creepiness in rock?

I find a lot of the twee end of Indie very very creepy, music by people who can't seem to process adult emotions, but that's not what you're asking I don't think, cos I assume it's not a deliberate creepiness.

Elvis Costello's final "I want you"s in "I Want You" are murderously, languourously creepy.

ice creams vans are creepy. but the 'ice cream vans from hell' record somehow wasn't

Uh, spooky/creepy songs. I'll nominate the Angels of Light's "Evangeline" from the new album as a good example. And CB Kids' "Giant Tickle Feather," of course.

But isn't there something creepy about you knowing that? ;-)

I certainly didn't...

Oh wait, here's one: Skinny Puppy. They pretty much based their entire career on being spooky (see: "Smothered Hope", "Basement", "Icebreaker", "Church", "The Choke", "Worlock", "Tormentor", "Nature's Revenge", "Deep Down Trauma Hounds", "Tin Omen", the Doubting Thomas album, etc, etc).

There was also a song on the Violent Femmes' _Hallowed Ground_ album that had something to do with throwing a little girl into a well...? Actually, most of that album freaks me the fuck out. In a good way, of course.

Only one song. Still creepy though.

Also the Residents covers of nursery rhymes like 'One Little, Two Little, Three Little Indians', and 'Three Blind Mice' are uber-creepy.

Breathing Water

Yum Yab Killers

Killing For Company < p>Where Does A Body End?

Blood On Your Hands

Children of God

I'll Swallow You

Volcano

Unfortunate Lie

God Damn The Sun

I Remember Who You Are

Untitled Love Song

Praise Your Name

Angels of Light

Forever Yours

This Is Mine

...And the entire Body Lovers album, which is beautiful, powerful and creepy as hell, without any lyrics whatsoever (until the very last song, anyway).

manics doing 'motown junk' - my favourite memory of early manics iz doing said song onna Oxford Roadshow programme - watchin them play last night was like watchin some tremblin' bulgyeye pensioner look up apologetically as they piss themselves.

'ocean spray' - i find that very CREEPY.

joy division: a battle for the soul everytime i play that album.

trashmonk - all change

heidi berry - north bound train gets me everytime.

afghan wigs - cover of band of gold

gorecki

Mind Playin' Tricks on Me by the Geto Boys. Damn near crashed my car the first time I heard it on the radio.

Bike by Pink Floyd (or all the clanging and banging at the end of the song, in any event).

I Want You and Psycho by Elvis Costello

Angel of Death by Slayer.

p.s.: To whoever said upthread that being creeped out by Fields of the Nephilim is liking being creeped by Count Chocula -- I haven't laughed so hard in a long time because it's so true!

Oh yeah, almost forgot about him. He is a creepy one, fer sure, as well as being the "house musician" for WFMU's Incorrect Music Show.

Then there's also that schizophrenic Black guy from Chicago (whose name escapes me now), the one who's built like an NFL linebacker, likes to headbutt people when he meets them, and writes songs about McDonald's French fries. His music doesn't creep me out so much -- although it's pretty weird, it's in the same vein as Daniel Johnston or Wild Man Fischer. What's creepy is the way he's being exploited and how he's allowing himself to be used as a freak show.

*granted, I do very much enjoy being creeped out and all of the music listed above*

Speaking of genius, I was thinking as I read your solo "I got a tip from China" thread, "I wish Fritz had a blog or wrote somewhere regularly." Do you? You should.

No blog, but I think I'll keep posting to the "Got a Tip from China" thread every few days for the next little while just as an experiment. Might inspire me to get a real blog together eventually.

But anyway - howzabout that Poppy Family? Moog-tabla-folk freakouts for AM radio. The best.

Hippy.

Revolution 9 by the Beatles. Not so much now, but my dad was a Beatles fan and when I was about six, the record player got stuck. I was too small to reach it, and ran out of the room screaming. Played it a few times since and not surprisingly does not have quite the same effect. The coda in Long Long Long, as has been mentioned, also manages to flick the fear switch somewhat.

Retard by SPK. Sounds like a washing machine hooked up to a ECT device.

Walk Now by Orbital from the brown album. First heard whilst on acid in 1997. The booming didgeridoo loop managers to come alive like a dark beast when played through half decent speakers at volume. Scares the crap out of my wife.

There's a Colin Walcott track on Codona 3 with some whispering voices and a wailing choir which sends shivers down my spine, can't remember what its called though. First time I heard it was on a freezing New Year's day in 1997 or 8. We'd taken an acid tab called an M25 (named after an infamous motorway (freeway) in London). The central heating had packed up, the snow was falling four miles away to the point where multiple pile-ups were occuring on the M11 and yet where we were there was no snow. Fred West (a serial killer) hanged himself in prison This track formed the centrepiece to the whole experience. Fricking weird.

The granddaddy though has to be Hamburger Lady by Throbbing Gristle. After playing this I couldn't sleep for two nights. Much TG stuff is quite genuinely disturbing but the thing is as close as I've been to experiencing aural hell. A comibnation of a warbling electronic drone and a voice that sounds like its coming from the bottom of a swimming pool tells the story of a burns victim. I imagine TG wanted you the listener to experience how things must have sounded to her while on the ward. I can't play it without the lights on. Buy it, play it, but make sure the kiddies aren't around to hear it.

I'm so intrigued to hear "11 Mustachioed Daughters" by the Bonzo Dog Band. For what its worth, "Black Eyed Dog" by Nick Drake gives me an intoxicatingly intriguing sense of dread. It's a hazy, folk-twinged rainy day late 60s song thinly veiling a discernable image of the reaper. i

For what its worth, I would nominate just about anything by Third Eye Foundation (especially the 'squeaky-gate-from-hell' vibed "corpses for bedfellows" (there you go, I remembered it afterall)).
And a number at the end of one of squarepushers (many) ep's which is just some terrified sounding kid groaning and screaming over white noise. Nice.

FEVER RAY. A lot of the Knife's stuff has some serious creepiness to it, but Karin's solo album takes it to a new level.
Sample lyrics:

"I live between concrete walls
when I took her up she was so warm

I live between concrete walls
In my arms she was so warm

Eyes are open and mouth cries
I haven't slept since summer

oh how i try
I leave the TV on
and the radio on"

that really isn't that creepy

it's creepy in a genuine way. she expresses a day-to-day madness that is hard to get out of your head once you envision it.

Creepiness in rock:

that's not so much creepy as intense, operatic and self-immolatory...ok it's creepy but it's also observing creepiness, it's the observer and the observed...it's fighting back against its own wrongness, and too lucidly conflicted, too explicatory to be wholly creepy...see also Foetus - Kreibabe

both songs are totally brilliant

Beck - "Steal My Body Home" is a mad, mad song btw, and I would not like to meet it down a dark alley in a lonely cornfield

'Apologize' by OneRepublic makes me feel dirty and ashamed in a way that I find highly unpleasant, to a much greater degree than the song seems to warrant.

maybe you guys should stop being mentally ill

^^^^

Thank you.

Peter Blegvad - "Irma" from The Naked Shakespeare

Processed, layered voices over keyboards and drones; the singer is lying frozen in bed, unable to move as faceless men enter the bedroom one by one to rape his wife. It's a horrifying nightmare compliment to Lou Reed/John Cale's sad nightmare "A Dream."

Joe Meek & The Blue Men - I Hear A New World
Nichts - allein zuhaus

"I live between concrete walls
when I took her up she was so warm

I live between concrete walls
In my arms she was so warm

Eyes are open and mouth cries
I haven't slept since summer

oh how i try
I leave the TV on
and the radio on"

This just sounds like a song sung by a new mother looking after a baby and struggling a bit.

Now "Butterfly Collector" by AR Kane? Thats creepy. The "I'm gonnna keep you... I'm gonna keep you... I'm gonna KILL YOU! I'm going to KILL YOU aRGRGHRHRHRR!" at the end is rather chilling.

Jim White is creepy. I think the song "Static on the Radio" is about a serial killer, or a regular killer, or maybe a lonely guy.

This just sounds like a song sung by a new mother looking after a baby and struggling a bit.

i don't know, she conveys such distress when she utters the "i leave the tv on/and the radio" line. whether or not it was her intent is definitely debatable but to me it sounds, not necessarily creepy, but definitely pained. more so than just a new mom being like, "damn that kid never stops crying."

Those last two Bob Markley/West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band are super creepy, especially when you factor in what eventually happened to him.

trayce is right. ar kane have some super creepy moments. remember reading 'the wasp factory' one weekend while listening to it non-stop. they went hand in hand.

bauhaus!

hairway to steven

Lots of Tom Waits stuff. 'What's He Building in There' in particular gives me chills.

The Cure - "A Night Like This" (which seems fine until "...you're just the most gorgeously stupid thing I ever cut in the world..."

Pretty sure it's "caught in the world" not "cut". Take that, 8 years ago.