Michael Penn

For other people named Michael Penn, see Michael Penn (disambiguation).
Michael Penn
Born (1958-08-01) August 1, 1958
Greenwich Village, New York City, US
Genres Alternative Pop/Rock
Occupation(s) Singer-songwriter, composer, musician,
Instruments Guitar, piano, bass, vocals
Years active 1989–present
Labels RCA, Sony, Mimeograph
Associated acts Doll Congress
Website www.michaelpenn.com

Michael Penn (born August 1, 1958) is an American singer, songwriter and composer. He is the eldest son of actor/director Leo Penn and actress Eileen Ryan and the brother of actors Sean Penn and Chris Penn.

Career

Michael Penn is a critically acclaimed singer/songwriter and film composer.[1] Prior to the release of his 1989 debut album March, Penn was a member of the Los Angeles band Doll Congress, and had appeared as an extra on a few television series, including St. Elsewhere.

March, particularly the first single, "No Myth," brought Penn attention, as well as the 1990 MTV Video Music Award for Best New Artist. Penn's follow-up albums Free-for-All (1992), Resigned (1997), MP4: Days Since a Lost Time Accident (2000), Mr. Hollywood Jr., 1947 (2005) and Palms and Runes, Tarot and Tea (2007) weren't able to match the commercial success of March, although critics continued to praise his songcraft.

It was with Free-for-All that Penn faced the specter of the one-hit wonder. The album, while praised by critics, was not as successful as Penn's debut, though it had more than its share of supporters. Rolling Stone called it "stunning"[2] and CMJ wrote that the album "exhausts any doubts" about whether March was a fluke.[3]

In Vox magazine, critic Gary Leboff acknowledged that Penn could be "pig-headedly uncommercial," but, he conceded, "the payoff is sublime". Leboff continues, "His freeform songwriting creates tracks of startling shape and originality, offering literate reflections on the human condition..."

Penn collaborated with the renowned surrealist animators The Brothers Quay on "Long Way Down (Look What The Cat Drug In)," which found a home not on MTV but in film festivals around the country, winning awards along the way.

He has worked extensively creating original music for film; among his first work in this field (if not the first) was for 1993's Tales From the Vienna Woods. He scored two movies released by Paul Thomas Anderson in 1997, Hard Eight and Boogie Nights; he also appears in the latter in a cameo role playing Nick, a recording engineer. During the editing of the film, Anderson directed a music video with Penn for "Try" from Resigned (the video can be found on the Boogie Nights DVD). Other films scored by Penn include Alan Cumming's first two directorial efforts, The Anniversary Party and Suffering Man's Charity;[4] American Teen, Sunshine Cleaning;[5] the documentary The Comedians of Comedy; and The Last Kiss. In 2003, he was nominated for a DVDX Award for Best Original Score in a DVD Premiere Movie for Melvin Goes to Dinner.[6]

Penn has produced recordings for Aimee Mann, The Wallflowers and Liz Phair.

In August 2005, Penn released Mr. Hollywood Jr., 1947 on his own Mimeograph Records label. Its songs are set against the background of post-World War II Los Angeles; Penn said he chose the year because of several notable events that took place then, including the passage of the National Security Act and the invention of the transistor.[7] The album was reissued by Legacy Recordings in April 2007 with bonus tracks from a KCRW session.[8]

The reissue came in conjunction with Legacy's release of Palms and Runes, Tarot and Tea: A Michael Penn Collection, a compilation that includes several alternate versions and previously unreleased songs. Penn said his goal in compiling, ordering tracks for and producing Palms and Runes was to "make it feel like an album" in its own right.

In late 2009, Penn composed the music for the film That Evening Sun.[9]

In 2012 Penn began work as the composer for the HBO TV show Girls.[10]

In January 2013, the "Girls VOL.1" soundtrack was released on iTunes. The album contained a new song by Michael Penn titled "On Your Way", which was featured in the finale of Season 1.

He also joined the crew of Showtime's Masters of Sex in 2013 as series composer. The show's pilot episode was initially set to be scored by Thomas Newman, but this did not come to fruition and Penn scored both the pilot and the rest of the series.

Personal life

Penn met fellow singer-songwriter Aimee Mann, and during the recording of her album I'm with Stupid (to which Penn contributed), the two struck up a friendship, which blossomed into romance and their December 29, 1997, marriage. Together with manager Michael Hausman they formed United Musicians, an independent music collective founded on "the principle that every artist should be able to retain copyright ownership of the work he or she has created and that this ownership is the basis for artistic strength and true independence." Penn and Mann live in Los Angeles.

Discography

Solo albums

Studio albums
Compilation albums

Singles

Year Title Chart positions Album
US
Hot 100
[14]		 US
Modern Rock
[15]		 AUS
[12]		 BEL
(FLA)
[16]		 NED
[17]
1989 "No Myth" 13 4 24 46 48 March
1990 "This & That" 53 10 86 – 74
"Brave New World" – 20 – – –
1992 "Seen the Doctor" – 5 – – – Free-for-All
"Long Way Down (Look What the Cat Drug In)" – 14 – – –
1997 "Try" – – – – – Resigned
"Me Around" – – – – –
"Out of My Hands" – – – – –
2000 "Lucky One" – – – – – MP4

With Gabriele Morgan and Doll Congress/Doll Congress

Appearances

Film scores

Filmography

References

  1. ↑ Jason Ankeny (1958-08-01). "Michael Penn | Biography & History". AllMusic. Retrieved 2015-11-24.
  2. ↑ No. 4 and counting Critically acclaimed, commercially snubbed, Michael Penn tries again, CNN Interactive
  3. ↑ Michael Penn: Free-For-All, CMJ Review
  4. ↑ Glucksman, Mary. Five new films in postproduction, Filmmaker Magazine. Spring 2006.
  5. ↑ Michael Penn Filmography, Yahoo! Movies.
  6. ↑ DVD Exclusive Awards: 2003, IMDB.
  7. ↑ "Michael Penn's Much Anticipated Mr. Hollywood Jr., 1947 in Stores August 2; press release" (PDF). 2005-05-04. Retrieved 2015-11-24.
  8. ↑ Michael Penn, Morning Becomes Eclectic, KCRW. 2005-10-07.
  9. ↑ "ThatEveningSun". ThatEveningSun. Retrieved 2012-01-30.
  10. ↑ Archived April 14, 2012, at the Wayback Machine.
  11. 1 2 "Billboard > Artists / Michael Penn > Chart History > Billboard 200". Billboard. Retrieved 2016-03-11.
  12. 1 2 Australian (ARIA Chart) peaks:
  13. ↑ "swedishcharts.com > Michael Penn – March (album)". Hung Medien. Retrieved 2016-03-11.
  14. ↑ "Billboard > Artists / Michael Penn > Chart History > The Hot 100". Billboard. Retrieved 2016-03-11. N.B. "This & That" is erroneously listed as "This".
  15. ↑ "Billboard > Artists / Michael Penn > Chart History > Alternative Songs". Billboard. Retrieved 2016-03-11.
  16. ↑ "Ultratop > Michael Penn – No Myth" (in Dutch). Hung Medien. Retrieved 2016-03-11.
  17. ↑ "dutchcharts.nl > Discografie Michael Penn" (in Dutch). Hung Medien. Retrieved 2016-03-11.
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