Michael Daniel Penn (born August 1, 1958) is an American musician, singer, and composer. His 1989 single "No Myth" was a top 20 hit in the U.S. and successful in several other countries.
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Early life
Penn was born Michael Daniel Penn on August 1, 1958 in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan. He is the first son of actor and director Leo Penn and actress Eileen Ryan, and the brother of actors Sean Penn and Chris Penn. He is of Lithuanian-Jewish (paternal) and Irish–Italian (maternal) descent. Penn began playing music in junior high school and attended Santa Monica High School.
Career
Prior to the release of his 1989 debut album March, Penn was a member of the Los Angeles band Doll Congress. Penn was one of two musical guests as a solo artist on Saturday Night Live on the October 24, 1987 episode, with his brother Sean hosting. Penn had also 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) were not able to match the commercial success of March, although critics continued to praise his songcraft.
Penn's second album, Free-for-All, was praised by critics but was not as commercially successful as his debut. Rolling Stone called it "stunning" and CMJ wrote that the album "exhausts any doubts" about whether March was a fluke.
Penn collaborated with surrealist animators the Brothers Quay on "Long Way Down (Look What the Cat Drug In)", which was shown on MTV as well as in film festivals around the country.
He has worked extensively creating original music for film. He scored Paul Thomas Anderson's films Hard Eight (1996) and Boogie Nights (1997); he also appears in the latter in a cameo role as a recording engineer. During the editing of the film, Anderson directed a music video with Penn for "Try" from Resigned, which was filmed in one long shot (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; American Teen, Sunshine Cleaning; 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. He co-produced Liz Phair (2003) by 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. The album was reissued by Legacy Recordings in April 2007 with bonus tracks from a KCRW session.
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 subsequent marriage on December 29, 1997. 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.
His niece and nephew are actors Dylan Penn and Hopper Penn.
Discography
Compilation albums
Cinemascope (collection of film score tracks) (2005)
Palms and Runes, Tarot and Tea: A Michael Penn Collection (2007)
With Gabriele Morgan and Doll Congress/Doll Congress
Buried Treasure (5-song EP) (1981)
Doll Congress 12" (1983)
"Give Up Your Ghost" (sung by Morgan) and "I Will Be Around" (sung by Penn) appear on the soundtrack to Welcome to 18 (1986)
Appearances
"Retribution" (guitar solo) on Randell Kirsch, LuAnn Olson and Chris Hickey's Show of Hands (1989)
"Body and Soul?" (backing vocals) on Thelonious Monster's Beautiful Mess (1992)
"Weeds" on the tribute album Sweet Relief: A Benefit for Victoria Williams (1993)
"It's Not Safe" (guitar, solo guitar) on Aimee Mann's I'm With Stupid (1995)
"Christmastime" with Aimee Mann on Just Say Noël (1996)
"Wise Up" (produced) on Aimee Mann's contribution to Jerry Maguire (1996)
"Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love" with Mark Mothersbaugh on The Moog Cookbook's Ye Olde Space Bande (1997)
"Macy Day Parade" on Godzilla: The Album (1998)
"Reason to Believe" with Aimee Mann on Badlands: A Tribute to Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska (2000)
"How Am I Different", "Susan" (backing vocals) on Aimee Mann's Bachelor No. 2 (2000)
"Red Vines" (slide guitar) on Aimee Mann's Bachelor No. 2 (2000)
"Satellite" (guitar feedback, backing vocals) on Aimee Mann's Bachelor No. 2 (2000)
"Driving Sideways" (electric guitar, backing vocals) on Aimee Mann's Bachelor No. 2 (2000)
"Susan" (guitar) on Aimee Mann's Bachelor No. 2 (2000)
Film scores
Tales From The Vienna Woods (1993)
Hard Eight (originally titled Sydney), with Jon Brion (1996)
Boogie Nights (1997)
The Anniversary Party (2001)
Melvin Goes to Dinner (2003)
The Comedians of Comedy (2005)
The Last Kiss (2006)
Suffering Man's Charity (2007)
American Teen (2008)
Sunshine Cleaning (2008)
That Evening Sun (2009)
Bollywood Hero (2009)
Solitary Man (2010)
Carrie Pilby (2016)
Boundaries (2017)
Hollywood Stargirl (2022)
Fairyland (2023)
I Love You Forever (2024)
Filmography
St. Elsewhere (Lab technician, as an extra) (1985)
Boogie Nights (Nick, an engineer) (1997)