NEXT MAGAZINE

YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH!Michael M. keeps it real (perhaps too real) on “Dear Diary.”
The glamorous life?
Had a cocktail. / Did a bump.With those six simple words, vocalist Michael M. ignited a firestorm in clubland—and the inferno isn’t likely to die down anytime soon. The lyric is part of “Dear Diary,” a tune about going out, getting clobbered and etching another sliver in the headboard after another meaningless dance-floor hookup following a night of shameless promotion. In other words, according to Michael: another typical night out. “In dance music we tend to do songs about ‘feeling higher’ with lyrics like ‘set you free’ and ‘everybody dance,’” Michael muses. “But the truth is there’s a lot of shady stuff going on in our lives everyday. People might think someone who is a club promoter leads a life that’s glamorous and they wish they could have their money or their fame, but you don’t know the hell they’re going through to keep that up.”
He should know. As a marketing and promotions maven in his present residence of Miami, Michael M.’s roots date back to New York in its heyday of anything-goes big-room debauchery. “I got my start as a club kid passing out flyers back in 1992,” he recounts. “I did the whole Michael Alig, Webster Hall, Limelight, Club USA, Tunnel thing when it was okay to wear platform shoes, take a roofie and fall flat on your face—that was my time!”
In the years since, Michael traded tranquilizers for dance tracks, lending his voice to cuts such as “Let’s Talk About Me” on the now-definct Strictly Rhythm label and the more recent “The DJ Lets You Have It,” released in 2003 on Harlequin Records. But whereas the success of his prior endeavors was due largely to the big-name producers behind the beats, with the release of the Giuseppe D. produced, electro-infused “Dear Diary,” the vocalist has found a great deal of attention placed squarely on him—and the six words comprising that controversial lyric.
“There’s a serious message behind the track overall,” Michael defends. “If you can get past [the lyric], you find that it’s not a glamorous song at all. Most of the song is about going out and being plastic and the guy you’ve been waiting for all night never calls so you have to go and find another trick—it’s the truth, and if it’s not happening to you, then it’s happening to someone you know. I got the best feedback from the track from DJs and promoters who heard the song and told me, ‘This is my life! I go out every weekend and talk shit with people I don’t even like!”
For all the haters still not convinced of the song’s sarcasm, Michael offers a comparison any queen can comprehend: “What about a show like Absolutely Fabulous? When you really look at it, it’s a show about an alcoholic middle-aged woman with a drug-addicted friend, but we think it’s hilarious!”
Beneath the sorrow and darkness, there is an undeniable humor in “Dear Diary.” After all, some of the greatest comedy possesses an element of genuine tragedy (a pie in the face is funny to everyone but the person getting creamed)—a fact of which Michael M. is well aware. “It took me a while to say to myself, ‘I’m campy, people like it, get over it!’” he laughs. “And if I get flak for being the Jose Canseco of dance music for this, then that’s just the way it goes.”
“Dear Diary” is available at beatport.com.
Visit amplituderecordings.com for more info.