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Cristina, the new wave singer best known for the music she released on ZE Records, has died. ZE Records co-founder Michael Esteban confirmed the news on Facebook. People close to Cristina say she died of COVID-19 complications. She was 61.
Cristina Monet-Palaci grew up spending time between the U.S., Italy, France, and England. After studying drama at the Central School in London, she went to Harvard. That’s where she met Michael Zilkha, co-founder of ZE Records. She was the singer of the label’s first release, the 1978 single “Disco Clone.” Her debut album, 1980’s Doll in the Box, was produced by August Darnell of Kid Creole and the Coconuts. It featured her cover of the Peggy Lee single “Is That All There Is.” That same year she released a cover of the Beatles’ “Drive My Car” as a single. Her Don Was-produced 1984 album Sleep It Off—her last album that featured the single “Things Fall Apart”—followed. She was married to Zilkha from 1983 to 1990.
Cristina described her synth pop music as “cynical.” The first song on Sleep It Off, for example, begins, “My life is in a turmoil/My thighs are black and blue/My sheets are stained so is my brain/What’s a girl to do?” In a 1984 New York Magazine feature, Cristina discussed her disinterest in the hit records of that era. “Rock is full of rich people still writing about railroad tracks,” she said. “There’s very little irony in pop music now. I don’t see why somebody can’t write about gossip phenomena with a bleak sense of humor?”