No Wave singer Cristina, AKA Cristina Monet-Palaci, was a Franco-American Harvard drop-out, lingerie model and writer for the Village Voice when she recorded her legendarily cynical version of the Peggy Lee standard “Is That All There Is?” in 1980. The witty, sardonic remake was produced by August Darnell (better known in his guise as Kid Creole) and released on ZE Records, the label run by her boyfriend/later husband Michael Zilkha.

On “Is That All There Is?” Cristina emotes like a world-weary debutante on a coke jag. One reviewer wrote “If Jackie Kennedy had made a record, it would sound like this.” True, but a slightly more decadent Jackie O… this is not middling boredom on display, this is ennui deluxe!

Celebrated songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller were so furious when the original lyrics of their 1969 Grammy-winner: “Then I fell in love with the most wonderful boy in the world. We would take long walks by the river or just sit for hours gazing into each other’s eyes. We were so very much in love” became “And then I met the most wonderful boy in Manhattan. We used to walk by the river, and he beat me black and blue and I loved it. I could kill for that guy,” that they had an injunction against the recording that lasted for 24 years.

This 12” record used to be so difficult to find that when you could locate it, it would sell for $100 bucks. It was practically a requirement for serious record collectors to have a copy. Despite the relative scarcity of the vinyl, the song became a cult hit in New York clubs and was a signature tune played frequently during Rodney Bingenheimer’s early 80s “Rodney on the Roq” radio shows. To this day, it is apparently still the record holder of the top requested song title on BBC Radio 1.