Gritty Dark Singer/Songwriter Music Appreciation Thread - A.K.A. Music like Tom Waits, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, & Leonard Cohen

[Baptiste XIX RoseOfSharyn]

Lately, I have been feeling cynical & pessimistic with a lot of shit going on in the world & around me, as such the music I have been listening to reflects that

But I fucking hate dark music that’s edgy but not in a genuine way, I wanna hear stuff that’s naturally edgy without feeling over the top, stuff that makes me think “Wow this singer really did go through all this horrible shit.”
Which draws me into the Singer/Songwriter genre, or more specifically the darkside of Singer/Songwriter music, music that sounds like it was made for a dark & weird David Lynchor Stanley Kubrick movie.
Artists such as: Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Tom Waits, Jeff Buckley, PJ Harvey, Fiona Apple, Elliott Smith, & 90s/2000s era Johnny Cash

I was wondering if anyone else had an appreciation for this music like I do, mostly to ask them for recommendations of music like this cause I wanna hear more stuff like this kind of music.

https://youtu.be/v0nmHymgM7Y

 

[I Love Beef]

Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me) by Nancy Sinatra

Heaven Inside by Stephen McKnight

Into The Great Wide Open by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

Under The Bridge by The Red Hot Chili Peppers

Probably anything by Nirvana

Iris by The Goo Goo Dolls

Welcome to the Jungle, One in a Million, Mr. Brownstone, many more by Guns and Roses

Toy Soldiers by Martika

Dream Another Dream by Van Halen

I have more but they just haven't come to mind yet.

 

[Shiggy Diggster]

No, she doesn't sound like Courtney Love, Courtney Love sounds like her.

 

[JuanButNotForgotten]

The Black Angels and their songs about Vietnam war.

Can't say it's edgy, but dark for sure, no wonder it ended up in Joker.

 

[The Shadow]

Alice in Chains' output is 90 percent about Layne Staley's heroin addiction.

 

[Solid Snek]

Oh, well, I read the title and thought "hey! Tom Waits"

but obviously you're on board already. So....

Which draws me into the Singer/Songwriter genre, or more specifically the darkside of Singer/Songwriter music, music that sounds like it was made for a dark & weird David Lynchor Stanley Kubrick movie.

Have you tried anything from Lynch's new season of Twin Peaks? It's not exactly "singer-songwriter", but it's at least close, and the music is really fucking intense. I don't know if I should post any clips from the show, because it might lead to spoilers and ruin the effect of the episode if you haven't seen it yet, but The Chromatics and Au Revoir Simone are legitimately great (maybe you'd like if you're into Fiona Apple and PJ Harvey?), and the scene with the little Asian girl listening to The Veil's "Axolatl" is one of the most horrifying things Lynch has done (The Veils are kind of like if millennial hipsters decided to do Nick Cave and Tom Waits stuff).

Spoiler: music only, no spoilers for twin peaks

(I believe Lynch directed the whole video)

-edit- oh, and fucking Rebekah del Rio, a singer-writer Lynch has worked with several times in the past. Clips from show, but not really much in the way of spoilers:

You could also maybe check out Jandek? He's a schizocow singer-writer from the long, long ago. Musically he's a tedious chore to listen to - fucker doesn't even tune his guitar - but a lot of singer-writer types get into him, especially if they're into arthouse stuff.

Finally, I'd recommend Wesley Willis. No, seriously. Musically he's nothing like Cohen, Waits, et al., BUT, if you're looking for a musician who's genuinely lived through some shit, Wesley Willis is the real deal. There's a lot of bio stuff about him floating around so I won't get too into it, but short story is: dude was a schizophenic autist, living homeless on the streets of Chicago, and started his music career as part of his mental health therapy.

 

[Weeb Slinger]

Prison is an album of spoken word pieces by the poet, Steven Jesse Bernstein.

Bernstein rose to marginal prominence during the late 1980s when his confrontational performances opened shows for various bands who went on the form part of the grunge scene. Between making the recordings that appear on the album and Steve Fisk setting the words to music, Bernstein killed himself by cutting his wrists open.

A current of nihilism, seasoned with a dark, mean-spirited humour, where all the jokes point inwards, runs through the core of Prison. At times he sounds at the end of his tether, like an animal that knows that it's being beaten to death.

Face, where the backing dies away to a distant industrial hum, is particularly disturbing as Bernstein describes his childhood descent into mental illness.

 

[talk sh1t]

I've always liked Shane MacGowan. The stuff he did with the Pogues always gets misunderstood as "lol drunken Irish music paddy ho" but it's much more than that, his lyrics are often pretty twisted and dark, the juxtaposition with the upbeat music makes it all the more jarring IMHO. Also not all Pogues songs are upbeat, far from it. For example check out The Old Main Drag. But there's good songs from all the albums he did with the band (1984 to 1990).

 

[Poppavalyim Andropoff]

90s/2000s era Johnny Cash

Check the back catalogue from when he was loose as fuck high as hell