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To devote your life to art you have to be a little loopy, so it stands to reason that most entertainers are half insane. That’s your soul up there onstage or on the big screen, and it takes a lot of balls and maybe just a touch of madness to even try to pull it off.
Of course I make no claim to the actual mental states of the following performers. But if allowed to indulge my latent arm chair psychologist, here are a smattering of musicians who toe that narrow line between ingenuity and insanity.
Lady Gaga:
Believing you’re the adopted mother of every aberrant personality from one side of the globe to the other is much more annoying than Madonna hitting her head and believing that she is Evita Peron and was born on the English country side. And apparently just as profitable, considering that Lady Gaga has brow beaten her way into our hearts despite the fact that her music is your standard pop fare, albeit with a bunch of paper mache dongs stapled onto it. Clearly suffers from delusions of grandeur except, you know, they’re no longer delusions.
Tyler the Creator:
Mr. the Creator should probably see someone about his epic mood swings. This Twitter fixture has made an art out the 140 character nervous breakdown; one minute he is taunting fans because they’ll most likely never ascend to his lofty heights, the next he is cursing himself for imagined failures. If I wanted to listen to the ramblings of a bi-polar asshole I’d turn off the computer and sit in a dark room with my thoughts.
Eminem:
I don’t find Marshall Mathers crazy because he threatened his wife and mother in song, nor due to his strange fascination with death, nor his erratic outbursts. I find him a bit kooky because he succumbed to plastic surgery, a rarity for tougher than nails rappers, and remarried his troubled former wife, only to divorce her again in record time. This just proves you can take the boy out of the rough neck, white trash enclave, but you can’t make him behave like any less of an asshole.
Josh Homme:
Am I the only person who thinks that at least three of the lifetime members of Queens of the Stone Age have probably killed someone? But let’s focus on Josh; prone to sexy fits of rage and threatening ass rape on men. Physically imposing, could probably stuff someone into a trunk before they had a chance to ask what happened to Nick Oliveri. Like Ted Bundy with an electric guitar.
Jack White:
Total Phil Spector type. I can see White years from now donning some kind of gravity defying hair do, denying his involvement in the mysterious death of the coffee barista that had been squatting in his foyer for the last few months. No officer, I have no idea how that kitchen knife made it into her back 72 times, but I do recall her saying how depressed she was right before.
Kanye West:
Like Lady Gaga before him, Mr. West seems to believe he was fast tracked to our planet by some benevolent being in order to make our lives that much more meaningful. Unlike Ms. Gaga, the public is already sick of his shit. Proclaiming that George W. Bush did not in fact like black people was acceptable to a great many. Rushing the stage to deny dewy woodland creature Taylor Swift her moment in the sun was not, proving that physically attractive white girls trump dullard presidents every time.
Genesis Breyer P-orridge:
This is like saying water is wet, but come on. Had surgery to look more like his girlfriend, with whom he shared a name. Fronted the most disturbing band in the history of music, and this is coming from someone stood right in front of the speaker at a Khanate concert. Seriously, have you ever heard a Throbbing Gristle track? My favorite is Hamburger Lady, give it a spin at your next hipster gathering and watch the more sensitive types lose their shit, both figuratively and literally.
Good call on Jack White and Phil Spector. Did you see him on Colbert? He seemed not to get the jokes at all, and lacked the ability to laugh at himself (which Chris Martin, for all his faults, to his credit has in spades).
Who the hell is Genesis Whosiwhutsit? Did you make him up?
I lost all interest in White when I read an interview where he said he didn’t partake in groupies. That just doesn’t sit right with me. As for Genesis, I’m just going to direct you to his picture, which should explain everything:
http://newhumanist.org.uk/images/Gene1.jpg
my completely-obsessed-with-white former roommate once told me that he was going to be a preist before the music thing took off. mebbe they brainwashed his pecker into not liking the groupies?
That’s pretty strange. I still think he’s hot, but he’s just too weird for me.
dewy woodland creature Taylor Swift
ahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
*gasp*
hahahahahahahahahaha
I think I love you.
If I was better with Photoshop I would have put her head on Bambi for you.
i don’t know how you did it, but you totally made josh homme 73% more drool worthy with that blurb.
because, ohmygoodness, it’s so true!!
I put a lot of thought into that one. He can stick something in my trunk any time.
true story woman!
as a side note, i’m convinved that josh homme is lucifer in human form. for real.
When I have ‘fuck you’ money I’m getting Josh Homme as the devil and Bill Hicks as god tattooed on the inside of my forearms.
if i ever get “fuck you” money, i would send some to you so you could do this. as long as you sent pictures. and as long as josh homme was wearing an airbrushed lion gym t-shirt. and had a mullet. because that dude would still ooze sex in that getup.
I thought this was hilarious. I love Queens but I saw them here in Tempe a few years ago and Josh made a comment from the stage that was bizarre and tasteless. It landed with a thud. Dewey woodland creature. Awesome!
Thanks! You don’t remember what he said, do you? I saw them in Berlin and my life was made when Josh, dead serious, looked out at the crowd and said, ‘We’re not here to kill each other, we’re here to fuck the shit out of each other.’
Also, I really liked the thing you wrote about the Pixies, I love them.
I started this piece thinking I wouldn’t know any of the crazies, but miracle of miracles, I knew all of them.
Throbbing Gristle probably would’ve made its way out of my transom had you not mentioned them above. I’m not sure I should thank you for this.
Viva weird!
My musical interest pretty much stalled in the early aughts, I only know who Tyler the creator is because I saw him on Twitter. Also:
http://youtu.be/Y8klW9trVTQ
I have a challenge:
Now write a piece on
musician who might
be sane…
whoa… real fiction.
I’m drawing a blank, I almost wrote Barry Manilow.
Um….
the Messina dude
from Loggins & Messina?
Drummer from the Wiggles?
I read this and immediately typed “marshall mathers got plastic surgery?” into Google.
Yeah, the lips aren’t talking to the eyes:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_VmPdOIzsxMA/S0AtOROz8sI/AAAAAAAAA1M/oyQxDvuuDbg/s400/eminem.jpg
In the album’s notes he’s listed as the musician behind “all vocals” as well as (deep breath) “electric guitar, acoustic guitar, bass, bass synth, singing bass, Fuzz bass, electric piano, acoustic piano, mini-Moog, poly-Moog, Arp string ensemble, Arp Pro Soloist, Oberheim four-voice, clavinet, drums, syndrums, water drums, slapsticks, bongos, congas, finger cymbals, wind chimes, orchestral bells, woodblocks, brush trap, tree bell, hand claps and finger snaps”.
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And Happy New Year!