam during her transition. Now she will roam forever. Rest In Peace, my love, and love to you all."

Born Dec. 1, 1956 in Creston, Iowa, Cruise was known for her unusual vocal presence, so intensely calm and collected that it could be unsettling — which found a receptive audience in Lynch and score composer Angelo Badalamenti . For the 1986 film Blue Velvet , the two were looking to mimic the effect of This Mortal Coil's version of "Song to the Siren" by Tim Buckley , whose rights proved too costly to clear. The result of their collaboration was the original track " Mysteries of Love ," in which Cruise's dreamlike vocals are set to a slow-moving fog of romantic synths and strings.

Inspired, the trio worked together again on Floating into the Night , Cruise's solo debut. Released in 1989, the album includes songs from Blue Velvet and others that would be featured in Lynch's concert film Industrial Symphony No. 1 and, most famously, the early '90s touchstone Twin Peaks .

An instrumental version of "Falling" was used as the theme song for the ABC television series, and onscreen, Cruise became a regular feature at The Roadhouse, a home for the show's bikers and crooners. She would return for the series' later incarnations, the feature film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me and the 2017 limited series Twin Peaks: The Return .

"In the ruckus of beers flying through the air at The Roadhouse, we have Julee singing a beautiful, slow-tempo song, and it's so outrageous," Badalamenti shared with the academic journal Series in 2016 . "You would never have that kind of song in a place like that. The songs with Julee serve a two-fold purpose: They contrast the visuals and they set the tone for the show."

Cruise worked again with Lynch and Badalamenti for her 1993 album The Voice of Love , but after that she wouldn't release music again until The Art of Being a Girl (2002) and My Secret Life (2011). Those post-millennium albums, she said, were something of a reaction to time spent in what she called a "boy's club."

"It's not really about David or Angelo," Cruise told Pitchfork in 2018 . "It's about how we're perceived as women and also how we love women. It's about how I watched my predecessors fight: Madonna , Kim Gordon , Kate Pierson — who is a god and a force to be reckoned with. We're not followers, we're front-runners. I came out of the womb with my fists."

In addition to singing, Cruise was also a Broadway actress, a pilot and a dog trainer. In the '90s, she filled in as a touring member of The B-52s while Cindy Wilson — another tough singer drawn to blurring the lines between kitsch and fine art — focused on raising a family. It was "the happiest time of her performing life," Grinnan writes in his post. "She will be forever grateful to them. When she first stepped up to the mic with Fred [Schneider] and Kate she said it was like joining the Beatles. She will love them always and never forget their travels together around the world."

At the end of that Pitchfork interview, Cruise mused about her late father and her family's cemetery plot in Minneapolis. "We have our own great graveyard there," she said, "but I'm not gonna get buried. I'm going to have my ashes mixed in with my dogs. They're gonna spread my ashes across Arizona, and Arizona is going to turn blue."

If you or someone you know may be considering suicide, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 (En Español: 1-888-628-9454; Deaf and Hard of Hearing: 1-800-799-4889) or the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741.

• Julee Cruise

Julee Cruise, Singer and Frequent David Lynch Collaborator, Dead at 65

By Emily Zemler

Emily Zemler

Singer Julee Cruise , whose haunting voice made her a favorite of filmmaker David Lynch , has died at 65.

The news was confirmed by her husband, Edward Grinnan on Facebook , per The Guardian . “She left this realm on her own terms. No regrets,” he wrote. “She is at peace.” Grinnan added, “I played her [B-52’s song] ‘Roam’ during her transition. Now she will roam forever. Rest in peace, my love.”

Grinnan later told NPR that Cruise died by suicide after struggling with “lupus, depression and alcohol and drug addiction”; in 2018 Cruise shared on her Facebook page that she was suffering from systemic lupus and was having difficulty walking and standing.

“Deeply saddened by the passing of Julee Cruise today,” actor Kyle MacLachlan, who starred in Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks , wrote on Twitter . “Her angelic voice transported us all to another dimension. Now, she’s floating among the angels. Sending love to her family, friends, and fans today.” David Lynch also paid tribute to the “ great singer, and a great human being .”

Born in Iowa in 1956, Cruise worked with Lynch on several occasions. Her best-known song was “Falling,” released as part of her 1989 debut album Floating Into the Night . The instrumental version of the track, written by Angelo Badalamenti, was used as the theme to Lynch’s iconic 1990 TV series, Twin Peaks . She also appeared as a character on the series, reappearing 2001 spin-off film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me and Twin Peaks: The Return ,  a long-awaited third season of the show that premiered in 2017.

Prior to Twin Peaks , Lynch first utilized Cruise’s music for his 1986 film Blue Velvet , which prominently features her Badalamenti collaboration, “Mysteries of Love.” In 1990, the singer appeared alongside Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern as a character named “The Dreamself of the Heartbroken Woman” in Lynch’s avant-garde theater production, Industrial Symphony No 1.

Cruise worked with other filmmakers, as well. In 1991, she covered Elvis Presley ’s “Summer Kisses, Winter Tears” for the soundtrack of Wim Wenders’ Until the End of the World . Her second album, The Voice of Love , was released in 1993. Her third album, The Art of Being a Girl , didn’t come out until 2002.

Besides her own music, Cruise also performed with other artists. She toured with The B-52’s as Cindy Wilson’s stand-in from 1992 to 1999, and performed with Bobby McFerrin’s improvisational vocal group Voicestra/CircleSong.

In 2004, Cruise provided vocals alongside Pharrell on Handsome Boy Modeling School’s song “Class System.” Cruise’s final album was 2011’s  My Secret Life , a collaboration with Deee-lite’s DJ Dmitry.

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In 2018, Cruise released Three Demos,  a collection of three recordings Cruise cut with Lynch and Badalamenti between recording the song “Mysteries of Love” for  Blue Velvet and her debut album. It included include early versions of “Floating,” “The World Spins,” and “Falling.”

Badalamenti recalled how Lynch impacted the success of Floating Into the Night in a 2014 interview with  Rolling Stone . “It was obviously a different sound,” he said of Cruise’s music. “When it 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. But when ‘Falling’ came out as the main title theme of  Twin Peaks , that was a whole different story.”

In the same interview, Cruise noted she had heard her influence in the music that has come in the decades since with female singers. “They sing like sexy baby girls,” she said. “They all have their own personality.”

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Remembering Julee Cruise With 5 Essential Tracks

By Quinn Moreland

The word “ethereal” is frequently overused as a descriptor for songs that have gauzy vocals and a hint of the otherworldly. But if any musician truly deserved the adjective, it’s Julee Cruise . Born in Iowa in 1956, Cruise had a colorful career that included time spent studying the French horn, performing off-Broadway, filling in for the B-52’s singer Cindy Wilson, and recording an album with DJ Dmitry of the dance music group Deee-lite. But she was undoubtedly best known for her collaborations with composer Angelo Badalamenti and director David Lynch, including songs for Twin Peaks and Blue Velvet . Cruise’s soft-hued sadness has endured for decades, and it can be heard in the music of Lana Del Rey, Sky Ferreira, and Beach House, and more. “They sing like sexy baby girls,” she once said of her musical offspring. “They all have their own personality.”

Cruise passed away yesterday at the age of 65 . “She left this realm on her own terms. No regrets. She is at peace,” Cruise’s husband, Edward Grinnan wrote in a Facebook post. Since the news broke, tributes to the late singer have celebrated her ability to conjure dreams and nightmares. “It might be a good time to appreciate all the good music she made and remember her as being a great musician, great singer, and a great human being,” Lynch said in a video message. In that spirit, here are five songs that honor Cruise’s artistry.

“Mysteries of Love” (1986)

Lynch had originally wanted to use This Mortal Coil’s rendition of “Song to the Siren” in his 1986 film Blue Velvet , but after the rights proved to be too costly, he needed to find an equally spellbinding replacement. The director tasked songwriter Angelo Badalamenti with transforming a few of his abstract scribblings into something cohesive. Lynch’s directions for the sound were equally vague: “Oh, just make it like the wind, Angelo,” Badalamenti later recounted . “It should be a song that floats on the sea of time. Make it cosmic!”

Badalamenti had previously worked with Cruise on several projects and asked her for vocalist recommendations. When none of those potentials worked out, Cruise decided to give the song a try herself. But the singer—who had previously played Janis Joplin in a theatrical revue —was not “ comfortable singing real soft or real pretty.” Cruise had to adjust her entire vocal persona to capture the ballad’s intended softness; she later said she thought of it as “singing like the soloist in a boys’ choir.”

“Falling” (1989)

“Mysteries of Love” began a long-standing collaboration between Badalamenti, Lynch, and Cruise. The two men would go on to compose the music and lyrics for Cruise’s 1989 debut album, Floating Into the Night , which furthered her reputation as a dream pop icon. Several of that record’s tracks appeared in Lynch’s television series Twin Peaks, with an instrumental version of the haunting ballad “Falling” becoming the show’s theme. While the song’s opening notes immediately established Twin Peaks ’ eerie tone, Cruise’s radiant vocals elevated the track into a moment of transcendence. Her spine-tingling performance of the track in the Twin Peaks pilot became one of the show’s most iconic moments.

“Summer Kisses, Winter Tears” (1991)

By Alphonse Pierre

By Matthew Strauss

By Jazz Monroe

In between work on Twin Peaks , Badalamenti, Lynch, and Cruise collaborated on a cover of Elvis Presley’s “Summer Kisses, Winter Tears” for Wim Wenders’ sci-fi film Until the End of the World . There was always an element of nostalgia within the trio’s partnerships, so covering a song from 1960 about the fleetingness of romance was bound to succeed. Cruise’s spin on the classic transforms heartache into an existential question of cosmic significance.

“Questions in a World of Blue” (1992)

After the release of the 1992 prequel film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me , the trio returned to the studio with the intention of transforming songs from that film and 1990’s Wild at Heart into new material for Cruise. The result would be Cruise’s second album, The Voice of Love . On the penultimate track, “Questions in a World of Blue,” Cruise reflects on the ambiguous end of a relationship atop a quietly tragic arrangement: “How can love die? Was it me? Was it you?” Her return to The Roadhouse stage in Fire Walk With Me resulted in another beguiling, unforgettable moment.

“The Art of Being a Girl” (2002)

Cruise spent much of the ’90s filling in for the B-52’s Cindy Wilson, who took time away from the band to focus on raising her children. In 2002, Cruise released her third studio album, The Art of Being a Girl . In a sense, it was first solo work, made without contributions from Lynch and Badalamenti. The Art of Being a Girl ’s sonic shift towards trip-hop shows that Cruise’s interests went well beyond her reputation as an ingenue in the Lynchian universe. Talking about the album in 2018 , she said, “It’s about how we’re perceived as women and also how we love women. It’s about how I watched my predecessors fight: Madonna, Kim Gordon, Kate Pierson—who is a god and a force to be reckoned with. We’re not followers, we’re front-runners. I came out of the womb with my fists.” The Art of Being a Girl ’s strange and seductive title track satirizes feminine wiliness with lyrics like, “Use teardrops gently/But always get your way.”

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The Voice of Love: Remembering Julee Cruise with 7 Essential Tracks

A short retrospective on the Twin Peaks crooner, along with some of our favorite recordings from the late dream-pop icon.

Mysteries of Love (1986)

“Into The Night” (1989)

Summer Kisses, Winter Tears (1991)

“Until the End of the World” (1992)

Rockin’ Back Inside My Heart (Tibetan 12″ Mix) (1991)

Questions in a World of Blue (1993)

Falling (1989)

Home > Latest > Music > Music > The Voice of Love: Remembering Julee Cruise with 7 Essential Tracks

July 9, 2022 at 2:59 pm

A very nice voice but I much prefer Enya’s vocalizing to that of this young and talented woman. And on that note, I am even more enthusiastic about Connie Dover than Miss Cruise but Dover is a rare dove in a world of Crebain.

To say that I am enchanted by the instrument that is her voice is to damn that term with faint praise is all too true…She is a Goddess of Traditional American and Irish Music. If Athena sprank from the mind of Zeus then surely Connie was born of the musical Heart and Soul of the two Nations of America and Ireland.

But that takes nothing from Julee Cruise’s voice. It can be lovely but for me, Dover and Enya are…”Loverly”.

Thank your for a look at and a listen to of this talented and gone too soon lass, Julee Cruise.

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Julee Cruise’s angelic voice guided us through David Lynch’s American hell

The singer blended dream-pop with Americana to eerie effect, and Lynch’s uncanny work elevated her songs to the sublime

T he celestial sigh that we think of as the voice of Julee Cruise was a collaborative fiction. In 1986 David Lynch was obsessed with This Mortal Coil’s version of Song to the Siren, sung by Elizabeth Fraser, and desperate to feature it in his movie Blue Velvet but he couldn’t afford to license it. His plan B was to commission the composer Angelo Badalamenti to mimic the song’s peculiar, oceanic blend of bliss and oblivion. To complete the composition, Mysteries of Love, Badalamenti needed a very particular voice and he asked Julee Cruise to help him track one down.

Cruise thought her own would never work. Having appeared in children’s theatre and TV movies, the 29-year-old was an off-Broadway chorus girl with a voice for musical theatre and club tunes. She’d even played Janis Joplin on stage. But when nobody else could be found she agreed to try something completely different. “I’m anything anybody wants me to be and I’m going to be the best there is,” she told Pitchfork in 2018 .

Mysteries of Love proved even more ethereal than Song to the Siren, achieving the disembodied, immersive quality of ambient music even while using vocals and lyrics. Cruise isn’t so much singing as breathing to a melody. The effect was so distant from her usual voice that she had to approach it like an actor and inhabit a persona, which the trio nicknamed “the white angel”.

“What [Badalamenti] did with my voice was incredible,” Cruise said in 2005 . “I was a belter, and he turned my voice around and created that angelic sound. I wouldn’t have a career without him.”

Mysteries of Love was so captivating and otherworldly that Warner Bros Records offered Cruise a deal to make a whole album, with Lynch writing the lyrics and Badalamenti the music. They ended up working on three projects simultaneously – 1989’s Floating Into the Night, the theatre piece Industrial Symphony No 1 and the music to Lynch’s new TV series Twin Peaks – with songs and motifs flowing between them. Similarly, some of the music on Cruise’s 1993 follow-up, The Voice of Love, appeared in Lynch’s films Wild at Heart and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me. The trio also collaborated on a cover of Elvis Presley’s Summer Kisses, Winter Tears for the Wim Wenders movie Until the End of the World. For several years the three were a dream team.

The songs are exquisite in their own right but their indelible association with Lynch’s imagery makes them transcendent: it wasn’t until Twin Peaks mania broke out that Floating Into the Night became a hit. “It was so much fun to be part of something that just went ba-boom!” Cruise recalled in 2017. “You really didn’t know it was going to do that.”

During this period Lynch was obsessed with a dreamlike misremembering of the 1950s, in which wholesome innocence is eaten away by the uncanny and the outright horrific. Badalamenti translated this into music which combined tranquillity with menace. Cruise becomes our enigmatic ghost-guide, suffusing Lynch’s extremely simple lyrics with unfathomable longing. She was credited in Industrial Symphony No 1 as The Dreamself of the Heartbroken Woman and appeared as a roadhouse singer in Twin Peaks. “Julee Cruise, with her ethereal, angelic voice … to have her singing in a rough redneck bar … I mean, there’s no way in hell that would really happen,” Badalamenti told the NME in 2011 . “It’s the contrast that makes it work.”

Cruise’s songs still evoke a particular early-90s sensibility. In one direction, they were in conversation with the eerie Americana of Lynch soundtrack highlights such as Roy Orbison’s In Dreams and Chris Isaak’s quiff-rock throwback Wicked Game. In another, they spoke to the swooning dream-pop of Mazzy Star and the UK’s shoegazing scene. Lana Del Rey, for one, might not exist without that hybrid.

Cruise had a picaresque creative life beyond Lynchworld and the white angel. She toured with the B-52’s, duetted with Pharrell Williams, made a trip-hop album with Deee-Lite’s DJ Dmitry and played Andy Warhol in a stage musical, before retiring from performance due to systemic lupus. She was last seen by the public in familiar surroundings, reprising her old song The World Spins in 2017’s Twin Peaks: The Return, so it was painful to learn that she hated the episode and had fallen out with Lynch. “I will never perform again,” she wrote on Facebook. “I’m through with this!”

Sometimes Cruise seemed emphatically proud of her connection to Twin Peaks and sometimes sick of it but either way, that is how she will be best remembered. One day in 1986 she took on a vocal persona to help out a friend and it defined the rest of her life, plunging her deep into the dream-life of American culture.

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Julee Cruise, Singer Who Worked With David Lynch on ‘Twin Peaks’ and ‘Blue Velvet,’ Dies at 65

Julee Cruise , whose gorgeous collaborations with David Lynch elevated projects such as “ Blue Velvet ” and “ Twin Peaks ,” has died at 65 years old. Her husband, Edward Grinnant, revealed the news on a B-52’s Facebook page, as first reported by The Guardian . Cruise was an occasional touring member of the band, acting as Cindy Wilson’s stand-in on stretches from 1992 to 1999.

“For those of you who go back I thought you might want to know that I said goodby to my wife, Julee Cruise, today,” he wrote. “She left this realm on her own terms. No regrets. She is at peace. Having had such a varied music career she often said that the time she spent as a B filling in for Cindy while she was having a family was the happiest time of her performing life. She will be forever grateful to them. When she first stepped up to the mic with Fred and Kate she said it was like joining the Beatles. She will love them always and never forget their travels together around the world. I played her Roam during her transition. Now she will roam forever. Rest In Peace, my love, and love to you all.”

Lynch posted a video statement on YouTube on Friday: “I just found out that the great Julee Cruise passed away,” he said, amid long pauses. “Very sad news. So it might be a good time to appreciate all the good music she made, and remember her as being a great musician, great singer and great human being. Julee Cruise!”

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Cruise was best know for her collaborative work with Lynch. Her biggest hit was “Falling,” with music by “Twin Peaks” composer Angelo Badalamenti and lyrics by Lynch. An instrumental version of the song would become the indelible opening theme of “Peaks.” She also appeared on the show several times as a singer at the bar, and her music was included on the show and the soundtrack.

While Cruise’s name wasn’t as ubiquitous as the show’s central figure, Laura Palmer, her voice and enigmatic character on the show lent an eerie musical throughline to the beloved series.

As a recording artist, Cruise released four albums between 1989 and 2011. Her debut, “Floating Into the Night,” included “Falling,” which reached No. 11 on the U.S. Modern Rock chart in 1990.

That same year, Cruise performed the song on “Saturday Night Live,” filling in for Sinéad O’Connor, who backed out last minute in protest of the night’s guest host, Andrew Dice Clay.

Cruise returned to “Twin Peaks” in 2017 for the long-awaited third season of the series, which aired on Showtime (the original two seasons were on ABC). Her appearance included a performance of the song “The World Spins.”

The following year, she released an EP titled “Three Demos,” which features the original demo versions of her best-known work, “Falling,” “Floating” and “The World Spins.”

Cruise’s unique vocal stylings attracted a host of collaborators over the years, including DJ Dmitry and the bands Hybrid and Delerium. She can also be heard on Handsome Boy Modeling School’s song “Class System,” which was produced by Prince Paul and features Pharrell Williams.

Watch Cruise perform “Falling” live below:

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Singer Julee Cruise, who worked with David Lynch on Twin Peaks and Blue Velvet , dies at 65

Cruise's husband wrote on Facebook that "she left this realm on her own terms."

Julee Cruise, the singer with the etherial voice who worked with director David Lynch on Twin Peaks and Blue Velvet , died Thursday. She was 65.

Cruise's husband, Edward Grinnan, shared the news on Facebook , as first reported by The Guardian .

"For those of you who go back I thought you might want to know that I said goodby to my wife, Julee Cruise, today," he wrote. "She left this realm on her own terms. No regrets. She is at peace."

Cruise divulged on Facebook in 2018 that she had been struggling with systemic lupus erythematosus, the autoimmune disease that causes the immune system to attack its own tissues.

"I can. Hardly walk. And now it's difficult to stand," she wrote at the time, noting "the pain is so bad I cry and snap at people."

Cruise is best known for her collaborations with Lynch. Her song "Falling," the vocal version of Angelo Badalamenti's theme music for the Twin Peaks series, was featured on her debut album Floating Into the Night , released in 1989. Her other big collaboration with Lynch was on his 1986 film Blue Velvet ; the soundtrack featured her song "Mysteries of Love."

Cruise made appearances on Twin Peaks as a singer in the Roadhouse bar, as well as in 1992's Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me . The singer later returned for Twin Peaks: The Return in 2017 to perform "The World Spins."

"It's like I'm his little sister: you don't like your older brother telling you what to do," Cruise once told Pitchfork in a 2018 interview. "David's foppish. He can have these tantrums sometimes. And have you ever seen his temper? Anybody can look funny when they get mad. But I love him."

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Julee Cruise Dies: Haunting ‘Twin Peaks’, ‘Blue Velvet’ Singer Was 65

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Julee Cruise , whose ethereal singing could conjure both nostalgic innocence and a menacing present, making her an ideal musical collaborator for David Lynch and the Twin Peaks director’s go-to composer Angelo Badalamenti, died Thursday. She was 65.

Her death was announced on Facebook by husband, the author and editor Edward Grinnan. A cause of death was not disclosed, but Grinnan wrote, “She left this realm on her own terms. No regrets. She is at peace.” Cruise disclosed in 2018 that she suffered from systemic lupus.

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Grinnan posted the message on the Facebook page of the band the B-52s. During the 1990s, Cruise often performed with the band, filling in for original co-vocalist Cindy Wilson when needed.

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In the Facebook post, Grinnan wrote, “For those of you who go back I thought you might want to know that I said goodby to my wife, Julee Cruise, today. She left this realm on her own terms. No regrets. She is at peace. Having had such a varied music career she often said that the time she spent as a B filling in for Cindy while she was having a family was the happiest time of her performing life. She will be forever grateful to them. When she first stepped up to the mic with Fred [Schneider] and Kate [Pierson] she said it was like joining the Beatles. She will love them always and never forget their travels together around the world. I played her [the B-52s song] ‘Roam’ during her transition. Now she will roam forever. Rest In Peace, my love, and love to you all.”

Despite her stint with the New Wave band from Georgia, Cruise was best known for her collaborations with Lynch, first working with the director on the 1986 feature film Blue Velvet. Recommended by Badalamenti, with whom she had worked in the New York City theater scene, Cruise was recruited by Lynch to sing “Mysteries of Love”, the lovely, vaguely funereal song that ends the film.

Lynch and Badalamenti wrote additional songs for Cruise’s debut album, 1989’s Floating into the Night , and the three reteamed, perhaps most memorably, for Lynch’s groundbreaking and eccentric 1990-92 ABC television series Twin Peaks. Cruise provided the breathy vocals for the series’ songs “Into the Night” and “The Nightingale,” as well as for the soundtrack’s vocal version of the series’ instantly recognizable theme “Falling.”

Cruise made occasional appearances on the series as a local chanteuse, as she did in the 1992 feature film version Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me. Other Cruise songs would be used throughout the run of the series. She returned to the Lynchian universe for the 2017 Showtime revival Twin Peaks: The Return , performing the song “The World Spins.”

Following her 1989 debut album Floating into the Night , which included the Twin Peaks theme “Falling,” Cruise would go on to release additional LPs including The Voice of Love (1993),  The Art of Being a Girl (2002) and My Secret Life (2011). Over the years, she would collaborate with such musicians as Moby, the Welsh electronic music group Hybrid, former members of Deee-Lite, Pharrell Williams, and Depeche Mode’s Martin Gore, among others.

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Twin Peaks Icon Julee Cruise Dead at 65

Michael ausiello, president & editorial director.

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Singer Julee Cruise , best known for her collaborations with David Lynch , most notably via  Twin Peaks , has died. She was 65 . TV Stars We Lost in 2022 View Gallery 82 Images

Cruise’s death was confirmed by her husband Edward Grinnan on Facebook, according to The Guardian . “She left this realm on her own terms,” he wrote. “No regrets. She is at peace.”

In 2018, Cruise announced that she was battling Systemic Lupus. “I can… hardly walk,” she wrote on Facebook . “And now it’s difficult to stand… The pain is so bad I cry and snap at people.”

Featuring music by Angelo Badalamenti and lyrics by Lynch, an instrumental version of Cruise’s haunting 1989 track “Falling” was used as the theme to Twin Peaks.

Cruise made occasional appearances in the original, early ’90s  Twin Peaks  on ABC as a singer at local watering hole The Roadhouse, a role she reprised in the 2017 Showtime revival Twin Peaks: The Return . She also turned up in the 1992 film  Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me .

Cruise also collaborated with Lynch and Badalamenti on the former’s 1986 film Blue Velvet , which features her song “Mysteries of Love.”

“It’s like I’m his little sister: you don’t like your older brother telling you what to do,” Cruise reportedly said of her working relationship with Lynch. “David’s foppish. He can have these tantrums sometimes. And have you ever seen his temper? Anybody can look funny when they get mad. But I love him.”

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“ He said one day / ‘I’ll meet you’ / Our hearts will fly / With the nightingale / The nightingale / He told me / One day / ‘You will be with me’” You are a wonderful piece to the delightfully misshapen Lynchian puzzle. Sleep well, Julee.

Don’t forget that she also reinterpreted and sang the Psych theme song (Dual Spires episode).

She also filled in extensively for Cindy Wilson on tour with the B-52s in the 90s when Wilson left the band.

I still listen to Floating. A sad loss but she’s in a better place.

Sad to hear she was ill for her last years. I still listen to her CD, Floating into the Night, several times each year, as well as the original Twin Peaks soundtrack and her other albums. RIP, Julee.

Twin Peaks is truely perfection, Julee is a massive part of it. I know shes more than a tv show but twin peaks was my first introduction to her tallent . RIP

Possibly my all-time favorite theme song. I thought it was hauntingly beautiful. Sorry to read this news.

This is such sad news, I’m sorry she suffered so! As great as Twin Peaks is, it certainly would have been less so without her ethereal, haunting voice. R.I.P.

She was amazing. “Rockin’ Back Inside My Heart” is a personal favorite that I still listen to often. What a unique talent. She will be missed but forever immortalized in the works of David Lynch.

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Julee Cruise: Twin Peaks creator David Lynch pays tribute to 'great singer'

• Published 10 June 2022

Twin Peaks creator David Lynch has paid tribute to Julee Cruise, who recorded the TV show's haunting theme, as "a great musician, a great singer and a great human being".

Cruise sang Falling from Lynch's 1990 drama, with the song reaching the top 10 in the UK singles chart.

She also performed on the soundtrack to his 1986 film Blue Velvet.

Cruise's husband Edward Grinnan earlier wrote on Facebook that the 65-year-old had "left this realm on her own terms".

Musicians paying tribute included singer-songwriter John Grant, who said she was "one of the greatest".

In his tribute on YouTube, Lynch said: "I just found out that the great Julee Cruise passed away. Very sad news. So it might be a good time to appreciate all the good music she made and remember her as being a great musician, a great singer and a great human being."

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Cruise first collaborated with Lynch after working as a talent scout for composer Angelo Badalamenti, who had been asked to work on the song Mysteries of Love for the Blue Velvet soundtrack.

Cruise struggled to find a suitably ethereal vocalist, so decided to have a go at singing the track herself.

"I actually never sang in that trademark 'Julee Cruise voice' before I worked with Angelo and David," she told The Guardian in 2017 . "I was always a real belter, lots of power. Working with them changed me."

The trio worked together on the 1989 album Floating into the Night, with Lynch writing the lyrics and Badalamenti composing the music. The LP included Falling and other songs that would go on to feature in Twin Peaks the following year.

Cruise also had a small role in the series, and in the 1992 spin-off film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me and the 2017 revival Twin Peaks: The Return.

"It was so much fun to be part of something that just went ba-boom!" she told the Los Angeles Times in 2017. "You didn't know it was going to do that. What a nice surprise life takes you on."

• Rob da Bank: Why I love the Twin Peaks soundtrack so much

Cruise recorded a second solo album, The Voice of Love, with Lynch and Badalamenti in 1993, and Lynch directed her in an avant-garde one-hour concert film, Industrial Symphony No 1, in 1990.

Beyond those collaborations, she also toured with the B-52s, filling in for Cindy Wilson in the 1990s, and performed with Bobby McFerrin.

Edward Grinnan wrote on Facebook : "She left this realm on her own terms. No regrets. She is at peace.

"Having had such a varied music career she often said that the time she spent as a B, filling in for Cindy while she was having a family was the happiest time of her performing life."

Many other musicians paid tribute to her on Twitter.

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Julee cruise, frequent david lynch collaborator, dies at 65.

The instrumental version of Cruise's "Falling" was the title music for Lynch's 'Twin Peaks' series.

By Gil Kaufman, Billboard

Gil Kaufman, Billboard

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Julee Cruise, the alluring pop singer best known for her collaborations with avant garde director David Lynch , has died at age 65. The vocalist’s husband, Edward Grinnan, confirmed the news on Facebook on Thursday , writing, “I said goodby to my wife, Julee Cruise, today. She left this realm on her own terms. No regrets. She is at peace.”

Grinnan said Cruise’s time as a touring member of the B-52’s from 1992-1999 as a fill-in for member Cindy Wilson was the “happiest time of her performing life. She will be forever grateful to them. When she first stepped up to the mic with Fred and Kate she said it was like joining the Beatles. She will love them always and never forget their travels together around the world.”

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As a tribute, Grinnan said he played the Georgia band’s 1989 single “Roam” for Cruise as she transitioned. “Now she will roam forever,” he wrote. Cruise’s best-known work is her single “Falling,” whose instrumental version written by composer Angelo Badalamenti, served as the theme song for Lynch’s belovedly weird 1990 Twin Peaks TV series, later winning a Grammy for best pop instrumental. The singer with the haunting voice also had cameos as a roadhouse crooner in the series and the 1992 spinoff movie, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me ; she sang the closing credits on an episode of the 2017 Showtime TV reboot, Twin Peaks: the Return .

A vocal version of the the song with lyrics written by Lynch became a worldwide hit and was featured on Cruise’s 1989 debut album, the ethereal Floating Into the Night .

Cruise’s long association with Lynch and Badalamenti began in 1986 when Lynch was looking for a song to accompany a scene in his bizarro classic Blue Velvet .

Badalamenti, remembering Cruise from a New York theater workshop production he’d worked on, suggested her for the gig and the song they came up with, “Mysteries of Love,” which was also later featured on the Floating album; other tracks from that collection wound up in subsequent Lynch works, including “Rockin’ Back Inside My Heart,” “Into the Night” and “I Float Alone” in the director’s Industrial Symphony No. 1 .

The versatile actress and Broadway performer was born in Creston, Iowa on Dec. 1, 1956 and her other notable credits included singing the theme song for an episode of the USA Network drama Psych , covering Elvis Presley’s “Summer Kisses, Winter Tears” (produced by Lynch and Badalamenti) for the Wim Wenders movie Until the End of the World and collaborating with former Deee-lite DJ Dmitry on her fourth and final studio album, 2011’s My Secret Life .

Over the years, Cruise also collaborated with everyone from Moby to EDM group Hybrid, Delerium and Prince Paul’s Handsome boy Modeling School, among others.

The singer revealed in 2018 that she was battling systemic lupus , writing on Facebook at the time that she could “hardly walk… and now it’s difficult to stand. I can’t walk Gracie anymore. My spine is crumbling, and pinching on nerves.”

A version of this story first appeared on billboard.com

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Forgotten Classic: Julee Cruise ‘Floating Into The Night’

Despite the Korean war, the Suez crisis, and the Cuban revolution, the 1950s is often remembered as America’s age of innocence. Thanks to a growing middle class and a consumerist boom many citizens of the United States felt a sense of security in their socially conservative society, threatened only by the steady eastern breeze of communism. Rock ’n roll had broken into mainstream media, and, with it, the romantic notions of teenage lust, love and rebellion that would come to define youth culture in the 20th century.

Although often contemporary in their setting, the films of David Lynch bask in the rose-tinted haze of sleepy small-town living. In his alternate universe, time seems to fold in on itself, collapsing the years onto one another until an eerie temporal disorientation is achieved. But it’s not simply innocence that Lynch is interested in – rather the corruption of it, his work pitting clean-cut characters against a world filled with misery and perversion; blurring the lines until morality becomes terrifyingly hard to discern.

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If you know the imagery of Lynch, you know the sound of Julee Cruise. Alongside the instrumental work of Angelo Badalamenti, her voice has been a cornerstone of the filmmaker’s soundscape since lending its ethereal tone to ‘Mysteries of Love’ – a song written to replace This Mortal Coil’s ‘Song to the Siren’ in Lynch’s 1986 suburban nightmare, Blue Velvet . Taking a prominent place in the film’s final scenes, the dreamy composition earned a cult following and struck on a near-perfect symbiosis of image and sound.

Iowa-born Cruise had met Italian-American composer Badalamenti in a Broadway theatre workshop, both being veterans of performance and having helped stage a Janis Joplin revue together. Badalamenti had previously soundtracked films such as Gordon’s War and Law And Disorder in the 1970s and received little acclaim, but in 1986 an opportunity arose when he was hired by Lynch as a vocal coach to Blue Velvet ’s seductive star Isabella Rossellini. Throughout production Cruise’s talent became an essential part of the director and composer’s nascent mythology that would later reach its zenith on the cult TV series, Twin Peaks .

Sensing they were onto something special, the trio combined forces to help create polymath Cruise’s first full-length musical release. Lynch, who claimed to have “$700,000 in the bank” following Blue Velvet, hoped to creatively shape the album by contributing his lyrics and ideas. As Cruise recalls, his direction was a necessary influence: “When David came into the studio it made a big difference. It was really a great team because Angelo and I are so malleable and so good at being chameleons.” Lynch’s lyrical style drew on the romantic, lonely, and slightly surreal atmosphere he had honed on his recent masterpiece – often dwelling on themes of abandonment and lust leading naïvety astray.

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Album opener ‘Floating’ benefits particularly from the unique strengths of each contributor. Cruise’s somnambulant croon is a siren call, obscured by an impenetrable mist that only heightens her ethereality, whilst Lynch’s fatalistic lyrics toy with the well worn cliché of love as a burning, mesmerising flame. Meanwhile, the phantasmagoria of Badalamenti’s music takes the listener into the heart of the Overlook ballroom, evoking a sense of faded revelry that would later become a hallmark of his lounge jazz compositions such as ‘Audrey’s Dance’ and ‘Dance of the Dream Man’. The overall effect is arresting, tapping into a nostalgia for a time that, for many of us, is completely unknowable.

Floating Into The Night ’s most popular song, ‘Falling’, would be the gateway to Lynch’s next major project. Badalamenti had created the melodramatic musical sequence that would become the Twin Peaks title theme in response to the directors prompt of a young girl alone in the woods at night. In its album incarnation (released before the show) Cruise’s voice blends seamlessly with the synthetic bliss of Badalamenti’s composition, embodying the sweet vulnerability of teenage bewilderment. After its Grammy-winning instrumental became an iconic introduction to the show in 1990, the singer’s original became an unexpected global success, charting in fourteen countries worldwide, including Australia, where it peaked at number one in April 1991.

For better or worse, Twin Peaks would come to define the legacy of Floating Into The Night and the future of Cruise’s professional life. She appeared in the surreal soap-opera herself several times as a musical guest at the town’s smokey nightspot, The Roadhouse, and subsequently became a cult figure for diehard fans of the show (which was cancelled after just two seasons). Cruise has since held a complicated relationship with its legacy, grateful for the continued fanaticism of its audience yet wary of the pressures Twin Peaks has placed on her: “I don’t want that responsibility”. But despite the overbearing influence of Lynch and Badalamenti on her initial two album run, Floating Into The Night is undoubtedly Cruise’s shining moment. A captivating and evocative vocal talent, she imbues its leading role with the beguiling quality that makes the trio’s work so incredibly singular.

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Julee Cruise (1956-2022)

Music department.

IMDbPro Starmeter See rank

• Roadhouse Singer

• Soundtrack ("Mysteries of Love")

• Soundtrack ("Artificial World (Interdimensional Mix)")

• Julee Cruise
• 2017 • 1 ep

• The Dreamself of the Heartbroken Woman

• Girl Singer

• Old Rag Face

• Elspeth Grahame
• Mr. Otter (voice)

• The Queen of Hearts

• Gen. Jinjur

• perfomer: The World Spins & Falling

• performer: theme song

• performer: "Rockin' Back Inside My Heart"

• performer: "Into the Night"
• performer: "The World Spins"

• performer: "Falling"
• performer: "I Know You Know", "Kool Kat Walk"

• performer: "White Widow", "The World Spins"

• performer: "If I Survive"
• writer: "If I Survive"

• performer: "Never Let You Go", "Walking the Blue", "In Your World of Blue"
• writer: "Never Let You Go", "Walking the Blue", "In Your World of Blue"

• performer: "Nowhere"
• writer: "Nowhere"

• performer: "Artificial World (Interdimensional Mix)"
• writer: "Artificial World (Interdimensional Mix)"

• performer: "Up in Flames", "I Float Alone", "Into the Night", "Pinky's Bubble Egg (The Twins Spoke)", "Rockin' Back Inside My Heart", "The World Spins"
• Soundtrack ("Questions In A World Of Blue")

• performer: "Summer Kisses, Winter Tears"

Personal details

• France's national library catalogue
• December 1 , 1956
• Creston, Iowa, USA
• June 9 , 2022
• Pittsfield, Massachusetts, USA (suicide)
• Edward Grinnan 1988 - June 9, 2022 (her death)
• Other works Album, "The Art of Being a Girl," Water Music/Varèse Sarabande/Universal Records 060 282, 2002.
• 1 Pictorial
• 1 Magazine Cover Photo

Did you know

• Trivia Marcia Wallace ( Bob Newhart 's TV secretary) was her childhood babysitter.
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Blasts From the Past: 12 Key Collections, From Julee Cruise to the Who

Whitney Houston’s gospel music, Future’s prolific mixtape run, a chunk of Joni Mitchell’s archives and a soundtrack of Brooklyn’s early discos arrived in new packages this year.

By Jon Pareles ,  Jon Caramanica and Lindsay Zoladz

Artists were eager to revisit the past in 2023 — some tweaking recent albums (like Taylor Swift), others revisiting long-dormant work in the vaults (like the two surviving Beatles). Boxed sets and reissue collections serve a different purpose, helping put catalogs and musicians into context, and bringing fresh revelations to light. Here are a dozen of the best our critics encountered this year.

Julee Cruise, ‘Floating Into the Night’

(sacred bones; one lp, $22).

The absorbing, unconventional debut album from the deep-exhale vocalist Julee Cruise, who died in 2022 , was produced by Angelo Badalamenti and David Lynch; the three had previously collaborated on music for Lynch’s 1986 alt-noir film “Blue Velvet.” This batch of songs, released in 1989, plays as an extension of that fun-house mirror, lightly terrifying universe, with twisted 1950s melodies meeting destabilizing, plangent guitars meeting Dali-esque shimmers. “Falling” became the theme song for “Twin Peaks” in instrumental form, but its full vocal version is the essential one. Songs like that, “The Nightingale” and “Into the Night” feel, even now, sui generis — not exactly dream-pop or new age, but something utterly amniotic. And lightly harrowing, too. JON CARAMANICA

DeYarmond Edison, ‘Epoch’

(jagjaguwar; five lps, four cds, 120-page book, $130).

Bon Iver didn’t come out of nowhere. Before he started that project, Justin Vernon was in DeYarmond Edison, a pensive, folky but exploratory band that made two albums before splitting up; other members formed Megafaun. DeYarmond Edison — Vernon’s middle names — delved into folk, rock, Minimalism and bluegrass, learning traditional songs but also experimenting with phase patterns. It made two studio albums and left behind other songs, including “Epoch.” This extensively annotated boxed set includes songs from Mount Vernon, DeYarmond Edison’s jammy predecessor, along with DeYarmond Edison’s full second studio album (though only part of its first), unreleased demos, intimate concerts, collaborations outside the band and Vernon’s 2006 solo recordings . It’s a chronicle that opens up the sources of a style getting forged. JON PARELES

Future, ‘Monster,’ ‘Beast Mode’ and ‘56 Nights’

(epic; one lp each, $21.98).

During six months in the mid-2010s, the Atlanta hip-hop escapist Future remade himself during a daring and powerful three-mixtape run. He’d come into this stretch flirting with pop acclaim, but emerged something like a folk hero. There are some true hits on these releases, including the narcoleptic, charming “Codeine Crazy” and the ecstatic yelp “March Madness.” But lesser-heard songs like the howling “No Compadre,” the melancholic “Where I Came From” and the antic “Wesley Presley” are almost as effective. And Future’s sheer volume of recording, leaning on producers like Zaytoven and Southside, showed the versatility and relentlessness that still makes him a star almost a decade later. The quirky persistence of physical media — as decoration and historical codification and perhaps even as music delivery vehicle — means that mixtapes, when they’re important enough, end up getting hard-pressed into vinyl. So for the first time, these mixtapes (or slightly streamlined versions of them, alas) are officially available for physical collections, not just virtual ones. CARAMANICA

Nanci Griffith, ‘Working in Corners’

(craft recordings; four cds, $55; four lps, $125).

The Texas-born singer-songwriter Nanci Griffith, who died in 2021 at age 68, sometimes called her music “folkabilly” — a fitting description for a sound that blended reverent traditionalism with honky-tonk sweat. Though beloved by a devoted cult audience, Griffith mostly flew under the radar of the mainstream, so the recently released boxed set “Working in Corners” provides a welcome opportunity to reassess her legacy. Included here are Griffith’s first four albums, some of which have long been out of print, along with liner notes that put them in their proper context. Stretching from 1978, when Griffith was a budding folk revivalist with a penchant for sparse arrangements, to 1986, when she had blossomed into a confident country bandleader with a short-story-writer’s eye for evocative detail, “Working in Corners” charts the steady development of Griffith’s resounding talent. LINDSAY ZOLADZ

Whitney Houston, ‘I Go to the Rock: The Gospel Music of Whitney Houston’

(gaither music group/arista/legacy recordings; cd, $13.99; dvd, $19.99; both $29.95).

“Do you like gospel music?” Whitney Houston asked an audience at the Yokohama Arena in Japan in January 1990, before launching into an ecstatic six-minute medley of the devotional standards “He” and “I Believe.” This live recording is one of the six previously unreleased tracks featured on “I Go to the Rock,” a career-spanning compilation that centers Houston’s lifelong connection to gospel music. (A concurrently released DVD provides additional commentary.) The set features several familiar tracks from the 1996 soundtrack of “The Preacher’s Wife” — still the best-selling gospel album of all time — and two never-before-released performances from Houston’s 1995 “VH1 Honors” concert, including a rousing duet of “Bridge Over Troubled Water” with CeCe Winans. But the album’s most precious gem is “Testimony,” an upbeat, foot-stomping song Houston recorded in 1981, when she was just 17. Her voice, fascinatingly, was still unformed compared to the immaculate instrument she’d soon learn how to command, but, as ever, it was alive with passion and spirit. ZOLADZ

Joni Mitchell, ‘Archives, Vol. 3: The Asylum Years (1972-1975)’

(rhino; five cds, $69.98; four lps, $99.98).

For Joni Mitchell, the period from 1972 and 1975 was a time of personal transformation and creative metamorphosis. The three exquisite, wildly different studio albums she released in that era — the solitary meditation “For the Roses,” the lively and openhearted “Court and Spark,” the searchingly experimental “Hissing of Summer Lawns” — tell the broad arc of the story, but this crucial and expansive boxed set fills in the details. Highlights include jam sessions with James Taylor and Neil Young (whose weeping guitar licks and harmonica turn the playful “You Turn Me On, I’m a Radio” into something else entirely ); a crystalline 1972 Carnegie Hall show and a more rollicking 1974 set at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles; and early demos of future Mitchell classics like “Help Me,” “Lesson in Survival” and “The Jungle Line.” Across nearly six hours of chronologically arranged material, Mitchell’s music steadily cuts its own winding path from poetic folk toward pop-minded jazz, anticipating her late-70s work with Wayne Shorter, Jaco Pastorius and Charles Mingus. These years represent rapid growth, and this set provides an intimate look at Mitchell’s process — a rare opportunity to listen in as she perfects some of her most daring and enduring work. ZOLADZ

Chalino Sánchez, ‘15 Éxitos 15’

(musart/craft; two lps, $50).

Chalino Sánchez was a singer of narcocorridos — tales of the drug trade — and also of deeply romantic and anguished ballads. He was killed in 1992 at age 31, and for all his success during his lifetime, death amplified his legend, ensuring that his elegantly sung songs and take-no-guff persona became a crucial part of the foundation for the Mexican and Mexican American music that arrived in his wake. In spirit, and sometimes in sound, Sánchez is one of the key precursors to the corridos tumbados movement that’s currently taking traditional Mexican music worldwide . This is the first time this anthology of songs recorded throughout his career — originally released in 1995, three years after Sánchez was killed — has appeared on vinyl, in an exclusive from Vinyl Me, Please. It is a blistering showcase of his wide and expressive voice, whether on the deeply sad “Nieves de Enero” and “Alma Enamorada,” or on the pride-filled tribute “A Todo Sinaloa.” CARAMANICA

Various Artists, ‘The Memphis Blues Box: Original Recordings First Released on 78s and 45s, 1914-1969’

(bear family; 20 cds and 360-page hardcover book, $283).

This monumental collection — 534 well-chosen songs with an encyclopedic book — covers more than half a century of blues recorded in Memphis, with performers both well-known (B.B. King, Furry Lewis, Memphis Minnie, Elvis Presley, Ike and Tina Turner) and barely remembered. There were some constants through the decades: songs about loving, cheating, drinking, hard work and hard times. But the set also chronicles a genre solidifying and defining itself, as the variety of the 1920s and 1930s — with jug bands, string bands, jazz combos, barrelhouse piano, kazoos and clarinets — narrows into guitar-centered 12-bar shuffles and boogies, all sung with striking voices and wry resilience. PARELES

Various Artists, ‘Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night: Brooklyn Disco 1974-5’

(ace; one cd, $15; two lps, $34).

Tony Manero would have never sashayed his way through Bay Ridge in “Saturday Night Fever” without the highly theatrical, occasionally lurid 1976 New York magazine article, written by Nik Cohn, about the emergent proto-disco nightclubs in Brooklyn. This compilation (which shares its name with that article) is an approximation of what was playing in those outer-borough rooms — highly sensual, up-tempo soul music pulsing with lustrous string sections and singing that blended ache with pride. “After You’ve Had Your Fling (Get Down to the Real Thing),” by the Intrepids, begins as a taunt and ends in a pool of ecstasy. “Wake Up Everybody,” by Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes, is dynamic but not quite explosive, regal but not quite rocking. In total, these songs capture a moment before the disco sound coalesced into something shimmery and a touch saccharine, underscoring its foundation as thrilling, swelling music to sweat to. (Brief excerpts from Cohn’s article are sprinkled throughout the liner notes, but a full reprint would have been welcome, even though the copy concedes the piece “was sold as fact but was fictional.”) CARAMANICA

Various Artists, ‘Written in Their Soul: The Stax Songwriter Demos’

(craft; seven cds, $90; digital download, $70).

Songs have to start somewhere. East/Memphis Music, the publishing arm of Stax Records, kept copies of hundreds of demos from the 1960s and 1970s: solo home recordings and tracks roughed out with Stax studio stalwarts, hi-fi and lo-fi, chosen to become singles or left on the shelf. This set gathers 146 of them: some that clearly mapped the finished versions, some that would be recast and some that hold tantalizing unrealized possibilities. It’s a chance to hear the voices of songwriters who largely stayed behind the scenes, like Bettye Crutcher, Homer Banks and Mack Rice. It’s also a tribute to the Stax studio teamwork that would go on to punch up these demos into finished songs. PARELES

War, ‘The World Is a Ghetto: 50th Anniversary Collector’s Edition — The Complete Sessions’

(rhino; five lps, $125).

The long-running Los Angeles band War came up with hybrid grooves — funk-Latin-blues-rock-gospel-reggae-soul — that sounded as casual as block-party jam sessions. But they weren’t. War’s 1972 album, “The World Is a Ghetto,” went to No. 1 with hits built on those grooves, including “Low Rider” and “The Cisco Kid.” The expanded reissue includes an LP of outtakes and, for each of its six songs, a 25-minute montage of session material. The songs take shape as the band chooses sounds, toys with riffs and rhythms, reworks lyrics and tightens up every syncopation; they’re jovial, but they’re doing the work. PARELES

The Who, ‘Who’s Next/Life House’

(geffen; 10 cds, 1 blu-ray audio, 100-page hardcover book, $300).

Pete Townshend had vast ambitions for the Who’s studio follow-up to the rock opera “Tommy,” but cooler heads prevailed and it was cut back to a concept-free single album: “Who’s Next,” a pinnacle of the band’s career. In 1970, long before the internet, Townshend envisioned “Life House” as a high-tech parable about ecological disaster, tyranny, virtual entertainment and the healing communal power of live rock music, which he wanted to generate with crowdsourced information from concert workshops. He also leaped into early synthesizer technology. Townshend never quite let go of “Life House”; he has released parts of it on solo collections, and this year he also collaborated on turning its story into a graphic novel . This exhaustive boxed set unites “Who’s Next” with the whole painstaking process before it: demos, instrumentals, discarded songs with elements that would resurface elsewhere, variations and ferocious live workshop concerts at small theaters, along with spatialized Blu-ray remixes. It’s a deep dive into Townshend’s intense, convoluted creative efforts. The extended instrumental versions of the electronics-driven “Baba O’Riley” are spectacular; so is the live, muscular and metaphysical “Time Is Passing.” PARELES

An earlier version of this article misstated the name of a Stax songwriter and musician. It is Mack Rice, not Max.

How we handle corrections

Jon Pareles has been The Times’s chief pop music critic since 1988. A musician, he has played in rock bands, jazz groups and classical ensembles. He majored in music at Yale University. More about Jon Pareles

Jon Caramanica is a pop music critic for The Times and the host of the “Popcast” podcast. He also writes the men's Critical Shopper column for Styles. He previously worked for Vibe magazine, and has written for the Village Voice, Spin, XXL and more. More about Jon Caramanica

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'Twin Peaks' Theme Song Singer Julee Cruise Passed Away at 65 Years Old

Jun. 10 2022, Published 11:21 a.m. ET

During the late 1980s and early 1990s, Julee Cruise was a force to be reckoned with in the music world. Critically lauded for her collaborations with famed composer Angelo Badalamenti as well as respected film director David Lynch, Julee released a total of four studio albums and was most famous for singing the theme song for Twin Peaks .

Unfortunately, Julee passed away on June 9, 2022, at 65 years old, leaving behind an undeniable legacy as a successful music artist. With that being said, what was Julee's cause of death? Keep reading for all of the known details.

What was Julee Cruise's cause of death?

Unfortunately, a confirmed cause of death for Julee has not been shared as of the time of writing.

Her death was announced by her husband, Edward Grinnan, who wrote a post on Facebook, per The Guardian , that read: "She left this realm on her own terms. No regrets. She is at peace … I played her [B-52s song] 'Roam' during her transition. Now she will roam forever. Rest in peace, my love." (Julee had performed as a stand-in for the B-52s' Cindy Wilson during their tours from 1992 to 1999, per Rolling Stone .)

Although we cannot confirm Julee's cause of death, there is some context into her medical history when we take a look back at her past Facebook posts. One post from 2018 sees Julee reveal that she was diagnosed with lupus.

"I have systemic lupus," she wrote at the time. "... [M]y superstar doctor, and he really is, has tried his best. I can hardly walk, and now it's difficult to stand. I can't walk Gracie anymore. My spine is crumbling and pinching on nerves."

During a 2018 interview with Pitchfork , Julee said that dealing with lupus and steroids had left her with the "bones of an 85-year-old woman at 33" and that she had to take "mega amounts" of anti-inflammatory drugs to numb the pain.

"It's going to give me liver cancer before I ever die of kidney failure from lupus," she told the publication. "I’m f---ed either way, but I still look great [ laughs ]."

Our thoughts are with Julee's family, friends, and fans during this difficult time.

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Suri Cruise chats with friends in NYC days before her 18th birthday

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Suri Cruise was all smiles while out and about in New York City with friends ahead of her 18th birthday.

Crusie looked the spitting image of mom Katie Holmes while spending Sunday alongside a gaggle of her girlfriends in Soho.

The teenager, whose birthday is April 18, dressed casually cool in a red sweater with white vertical stripes, a white silk skirt and brown sandals.

She kept her dark brown hair down in loose waves, pinning her front pieces back with two hair clips.

The group seemingly stopped at a couple of shops and cafes as they embraced one of NYC’s first sunny spring days.

While it’s unclear how the teen will be spending her big birthday, it likely won’t be with her famous father, Tom Cruise.

Page Six revealed last year that Suri has been estranged  from the “Mission Impossible” star for years.

While a source told us at the time that Tom has played “no part” in his daughter’s life, another Hollywood insider told us this week that the father-daughter duo haven’t seen each other since 2012.

“Katie has safeguarded Suri and she’s a devoted mom,” the source said. “This is a girl who is a private citizen. She hasn’t lived her life in public.”

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Want celebrity news as it breaks? Hooked on Housewives?

Suri has lived a low-key lifestyle with her mother in New York ever since the “Dawson’s Creek” alum filed for divorce from Tom in 2012 — allegedly due to his involvement with Scientology.

Despite being raised in the public eye — even appearing on Vanity Fair as an infant — Holmes has since shielded her daughter from the spotlight.

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“I’m very grateful to be a parent, to be her parent. She’s an incredible person. She’s my heart,” Holmes told  Glamour  magazine in 2023.

The mother of one explained that feels the need to “protect” Suri from the limelight “because she was so visible at a young age.”

Although the teen has distanced herself from her dad, she is seemingly getting into the family business.

Page Six revealed in December 2023 that Suri inherited her parents’ acting chops, starring as the lead in her high school play.

“She was amazing,” one impressed audience member said of her portrayal of Morticia Addams in “The Addams Family: A New Musical.” 

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