With his fifth album, Set My Heart On Fire Immediately, Perfume Genius (38-year-old Mike Hadreas), has made what some consider his mid-life crisis record. Indeed, the first line of the album is Mike murmuring, “Half of my whole life is gone”.
Prolific, this is Hadreas’ fifth album since his critically acclaimed debut, Learning in 2010. For the last decade he’s been singing openly gay pop - long before it became acceptable on the mainstream pop charts.
On his second album, Put Your Back N 2 It in 2012, Mike famously cast gay porn star, Arpad Miklos as his love interest in the video for the single Hood. (Sadly, Miklos died a year later from suicide.)