Most obvious recorded evidence of artist drug use 'spiralling out of control'

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Powdered stimulants -
Black Sabbath, 'Live at Last' (improv. lyrics to "KYTL" - "They think you're stupid cuz you're always so high, but soon they'll die, aaauuughh...")
Aerosmith, "Kings and Queens"
Lou Reed, 'Metal Machine Music' (what happens when you get a genius idea while 'tweaking' and then actually carry it out)

Pills -
New Order, 'Technique'
Elvis Presley, 'Aloha from Hawaii via Satellite'

THC -
P McCartney, anything post-1975
Neil Young, 'Arc/Weld'
Brazen Hussies, "FeeBee"(for everyone who understandably didn't get through the whole thing, here's what happens: the EZ-swing bit starts, there's a bit with saxophones louder than everything, then there's some marimbas, then random reshuffled bits of the EZ-swing bit w/ totally random percussion thwacks and some lobotomised-SY gtr shit, then there's some really fast bass playing, then the r.r.b's start to get really irritating but then a flanged drum kit appears and then there's a big compression noise)

Opiates - John Lennon, 'Double Fantasy' (sounds more smacked-out than "Cold Turkey")

God-only-knows-what-
Primal Scream, 'Give Out But Don't Give Up'
Suede, 'Dog Man Star'
Depeche Mode, 'Ultra'

― dave q, Monday, 27 January 2003 11:41 (twenty-three years ago)

Artists who SOUND stone-cold sober at all times-
QOTSA
NWA
Bowie
Nirvana
Ted Nugent

― dave q, Monday, 27 January 2003 11:42 (twenty-three years ago)

Artists who SOUND stone-cold sober at all times-

QOTSA
Huh?

The effect of MMM is of course: no matter what you took, you'll turn sober after three seconds.

― nathalie (nathalie), Monday, 27 January 2003 11:45 (twenty-three years ago)

Crack:
ODB

― M Carty (mj_c), Monday, 27 January 2003 11:47 (twenty-three years ago)

Oh the Roches: Helium

― nathalie (nathalie), Monday, 27 January 2003 11:48 (twenty-three years ago)

"Artists who SOUND stone-cold sober at all times-
...Nirvana"

Even 'Gallons of Rubbing Alcohol Flow Through the Strip' ???

― Keith McD (Keith McD), Monday, 27 January 2003 11:51 (twenty-three years ago)

Young Americans sounds like its creator is a shopaholic.

― Tom (Groke), Monday, 27 January 2003 11:56 (twenty-three years ago)

ha, Tom, you should watch (actually no, it's fucking horrible) the 'Young Americans' medley Bowie did with Cher. Something else going on there besides, tho

― geeta (geeta), Monday, 27 January 2003 13:56 (twenty-three years ago)

I love that album, don't get me wrong. Maybe not a Cher medley though.

― Tom (Groke), Monday, 27 January 2003 13:56 (twenty-three years ago)

Heroin, coke, hookers: John Frusciante solo albums.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Monday, 27 January 2003 14:07 (twenty-three years ago)

my entire catalogue, pretty much

― J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Monday, 27 January 2003 14:11 (twenty-three years ago)

John Coltrane and Miles Davis in excelsis.

― Lynskey (Lynskey), Monday, 27 January 2003 14:49 (twenty-three years ago)

Syd Barrett's the easy one to cite here -- Barrett feels downright macabre at times.

John Coltrane and Miles Davis in excelsis.

At first I was really confused by this, but then I remembered the rumor -- has it been confirmed? -- that Coltrane was using LSD a lot towards the end.

Miles Davis, though, really? You can hear he's having problems on Pangaea (despite the fact that it's brilliant) but I'd always been more inclined to ascribe that to the horrible pain he was in (from hip problems, yes?) than to his drug use.

― Phil (phil), Monday, 27 January 2003 15:31 (twenty-three years ago)

Didn't Bernard Sumner say his use of Prozac really affected the lyric writing on the last Electronic disc?

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Monday, 27 January 2003 15:33 (twenty-three years ago)

Oh man, Bowie always sounds like he's chemically-modified. Like somatose.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Monday, 27 January 2003 15:40 (twenty-three years ago)

Define 'out of control'...does it mean 'showing evidence that artist will eventually self-destruct' or rather 'not particularly good, helped out in that direction by the drugs'. I think McCartney's post 1975 stuff would have been largely crap regardless of pot use. On the other hand, I really like Arc/Weld, so have another toke Neil!

― teeny (teeny), Monday, 27 January 2003 15:49 (twenty-three years ago)

Listen to "Ascention" by Coltrane. If he wasn't taking more drugs than Hitler at the time then his brain was producing its own equivalent. 35 minutes of unrelenting what-the-fuck.

― Lynskey (Lynskey), Monday, 27 January 2003 17:16 (twenty-three years ago)

i really how people go for the obv (like frusciante). you are obv going for the facts here.

― nathalie (nathalie), Monday, 27 January 2003 17:30 (twenty-three years ago)

...wasn't Depeche Mode's Ultra their first album MINUS any drugs since Violator?
But I think Gahan was still strung out onm a few tracks. I think it's DM's most boring record.
And New Order's Technique - one of the greatest records of all time. What a great thumbs-up for pills!

― russ t, Monday, 27 January 2003 17:36 (twenty-three years ago)

Happy Mondays circa Yes, Please to thread?

― Aaron W (Aaron W), Monday, 27 January 2003 17:48 (twenty-three years ago)

Or is that TOO obvious?

― Aaron W (Aaron W), Monday, 27 January 2003 17:49 (twenty-three years ago)

Celine Dion, New Day or whatev. She's got some serious med's working for her on that one.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Monday, 27 January 2003 17:53 (twenty-three years ago)

surely Julian Cope owns this thread ... what else but being bombed outta his school would explain my nation underground?

― Tad (llamasfur), Monday, 27 January 2003 17:55 (twenty-three years ago)

Odd that you would choose MY NATION UNDERGROUND over, say, FRIED. MY NATION UNDERGROUND smells more like commercial desperation than like drugs.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Monday, 27 January 2003 18:21 (twenty-three years ago)

there's some charlie parker song where he basically goes nuts in the studio and breaks down, his heroin habit most definitely having something to do with it. can't remember what it is though, but i think it is recorded and available for purchase

― brains (cerybut), Monday, 27 January 2003 19:08 (twenty-three years ago)

(Dave suddenly the Brazen Hussies sound like Cheer-Accident to me.)

― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 27 January 2003 20:03 (twenty-three years ago)

What about artists whose spirals are reversed, who's music is less and less drug-addled with each album, such as, uh...Ween?

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Monday, 27 January 2003 20:30 (twenty-three years ago)

such as Royal Trux

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 27 January 2003 20:31 (twenty-three years ago)

tracer,

you do know why RTX broke up... ?

― gygax!, Monday, 27 January 2003 20:34 (twenty-three years ago)

Then had come Charlie Parker, a kid in his mother's woodshed in Kansas City, blowing his taped-up alto among the logs, practicing on rainy days, coming out to watch the old swinging Basie and Benny Moten band that had Hot Lips Page and the rest--Charlie Parker leaving home and coming to Harlem, and meeting mad Thelonius Monk and madder Gillespie--Charlie Parker in his early days when he was flipped and walked around in a circle while playing. Somewhat younger than Lester Young, also from KC, that gloomy, saintly goof in whom the history of jazz was wrapped; for when he held his horn high and horizontal from his mouth he blew the greatest; and as his hair grew longer and he got lazier and stretched-out, his horn came down halfway; till it finally fell all the way and today as he wears his thick-soled shoes so that he can't feel the sidewalks of life his horn is held weakly against his chest, and he blows cool and easy getout phrases. Here were the children of the American bop night.

― Laney, Monday, 27 January 2003 20:36 (twenty-three years ago)

Perhaps you're thinking of his recording of "Loverman" from the time he spent on the West Coast. He doesn't go nuts but he does play like he's really wasted, and he wasn't on heroin, he was off smack and drinking heavily at the time, but it is still a legendary example of music produced in shall we say an "altered" state.

― o. nate (onate), Monday, 27 January 2003 20:39 (twenty-three years ago)

No Metion of the Butthole Surfers??

― brg30 (brg30), Monday, 27 January 2003 21:14 (twenty-three years ago)

...or Tricky or Fleetwood Mac?

― jot eff pe, Monday, 27 January 2003 21:20 (twenty-three years ago)

Miles Davis, though, really? You can hear he's having problems on Pangaea (despite the fact that it's brilliant) but I'd always been more inclined to ascribe that to the horrible pain he was in (from hip problems, yes?) than to his drug use.
Actually, he had junk problems from the very beginning of his career. I remember an anecdote that went a little something like this:
Miles was standing on sidewalk out front of a Jazz club, wallowing on the edge of withdrawal. He was grubby and sick, unshaven and unkempt. Along comes one of the old great Jazz masters of the past (I think it was Cab Calloway, or someone like him) who was, as usual, sharply dressed and impeccably clean. He saw the young upstart and scowled. Then he brightened evilly and glided over to the dopesick Davis and slipped a one hundred dollar bill into MD's pocket...and told him, in a rather oily tone of voice, "Lookin' good, Miles..." and as he sauntered away Miles heard him say something along the lines of "...I know you'll do somethin' real smart with that money."
Miles felt so mortified that he made up his mind to clean up his act after that.

What finally got him to clean up his act was back

― Lord Custos Epsilon (Lord Custos Epsilon), Monday, 27 January 2003 22:31 (twenty-three years ago)

''Listen to "Ascention" by Coltrane. If he wasn't taking more drugs than Hitler at the time then his brain was producing its own equivalent. 35 minutes of unrelenting what-the-fuck''

I thought he did have his drug probs but I think Sun Ra helped him get off it (and this was in the early 60s).

what are you saying there? any 'wild' free jazz means that ppl were on drugs. what next...the Brotzmann octet were all on LSD too I mean listen to 'machine gun' blah blah.

Miles, as i understand it did go on and off throughout his career.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Monday, 27 January 2003 22:36 (twenty-three years ago)

The Cure The Top - LSD & weed.
Oasis Be Here Now - coke & stupendous ego.

― Charlie (Charlie), Monday, 27 January 2003 23:10 (twenty-three years ago)

The entire first 3 Soft Machine records and Pink Fairies, Kings of Oblivion. That is a lot drugs. Cluster's Zuckerzeit is pretty drugged out too.

― Juan (Juan), Monday, 27 January 2003 23:18 (twenty-three years ago)

The entire first 3 Soft Machine records and Pink Fairies, Kings of Oblivion. That is a lot drugs. Cluster's Zuckerzeit is pretty drugged out too.

― Juan (Juan), Monday, 27 January 2003 23:18 (twenty-three years ago)

Sorry for above. Computer messed up.

― Juan (Juan), Monday, 27 January 2003 23:19 (twenty-three years ago)

I thought the Trux broke up because they went straight and realized they couldn't stand each other anymore or something. (I actually have no idea) Twin Infinitives is like the definitive "my brain patterns are permanently fried" album. I hated Rtx or whatever the 1994 album was called. They were always a band of half-gestures, and without the drugs it was as if they finally had the follow-through to complete their little stabs and sketches; I was like "so THAT's where it was going all along?" - totally disillusioned. Someone had replaced the scorch of their souls with a boozy professionalism. i don't know if they were actually clean for that album, but that's how i perceived it (mainly because the video showed them recording/hanging out in a shack in the middle of nowhere; a classic "no dealer in sight = no drugs" tactic for the hopelessly un-self-controllable)

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 27 January 2003 23:24 (twenty-three years ago)

The production on the Stooges Raw Power with the treble and volume on everything cranked to eleven sounds like a speedfreak did it to me.

I actually like it a lot better than the cleaned up version they release a couple years ago.

― Dave Beckhouse (Dave Beckhouse), Monday, 27 January 2003 23:39 (twenty-three years ago)

The Birthday Party always sounded really fucking out of their heads.

I also think the Circulatory System album is proof that Will Hart is taking way too much acid.

― Ian Johnson, Monday, 27 January 2003 23:44 (twenty-three years ago)

All of Spaceman 3. Spiritualized too. And maybe some My Bloody Valentine.

― JP Almeida (JP Almeida), Monday, 27 January 2003 23:52 (twenty-three years ago)

I think MBV was more to do with mental problems/superpowers.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Tuesday, 28 January 2003 00:14 (twenty-three years ago)

Most obvious recorded evidence of artist drug use 'spiralling out of control'

where's that yngwie malmsteen mp3?

― charlie va (charlie va), Tuesday, 28 January 2003 01:36 (twenty-three years ago)

clove cigarettes mistaken for pot:

Justin Timberlake "Justified"

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Tuesday, 28 January 2003 02:17 (twenty-three years ago)

Tracks that are SLOWED WAY WAY DOWN to sound CRAZY, like The Associates' "An Even Whiter Car" or that one song on 23 Skidoo's _Seven Songs_. Those sort of tracks have a certain charm, though -- "discovering the Wonder of the Studio with yr fave postpunk margin walkers!"

― Clarke B. (emily), Tuesday, 28 January 2003 03:15 (twenty-three years ago)

jandek: horse tranquilizers

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Tuesday, 28 January 2003 03:17 (twenty-three years ago)

My understanding was that Miles kicked heroin sometime in the fifties, but continued to use coke, pot, etc. I don't think his '50s music sounds drugged out, which is why Pangaea seemed like a likely target by contrast -- as a member of the band/collective, he sounds great, but as an instrumentalist, he sounds like hell. (I love that album, by the way.)

I thought Coltrane kicked the heroin habit sometime in the late '50s...ah, here are a couple quotes:

From http://www.flagpole.com/Issues/08.16.00/daviscoltrane.html --

"Davis' promise was in question in the early-1950s, however, as heroin addiction affected his talents and his reliability. By 1955, he had quit heroin, become physically fit through a tough regimen of boxing, and finally formed a stable, working band with Coltrane as the saxophonist."

And from http://www.olyyoga.com/newsletter.html --

"Coltrane described his return to spirituality: 'In 1957, I experienced, by the grace of God, a spiritual awakening which was to lead me to a richer, fuller, more productive life.' (Porter, 107). (By no coincidence, it was also this year that Coltrane quit heroin and booze.)"

As for Coltrane and LSD, I dug up the link that Neil (neilemmerson33) posted some time back. Seems inconclusive, but it's certainly worth being aware of the debate.

― Phil (phil), Tuesday, 28 January 2003 03:30 (twenty-three years ago)

(btw Jandek doesn't sound drugged out to me -- Ready for the House, at least, sounds more like music that comes from staying up three nights in a row while at the height of a depressive episode. His next-to-most-recent album, I Threw You Away, sounds almost drunken -- howling, sloppy, mournful.)

― Phil (phil), Tuesday, 28 January 2003 03:33 (twenty-three years ago)

i know, i wuz being silly

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Tuesday, 28 January 2003 03:40 (twenty-three years ago)

Sly Stone, There's A Riot Goin On

― dleone (dleone), Tuesday, 28 January 2003 03:51 (twenty-three years ago)

Beach Boys - Smiley Smile has a v. weeded-out vibe. They sound like stoners recording to entertain themselves, but in this case, the music happens to be v. entertaining for us also.

― Mark (MarkR), Tuesday, 28 January 2003 16:55 (twenty-three years ago)

D'Angelo's _Voodoo_ makes _me_ feel stoned, but the same thing might happen with anyone who decided to sing that far behind the beat. It's a moiré effect, two off-center patterns spinning over each other. Freaky.

Paul Simon's albums are the least stoned albums I can think of.

― Sasha Frere-Jones (Sasha Frere-Jones), Wednesday, 29 January 2003 01:30 (twenty-three years ago)

yeah, Miles kicked heroin in the 50s. But it was the blow that was his real addiction - pretty much all the way up through the 80s. When he went into "retirement" between '76-'80, pretty much all he did was drink and do coke and indulge his sexual pecadillos while he worked a lot of bitterness and resentment out of his system. That's what his autobio says, anyway.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 29 January 2003 01:45 (twenty-three years ago)

peccadillo. I love that word. It sounds like an spanish word for an armor-plated desert chicken.

― Lord Custos Epsilon (Lord Custos Epsilon), Wednesday, 29 January 2003 04:17 (twenty-three years ago)

eight years pass...

I thought he did have his drug probs but I think Sun Ra helped him get off it (and this was in the early 60s).

Wasn't this cleaning up of an addiction what A Love Supreme was giving thanks for?

People have said Om was an lp recorded on LSD though.

― Stevolende, Tuesday, 15 March 2011 15:43 (fifteen years ago)

whoa, what a hellbump

Ween definitely has the most obvious vibe of "these guys were high when they recorded this" on their early albums. Listen to "Little Birdy"; Gene can't even finish the lyrics without laughing

― frogbs, Tuesday, 15 March 2011 16:12 (fifteen years ago)

What about artists whose spirals are reversed, who's music is less and less drug-addled with each album, such as, uh...Ween?
― nickalicious (nickalicious), Monday, January 27, 2003 8:30 PM (8 years ago) Bookmark

― SBlendor in the grass (bernard snowy), Tuesday, 15 March 2011 16:24 (fifteen years ago)

also, that custos post just before the bump was a wonderful reward for reading the entire thread

― SBlendor in the grass (bernard snowy), Tuesday, 15 March 2011 16:25 (fifteen years ago)

I don't know about less-drug addled with each album - "Mutilated Lips" was about an LSD trip, and the band admitted they were in a pretty bad place when they recorded quebec...

― frogbs, Tuesday, 15 March 2011 16:30 (fifteen years ago)

Also I would say Soul Coughing fits the thread quite well. M. Doughty's voice was breaking up by El Oso and his subject matter was getting really dark

― frogbs, Tuesday, 15 March 2011 16:31 (fifteen years ago)

Meat Puppets - In A Car

― m0stlyClean, Wednesday, 16 March 2011 01:44 (fifteen years ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTHPsxJgMEA

― three megabytes of hot RAM (abanana), Wednesday, 16 March 2011 02:32 (fifteen years ago)

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