Khanoda (album)

Infobox Album |
Name = Khanoda
Type = Album
Artist = Khanoda


Released = October 31 1988 (Europe)
Recorded = 1988
Genre = Dance
Length = 39:15
Label = Creation Ltd. / Metropolis Muzik / TSR Records
Producer = Hugo Salvatore and James St. Vincent

Last album = -
This album = "Khanoda"
(1988)
Next album = "Lessons Learned On Leithgow St."
(1994)

"Khanoda" is the self-titled debut album by singer Khanoda, released on October 31st, 1988 (see 1988 in music). The album is currently out of print however Khanoda gained the rights to the original masters in 1998 when compiling tracks for the US and EU versions of Klosure.

Track listing

#"Make Up Your Mind" (Khanoda) – 4:48
#"Smile (Seeing Is Believing)" (Khanoda) – 4:16
#"That’s What I Call Love" (Khanoda) – 4:27
#"October" (Khanoda) – 7:13
#"Too Rich For My Blood" (Khanoda) – 5:08
#"Every time I Close My Eyes" (Khanoda) – 4:33
#"Do What You Feel" (Khanoda) – 5:42
#"I Feel (Standing)" (Khanoda) – 4:28

Album history

Following the minor success of his first single, "Do What You Feel," in Germany Khanoda was asked by producers Hugo Salvatore and James St. Vincent who produced the track to return to Europe to promote the single. While performing throughout Germany’s club circuit and live venues, Khanoda recorded new material with Salvatore and St. Vincent handling production duties, for what would become his first album. The result was a blast of heart thumping dance grooves inspired by the Chicago house movement that was sweeping through Europe in the late 1980’s courtesy of DJ/producers Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson, the latter forming the group Inner City. Lyrically, the album’s songs were provocative in its subject matter and laced with sexual innuendos. Tracks like “Feel” (“It doesn’t matter how you do it, so long as you do it to me, tonight”) and “Too Rich For My Blood” (“I felt the words drip from the tip of my tongue before I let it slip again”) made Khanoda seem older beyond his 16 years, which caused conflicts between him and Salvatore and St. Vincent who were aiming for a teen audience. Khanoda cites Prince as his influence early on stating:

:" [He] made sex sound like it was fun. I liked writing about it. I didn’t know what I was talking about at the time. Back then, the only person I was having sex with was me."

Though Khanoda wrote and performed on the album, he would have minimal involvement in its completion and release. Salvatore took a rough copy of the album, originally titled "Do What You Feel" to CBS Records in Germany marketing Khanoda, who was 16 at the time, as a teen pop artist in the same vein as Tommy Page and Debbie Gibson. The label offered Khanoda a deal to distribute the album both in Europe and United States on the condition that he would re-write the songs to be more “kid friendly” and go for a more pop oriented sound. Salvatore and St. James were willing to compromise, Khanoda initially went along however balked at the idea later insisting that the vision he had for the album, that was once shared by Salvatore and St. James, was no longer theirs. The duo ignored Khanoda’s complaints and began to re-record the album’s tracks. Rather than compromising himself, Khanoda left Germany and returned to the states much to the chagrin of Salvatore and St. James.

Without Khanoda on board to complete the album, CBS passed on working with Salvatore and St. James. Owning the rights to the album’s sound recording, the duo released the album now titled, “Khanoda” on their own label, Metropolis Muzik as Khanoda had originally envisioned. “Khanoda” was released under the terms made by Khanoda’s attorneys that it would not be released in the United States in order for Khanoda to pursue other musical ventures. The album’s cover is a painting by Hubert Julian Stowitts titled, “Princess Fay Yen Fah" from the opera "Fay Yen Fah." Khanoda came across the painting in an art book he was looking at during the recording sessions for “Khanoda.” St. Vincent sent a copy of the album to Khanoda with an inscription on the back reading: “Wie jede Oper gibt es immer Drama und mit jedem Drama gibt es immer eine Diva,” which loosely translates as, “Like every opera there is always drama, and with every drama there is always a Diva.” When released, the album went virtually unnoticed and failed to chart anywhere in Europe.

James St. Vincent died in 1989 from AIDS related pneumonia at the age of 28. Hugo Salvatore died of a heart attack in 1995, he was 54.

Critical response

"Like watching kiddie porn set to a disco beat…a delight for 13 year old girls and pedophiles alike," said one critic of Khanoda’s one US performance at the Painted Bride in Philadelphia in August 1988.

Album credits

Personnel

*Khanoda - vocals, background vocals, keyboards
*Hugo Salvatore - guitars, piano, string arrangement on “October,” background vocals
*James St. Vincent - drum programming, programming, sequencing, vocoder engineering, background vocals
*Markus Lofgren - Conductor on “October”
*Fili Hope - background vocals
*Marsha Dansk - background vocals
*Lilu Bega - background vocals
*Brenda Weathers - background vocals

Production

*Producers: Hugo Salvatore and James St. Vincent
*Engineers: Nils Kade and James St. Vincent

Design

*Front cover

*Back cover and inner sleeve images painted by: J. Martin Knefler
*Art direction: Dietrich Sholz and Wimmer Holsen

Album facts

*The song "Smile (Seeing Is Believing)" was remixed by a then relatively unknown William Orbit, however the song was never released. The melody to the chorus of Natalie Imbruglia's 1998 single "Smoke" sounds faintly reminiscent to that of 1988's "Smile".
*By 16, Khanoda’s voice was in the process of changing. By time “Do What You Feel” was released, which Khanoda had sound more like a pre-pubescent girl than a teenage boy, it had already changed to a lower register. To rectify the matter, producer Hugo Salvatore changed the pitch of Khanoda’s voice on the new material they were recording to match that of his singing on the first single.