Duncan Sheik, singer and composer of Spring Awakening, dies at 56 | Music
Duncan Sheik, the singer-songwriter behind the 90s alt-pop touchstone Barely Breathing and the composer of the Tony-winning musical Spring Awakening, died on Thursday at a Manhattan hospital. He was 56.
His loss of life, from organ failure, was confirmed to the New York Times by his mom Suzanne Sheik.
According to Sheik’s social media, the musician was out and in of the hospital during the last month. On 20 August, he posted a photograph captioned: “I would like to be dwelling making music. But a little bit of reflection will not be too unhealthy … boring hospital stays have their advantages (exterior the apparent).” His crew confirmed on Wednesday, a day earlier than his loss of life, that he was in “essential however secure situation”.
Cerebral and soft-spoken, with a semiotics diploma from Brown, Sheik was maybe an unlikely star when he moved to LA in 1992 to document a demo, after taking part in backup guitar for pal and fellow classmate Lisa Loeb. But he shot to fame together with his self-titled debut album, an introspective various to the brash and distorted sound of grunge that permeated the last decade.
The single Barely Breathing, a sweet-sounding however deceptively uncooked portrait of a relationship’s finish, grew to become a radio staple, staying on the Billboard Hot 100 for 55 weeks – the fourth longest-ever run, on the time.
But Sheik chafed towards the expectations of an MTV heartthrob and standing as a delicate intercourse image, and by decade’s finish felt adrift as pop music gravitated towards the extra overtly synthetic pop sounds of the Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears. “I assumed, I’m not going to win on this recreation of making an attempt to be Justin Timberlake,” he informed the Houston Chronicle in 2022. “Maybe I ought to try to do one thing totally different.”
Along with the poet and playwright Steven Sater, with whom he collaborated on his 2001 album Phantom Moon, Sheik started creating a musical primarily based on Spring Awakening, Frank Wedekind’s 1891 play on the tortuous sexual flowering of a bunch of German youngsters that was outlawed for obscenity in its time.
The ensuing present, a heady rock musical that touched on such taboo matters as abortion, abuse and suicide, grew to become an instantaneous hit in 2006, successful eight Tony awards, together with greatest musical. The present ran for over two years, turning then-unknown actors Lea Michele and Jonathan Groff into Broadway stars, and was revived in 2015; a brand new off-Broadway manufacturing opens this November.
Sheik went on to compose a number of extra musicals, together with Alice By Heart, a model of Alice in Wonderland set in second global community war-era London that premiered on Broadway in 2019, and American Psycho, an adaptation of the Bret Easton Ellis novel. He additionally continued to launch non-theater music, together with a 2011 assortment of covers by 80s British acts resembling Depeche Mode and Tears for Fears. His last album, the ambient Claptrap, was launched in 2022.
