Michael Penn

Michael Penn
Michael Penn in a promotional photo for the album Mr. Hollywood Jr., 1947.
Born	August 1 1958 (1958-08-01) (age 49) Greenwich Village, New York City, US
Occupation	Singer, Composer
Spouse	Aimee Mann (December 29, 1997-present)
Children	Liam Penn (from previous marriage)
Parents	Leo Penn (film director) and Eileen Ryan (actress)
Website	http://www.michaelpenn.com

Michael Penn (born August 1, 1958, in Greenwich Village, New York City) is an American singer and songwriter. He is the son of actor/director Leo Penn and actress Eileen Ryan, and the brother of actors Sean Penn and the late Chris Penn. 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) and MP4: Days Since a Lost Time Accident (2000) weren't able to match the commercial success of March, although critics praised his songcraft. It was with Free For All that Penn faced the specter of the one-hit wonder. The album, while praised, wasn't quite the commercial smash as Penn's debut, though it had more than its share of supporters. Rolling Stone called it "a stunning second effort." 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. Penn met fellow singer-songwriter Aimee Mann in the late 1980s, 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 1997 marriage. Together with manager Michael Hausman they formed United Musicians, which is based on the idea of allowing artists to keep copyright ownership of their works and to assist with their promotion and distribution. Penn and Mann live in Los Angeles. They have no children, but Penn has a son from a previous marriage. Penn moved into film scoring after repeated requests from director Paul Thomas Anderson, who had listened to Free-for-All extensively while writing his first feature, Hard Eight, and wanted Penn to score the film. Penn also scored Anderson's follow-up Boogie Nights, in which he appears briefly as a recording engineer. During the editing process of the film, Anderson directed a music video with Penn for the song "Try" from Resigned (the music 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;^[1] Melvin Goes to Dinner; the documentary The Comedians of Comedy; and The Last Kiss. In August 2005, Penn released the album 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 in it, including the passage of the National Security Act and the invention of the transistor.^[2] The album was reissued by Legacy Recordings in April 2007 with bonus tracks from a KCRW session.^[3] The reissue came in conjunction with Legacy's release of , 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.

Discography

• March (1989)
• Free-for-All (1992)
• Resigned (1997)
• MP4: Days Since a Lost Time Accident (2000)
• Mr. Hollywood Jr., 1947 (independent release) (2005)
• Cinemascope (2005)
• Palms and Runes, Tarot and Tea: A Michael Penn Collection (2007)
• Mr. Hollywood Jr., 1947 (Legacy reissue) (2007)

Singles

References

External links

• Michael Penn (official site)
• Bunker Hill fan site
• United Musicians
• MySpace page
• Michael Penn at the Open Directory Project
• Michal Penn at All Music Guide