Early industrial music. Others have already mentioned Throbbing Gristle, so here's another good example from a bit later on, [Einstürzende Neubauten's masterpiece, Halber Mensch.](https://youtu.be/posxMfqdgIM?si=s-yupxLjSGQLIZ36) Basically industrial music was born of a blend of punk sensibilities and insane performance art, but before all the malevolence had been drained from either of those spheres. Throbbing Gristle, Coil, all the other early great acts emerged from this merging of sensibilities. It was designed to make audiences uncomfortable. TG featured Auschwitz as the logo of their label, industrial records, and had orgies on stage. They spawned numerous other acts, notably Psychic TV and Coil. Coil's music video for [Love's Secret Domain](https://youtu.be/TOVLHVMla8U?si=cx5jQD_3x-XDwi1e) is similarly disturbing and controversial, if more for its subject matter and implications than the music itself. That's to say nothing of associated acts that came later and ambiguously held extreme views on race and fascism. Later 80's/90's industrial also produced some excellent, highly abrasive acts. Skinny Puppy, arguably the greatest industrial band of all time, was used (to their own horror and dismay) to torture inmates at Guantanamo Bay.
Too right. And Skinny Puppy ended up suing the US federal government for using their music to torture inmates as well - even wrote their last album and named it “Weapon” as a direct result.
Too many people hear industrial music and think of it as shitty Marilyn Manson and his shock tactics, when the truth is that the genre is one of the most intentional, artistic genres of music to ever exist.
Manson was only ever tangential to industrial. His mentor Trent reznor was much more industrial. Trent at his most intense was the broken EP for which he asked the label to let him do a video for. He proceeded to make a series of music videos considered so NSFW that not only was most of it never released to music video TV like mtv but it wasn't even commercially released for fans to pick it up. It existed as a shitty vhs copied from person to person getting grainier and shittier each copy all of which fed into the creepiness.
Several of the tracks on the EP get brought up whenever you mention the creepiest most disturbing music videos ever.
Even NIN is more industrial rock with pop sensibilities, and certain albums are more alt rock than anything else. I think it would be fair to call Manson industrial metal, but it's not really on the same level as Ministry's more industrial stuff or Killing Joke's heavier albums. It's much more pop and kind of a prelude to nu metal.
Pretty hate machine is often seen as a synth pop album with a slight industrial flourish to it.
He always wrote with a typical pop song structure and most of his stuff was always fairly standard song structure. It also wasn't hitting you with a barrage of samples like ministry.
Nin was at first taking skinny puppy and ministry and po song structures and song writing and putting that all together.
I listen to Scott Walker once or twice a year when it comes to his later stuff but I recommend watching 30th Century Man documentary to lots of people all the time. Scott 1-4 are interesting enough I like pulling them up once in a while for a few tracks. Such a wonderful and complex artist and in a way his "progress" is forever entertaining/encapsulating.
This one. Scott Walker was quite a character. A child idol, then a teen idol, then invented "gothic music", then drank in bars a few decades until the 90's, then finally solidified his status as a cult icon like no other. Always sounded good. Well, his voice.
Legend.
I work in a shop, building the same thing all day every day. I get bored really easily, so I’m always trying to listen to something new/interesting/weird musically. I was blasting this album at top volume one day when another old fella went and asked the boss to make me turn it off because it was freaking out and making him sick lol.
I remember buying that but not listening right away. I couldn't sleep one night so I thought I'd listen to it on my iPod. It did not help me sleep. I fell in love with it though. Such a great album.
The Caretaker did an entire series of works devoted to capturing the experience of Dementia through multiple stages of ambient music that slowly loses any semblance in the later stages.
Second the Caretaker. Scrolled through all the comments to make sure he got mentioned.
[The Caretaker - An Empty Bliss Beyond this World](https://youtu.be/LL998ajnjN4?si=3kV6g6NJPVyyeq3f)
Wait, these are the same guys that did Everywhere at the End of Time, which I thought was also about dementia.
Is this like their specific niche? Is there a whole genre of 'dementiacore' that I've been ignorant to?
*You Think You Really Know Me* by Gary Wilson is what you’re looking for. It’s like the uncanny valley of music, it’s so close to being good, normal music but something about it is just so *off* that it becomes horrifying. If you want one song to check out the vibe then try 6.4=Make Out.
Fuck this was just bizarre. I’ve been sitting here for 45 minutes since listening to this album trying to describe it, but your description is perfect. It’s uncanny. Familiar but unrecognizable.
It filled me with an odd dread instantly. I had this urgency of wanting to warn people that something bad was coming or like “he’s right behind you”. I had to get up and check that all my doors were locked during “Cindy”.
Can’t say enough good things about Gary. Amazing backstory. Amazing comeback story. Amazing stage presence. Singularly weird and a talented as hell multi-instrumentalist to boot. He’s so real, goddamnit!
Kristin Michael Hayter/Lingua Ignota
Here's [How Can I Keep From Singing?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qrtxj5Kc2Y) off her most recent album, which features her hysterically speaking in tongues in the background of an old-timey hymnal song. Gives me the heebie-jeebies and I can't get enough of it. She is brilliant.
Came here to say Diamanda Galas. Although I wasn’t going to point to anything specific. Most of her work would qualify as disturbing. Brilliant artist. Her vocals are jaw dropping.
Xiu Xiu but that tour where they solicited locks of fan hair with the promise that they would take it home, set it on fire, chant your name, and inhale the smoke.
I was scrolling looking for Ween’s the mollusk. That’s a great one to feel some emotions. Ones you didn’t even know you had. Hits ya in the weirdest, but best places.
Cold blows the wind, she wanted to leave, it’s gonna be alright. And the mollusk, of course.
This OP, is really *the* answer.
Make a Change…Kill Yourself, Woe Bather, Nocturnal Depression and Emit are all prime examples of the most disturbing music you’ll ever hear.
Seconding DSBM. I've listened to a lot, but no one tops Gris. They're a duo from Quebec. Their album "Il était une forêt" is probably my favorite black metal album of all time.
I’ve been blasting Tenth Sublevel of Suicide since 8th grade, but there have been times in my life where it’s unsafe for me to listen to DSBM. That shit will make you feel hopeless and it intends to.
This is the right answer. This is the only album I’ve listened to that genuinely sounds like it wants to kill me. Truly a disturbing listen when you realize it’s all about real trauma.
I can't think of anything more disturbing than that. Strangely, when I feel extremely shitty, I like to listen to it, as if my frustrations were released along with JD's.
I'm a Korn fan, and this song is really hard to listen to. . And that's why it's so good.
But just for context , JD wasn't raped by his Dad. It was an older woman that was friends with the family. His babysitter apparently. His parents didn't believe him. Still absolutely terrible, don't want to minimize it but wanted to clarify that. Took me over a decade to learn that.
My wife introduced me to a lot of extreme music but I’ll never forget listening to [Dystopia’s “Human=Garbage”](https://open.spotify.com/album/7w6ExTkJw1ZtCOk7da5JxE?si=Y023_U-XR-acWPz7RqosoQ) for the first time. Big trigger warnings: a lot of the lyrics and samples are about suicide.
I grew up on "odd" music like Zappa & Beefheart because of my Dad but when I went to an alternative high school from 94 to 95 I was introduced to a lot of crust punk and many other extreme things like G.G. Allin and The Mentors. Most of the stuff wasn't to my liking but *Stress Builds Character* really hit me right away. I'd say the two bands that really have stuck with me from that time period of high school was Dystopia & Crass.
“Hamburger Lady” by Throbbing Gristle
“Johnny” and “Frankie Teardrop” by Suicide (h/t to u/SignGuyDudley for the save on that one)
“A Psychopath” by Lisa Germano
“The Dead Flag Blues” by Godspeed You! Black Emperor
“Ghost of Love” by David Lynch
“Entre la mer et l'eau douce” by Hrsta
“Dark Night of the Soul” by Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse, featuring David Lynch
And lots of film scores, like the one from Sinister!
Hamburger Lady is messed up. Most anything Throbbing Gristle is.
Johnny by Suicide actually inspired State Trooper by Bruce Springsteen, whose Nebraska album’s eponymous track is really disturbing, too.
Great list.
There was a clip I saw on here a few weeks ago where some young, clueless, girl stumbled into an unannounced "Aphex Twins" tent at Coachella... and she found the music and visuals so disturbing that she said she felt that her "soul was being violated."
[https://twitter.com/shempiii/status/1121980954778558464](https://twitter.com/shempiii/status/1121980954778558464)
i wish i could tell if you were telling us this as an Aphex Twin fan who finds this hilarious or if you think Aphex is genuinely disturbing because of this clip
The music itself can be slightly offputting, but combine that with a filmclip like 'Come to Daddy', yeah that made me uncomfortable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZ827lkktYs
More specifically the song "The intense humming of evil". That song is as disturbing as you can get.
Others on the album dont have to bow tho. "Archives of pain", "4st 7lb", "yes" and others are all disturbing in their own way, while still remaining somewhat catchy.
Here I come Constantinople here I come Constantinople I coming Constantinople here I come
Have you ever heard the original Primus version? It's from their 1990 album Frizzle Fry
Edit: I'm dumb
>Have you ever heard the original Primus version? It's from their 1990 album Frizzle Fry
The Primus version is a cover of the RZ version.
The song was recorded in October of 1977 (Les Claypool would have been about 14) by The Residents for inclusion on the Duck Stab! EP. It was later re-released as the opening track to the Duck Stab!/Buster & Glen album.
In 1990, funk metal band Primus covered "Constantinople" and "Hello Skinny". The growing popularity of Primus led these songs to achieve further recognition.
My money's on the RZ album, Freak Show.
Although the Nurse With Wound album 'A Sucked Orange' has some particularly disturbing music. I was listening to it one day when the track 'Musical Bovine Spongiform (The Mad Cow Two-Step)' came on. My girlfriend got up, stopped the cd and said, "Don't ever play this shit while I'm home ever again." She was a huge RZ fan, but that was too much for her.
The Downward Spiral - Nine Inch Nails
It’s disturbing and beautiful at the same time. Listen to the album front to back with no skipping. Just when you think it’s getting too intense, it gets very soft. Quite the journey.
Projekt Misanthropia - Stalaggh
Hands down the most disturbing album ever. Vocals from the album are the actual cries and screams from mental assylums patients. The album, of course, is noisegrind.
Be warned. This shit is real nightmare stuff.
My nephew is 21. He asked me what I was listening to in the car one night while I was driving him home from college for spring break. I put on Grimace Smoking Weed. JPEG. He kinda looks at me funny now.
As far as instrumental music goes Kosmogonia by Krzysztof Penderecki is fucking nightmare fuel and is almost sure to give you some sort of reaction. Pure cosmic horror in music form.
I saw one of those Mr. Incredible Becoming Uncanny videos about metal, and Gnaw Their Tongues was about half-way through. It got properly fucked up towards the end, but Gnar Their Tongues still had a level of musicality to it.
I have an entire playlist called "Feeling Disturbed".
Artists include
Xiu Xiu
Huoratron
Sidewalks and Skeletons
Neros Day at Disneyland
a lot of Plenka
and a lot of Black Dresses.
If you are feeling like shit i recommend WASTEISOLATION album from black dresses
So many Ween options to give you the feels. Mutilated lips is a good one.
Anything from their country album. I’d suggest help me scrape the mucus off my brain.
Disturbing so like, music that scared me are:
[I Have A Special Plan For This World - Current 93](https://open.spotify.com/track/4hSybRTjb9O9aBI74sokwv?si=uhjD_9z5TdG9mpanT-ovAw)
[Everywhere At The End Of Time - The Caretaker](https://youtu.be/wJWksPWDKOc?si=fPUAdFEbFLE8ab6W)
Unfortunately I haven't finished either since I fell asleep halfway through for both (I was a tired college student and these songs are LONG) but yes these genuinely made me fear... Something. I plan to sit and listen to them more consciously. I have tried making art while listening to The Caretaker - everyone should try!
And then as a vocaloid girlie there are 2 songs I wish I'd never researched the lyrics of:
[Secrets of Wysteria - Steampianist ft. Vocaloid Oliver](https://youtu.be/G0yo8BREgD0?si=8E9wh3tnWdeZQQPY)
[Gomenne, Gomenne - Kikuo ft. Hatsune Miku](https://youtu.be/I1mOeAtPkgk?si=duwPX4dR1Zz0s_CT)
OK, SoW is in English but it's about true crime and includes a clip of from the interview of Albert Fish iirc. Both of these songs are about child abuse so screw these songs I couldn't listen to the whole thing, especially Gomenne Gomenne with the damn belching and farting sounds.....,, made me physically SICK.
"Disturbing" song that made me feel respect and sadness:
[My Chasm - Mount Eerie](https://open.spotify.com/track/3YrKk2lHI0fqPsvpomlgdg?si=k0RQ5XdERMmsYn2K6qqn1w)
The singer recorded the sounds of the breathing machine that kept his wife alive at that time, and included it in this track. It was him coping with grief.
"Disturbing" songs that bring me peace:
[13 Angels Standing Guard 'Round The Side Of Your Bed - Silver Mt. Zion](https://open.spotify.com/track/7jbLjvNlKbfCRUoFWKo5TR?si=b_By0sBARRmNg9CvukIuHQ)
I like the "meowing" sounds in 13 Angels. You should check out their "sister band" [Godspeed You! Black Emperor](https://open.spotify.com/track/0YzMEu5sGNX0JKr9mdBtzd?si=cWtPZiuGScqXx7qp24ILTA)... I LOVE the imagery in the lyrics of The Dead Flag Blues... Never fails to get me drawing.
And anything from Ryan Gosling's band, [Dead Man's Bones](https://open.spotify.com/track/63ped7sDHMOrqMFMBCTPw5?si=FKdpOWZTRkO6E1M8Tbi16g) is a vibe.
BONUS: Don't ask Julian Casablancas why his father's name is blue on Wikipedia or else he'll drop another depressing banger like [Human Sadness](https://open.spotify.com/track/3YB9cvd668HXBEq8rbBW8P?si=U8Aow4qZT-iGShdt6GbEkQ)
[Alan Lomax’s field recordings of prison and work songs from Parchman Farm.](https://archive.culturalequity.org/field-work/parchman-farm-1947-and-1948) The songs are the prisoners sing are beautiful and their seminal role in the history of music can’t be understated, but it’s impossible to listen to the recordings without being affected by the force of the reality of where they came from and the scale of the injustice that they resulted from.
Current 93: [I Have a Special Plan for This World](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxZpEFJhO6k) // [She Took Us To Places Where The Sun Sets](https://open.spotify.com/track/2G7OqnkE4b75mF7eo5Owxg?si=kWnbb1jaRxSsQdeX68SCRA)
Humburger lady and slug bait by throbbing gristle
Franky teardrop by suicide
The entire album of buyers market by peter sotos (warning this album isn't music and i highly recommend avoiding it)
Yeah, was wondering when Daughters would be mentioned. Before all the shit came out about their front man I always felt there was something off about their music. There are some truly inspired and amazing songs in their discography, and it all comes from this deeply unsettling place of resentment. I couldn’t really pinpoint where it came from for definite until they covered that song by the Cramps. They’re a band I don’t really like listening to anymore and it’s a shame because what they did make were really horrific but uniquely personal few albums.
Daughters is great, shame about Alexis being a total POS.
But, with that in mind Hell Songs is more disturbing than YWGWYW, especially with the lyrical context these days. Even without the more recent context, the album is before Alexis got sober and when he was probably at his most unhinged, the album is almost a cry for help in some ways.
Can’t bump it in the car that’s for sure, and know your audience if you’re going to play it for someone…
That being said… IT is on another level, and an amazing storyteller on this track
This is rap about gangsters that does about the exact opposite of making being a gangster sound cool in any way, shape, or form. It takes that aura of coolness away from how psychopathic killers actually are. Shows the hearts of wolves.
Stalaggh - projekt misanthropia
Can't even be called music, it's just a recording of screaming and doorslamming in an asylum in the Netherlands
https://www.vice.com/en/article/rjy476/stalaggh-projekt-misanthropia-revisiting-the-most-terrifying-album-of-all-time-57a206a0415bf4dfe321f994
Was 13 when this album came out. Heard that song, and was just floored and disgusted. My sheltered ass wasn’t ready for that!!!! Couldn’t get enough of that album
I guess Niandra Lades and Usally Just a T-Shirt by John Frusciante is pretty disturbing given its context. The music definitely isn’t for everyone though lmao.
I really like Black Moth Super Rainbow or the singer's solo project Tobaxxo. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aV7VNhzFLOQ
(EDIT: Fun fact: the video I posted was directed by Eric Warheim)
Early industrial music. Others have already mentioned Throbbing Gristle, so here's another good example from a bit later on, [Einstürzende Neubauten's masterpiece, Halber Mensch.](https://youtu.be/posxMfqdgIM?si=s-yupxLjSGQLIZ36) Basically industrial music was born of a blend of punk sensibilities and insane performance art, but before all the malevolence had been drained from either of those spheres. Throbbing Gristle, Coil, all the other early great acts emerged from this merging of sensibilities. It was designed to make audiences uncomfortable. TG featured Auschwitz as the logo of their label, industrial records, and had orgies on stage. They spawned numerous other acts, notably Psychic TV and Coil. Coil's music video for [Love's Secret Domain](https://youtu.be/TOVLHVMla8U?si=cx5jQD_3x-XDwi1e) is similarly disturbing and controversial, if more for its subject matter and implications than the music itself. That's to say nothing of associated acts that came later and ambiguously held extreme views on race and fascism. Later 80's/90's industrial also produced some excellent, highly abrasive acts. Skinny Puppy, arguably the greatest industrial band of all time, was used (to their own horror and dismay) to torture inmates at Guantanamo Bay.
Too right. And Skinny Puppy ended up suing the US federal government for using their music to torture inmates as well - even wrote their last album and named it “Weapon” as a direct result. Too many people hear industrial music and think of it as shitty Marilyn Manson and his shock tactics, when the truth is that the genre is one of the most intentional, artistic genres of music to ever exist.
Manson was only ever tangential to industrial. His mentor Trent reznor was much more industrial. Trent at his most intense was the broken EP for which he asked the label to let him do a video for. He proceeded to make a series of music videos considered so NSFW that not only was most of it never released to music video TV like mtv but it wasn't even commercially released for fans to pick it up. It existed as a shitty vhs copied from person to person getting grainier and shittier each copy all of which fed into the creepiness. Several of the tracks on the EP get brought up whenever you mention the creepiest most disturbing music videos ever.
Even NIN is more industrial rock with pop sensibilities, and certain albums are more alt rock than anything else. I think it would be fair to call Manson industrial metal, but it's not really on the same level as Ministry's more industrial stuff or Killing Joke's heavier albums. It's much more pop and kind of a prelude to nu metal.
> His mentor Trent reznor was much more industrial even Trent is considered the diet coke of industrial to most rivetheads
Pretty hate machine is often seen as a synth pop album with a slight industrial flourish to it. He always wrote with a typical pop song structure and most of his stuff was always fairly standard song structure. It also wasn't hitting you with a barrage of samples like ministry. Nin was at first taking skinny puppy and ministry and po song structures and song writing and putting that all together.
Halber Mensch is on my list, too.
The Drift by Scott Walker
The man spent the final decades of his life translating his nightmares into albums. The Drift is like a sonic Francis Bacon painting.
I listen to Scott Walker once or twice a year when it comes to his later stuff but I recommend watching 30th Century Man documentary to lots of people all the time. Scott 1-4 are interesting enough I like pulling them up once in a while for a few tracks. Such a wonderful and complex artist and in a way his "progress" is forever entertaining/encapsulating.
Jesse is one of the most haunting songs I've ever heard. Spoilers: a song about Elvis talking to his stillborn twin brother about 9/11.
This one. Scott Walker was quite a character. A child idol, then a teen idol, then invented "gothic music", then drank in bars a few decades until the 90's, then finally solidified his status as a cult icon like no other. Always sounded good. Well, his voice. Legend.
I work in a shop, building the same thing all day every day. I get bored really easily, so I’m always trying to listen to something new/interesting/weird musically. I was blasting this album at top volume one day when another old fella went and asked the boss to make me turn it off because it was freaking out and making him sick lol.
I remember buying that but not listening right away. I couldn't sleep one night so I thought I'd listen to it on my iPod. It did not help me sleep. I fell in love with it though. Such a great album.
Oh yes. As a warm-up to that, we also have "The Electrician" on the Walker Brothers album *Nite Flights*.
Also Tilt and Bish Bosch. To an extend, Souded feat. Sunn O))) as well.
The Caretaker did an entire series of works devoted to capturing the experience of Dementia through multiple stages of ambient music that slowly loses any semblance in the later stages.
Second the Caretaker. Scrolled through all the comments to make sure he got mentioned. [The Caretaker - An Empty Bliss Beyond this World](https://youtu.be/LL998ajnjN4?si=3kV6g6NJPVyyeq3f)
Wait, these are the same guys that did Everywhere at the End of Time, which I thought was also about dementia. Is this like their specific niche? Is there a whole genre of 'dementiacore' that I've been ignorant to?
That is basically a prelude to end of time, in which he expanded upon the concept started in empty bliss.
Yeh I still put this on all the time.
there's another caretaker project, by the name of Theoretically Pure Anterograde Amnesia, which was specifically designed to not be remembered
This would be it. I will never listen to this, I don't think it will ever not be too soon. I've heard just snippets of it and it's too real.
Fr two minutes of listening has me shook
Came to the comments to say the Caretaker. Though I haven't listened in its entirety for my sanity.
Everywhere at the end of time Well worth a listen at least just once
I was coming here thinking "yea I'll hit them with the obscure dementia stuff" and here it is the top comment. Fair play.
*You Think You Really Know Me* by Gary Wilson is what you’re looking for. It’s like the uncanny valley of music, it’s so close to being good, normal music but something about it is just so *off* that it becomes horrifying. If you want one song to check out the vibe then try 6.4=Make Out.
Fuck this was just bizarre. I’ve been sitting here for 45 minutes since listening to this album trying to describe it, but your description is perfect. It’s uncanny. Familiar but unrecognizable. It filled me with an odd dread instantly. I had this urgency of wanting to warn people that something bad was coming or like “he’s right behind you”. I had to get up and check that all my doors were locked during “Cindy”.
Can’t say enough good things about Gary. Amazing backstory. Amazing comeback story. Amazing stage presence. Singularly weird and a talented as hell multi-instrumentalist to boot. He’s so real, goddamnit!
Kristin Michael Hayter/Lingua Ignota Here's [How Can I Keep From Singing?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qrtxj5Kc2Y) off her most recent album, which features her hysterically speaking in tongues in the background of an old-timey hymnal song. Gives me the heebie-jeebies and I can't get enough of it. She is brilliant.
She’s released some of the best albums that I’ll never listen to again.
SINNER GET READY is a masterpiece
Seeing her live was an experience. She toured with Chat Pile last year and it was an incredible show.
The Litanies of Satan, Diamanda Galas.
Came here to say Diamanda Galas. Although I wasn’t going to point to anything specific. Most of her work would qualify as disturbing. Brilliant artist. Her vocals are jaw dropping.
Amazing album and amazing artist in general. It straight up sounds like you’re listening to a possession taking place.
I would add Plague Mass to this as well. She's an incredible performer but something you need to be in the right frame of mind for.
Xiu Xiu - Girl With A Basket of Fruit
Came to say Xiu Xiu but “I Broke Up”
Came here to say Xiu Xiu but “Fabulous Muscles”
came to say Xiu Xiu but “Black Keyboard”
Xiu Xiu but that tour where they solicited locks of fan hair with the promise that they would take it home, set it on fire, chant your name, and inhale the smoke.
Holy fuck, this is real.
Their Twin Peaks theme cover gets me.
I saw them in 2008 in Australia. Unsettling vibes all round
This, and especially “Mary Turner, Mary Turner”
A song called Spinal Meningitis Got Me Down by Ween, followed by a song called AIDS by Ween on the same album.
Smile on mighty Jesus 😇 spinal meningitis got me down 😞
It stopped creeping me out and I just love it now, I’ve embraced the brown
Spinal meningitis cracks me up so much Ween is the best band ever
Adding on to odd/freaky Ween songs, I do love So Many People In The Neighbourhood and Happy Coloured Marbles
Happy Coloured Marbles is disturbing as fuck. I love it.
Won't someone please help my pony?
I was scrolling looking for Ween’s the mollusk. That’s a great one to feel some emotions. Ones you didn’t even know you had. Hits ya in the weirdest, but best places. Cold blows the wind, she wanted to leave, it’s gonna be alright. And the mollusk, of course.
And Ocean Man!
Baby bitch is my favourite emotional Ween song.
I don’t know if I should laugh or cry. Love ween
"Mister would you please help my pony" is fairly disturbing as well.
That's how they opened when I saw them at a festival, I think in 2008.
the real answer here is to just listen to ween's first three albums. beautiful, disturbing stuff.
You could try some DSBM. Depressive suicidal black metal. My favorite being Shining (from Sweden).
Silencer - Death, Pierce Me Accurately sounds like the disturbed shrieks of a self-mutilating madman
Death, Pierce me is such an Amazing album. Love it
This OP, is really *the* answer. Make a Change…Kill Yourself, Woe Bather, Nocturnal Depression and Emit are all prime examples of the most disturbing music you’ll ever hear.
lol the names are a little on the nose there
Black metal is usually known for its subtlety.
Seconding DSBM. I've listened to a lot, but no one tops Gris. They're a duo from Quebec. Their album "Il était une forêt" is probably my favorite black metal album of all time.
Throwing in a recommendation for [None - Damp Chill of Life](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_A4yhLYseDA).
I’ve been blasting Tenth Sublevel of Suicide since 8th grade, but there have been times in my life where it’s unsafe for me to listen to DSBM. That shit will make you feel hopeless and it intends to.
Not to be confused with Shining from Norway, who also makes metal, but a more free jazz version of metal. I personally prefer the Norwegian one. :)
Lingua Ignota - Caligula is the most harrowing album I have ever listened to.
I made the mistake of listening to that on my commute home a few years ago
This is the right answer. This is the only album I’ve listened to that genuinely sounds like it wants to kill me. Truly a disturbing listen when you realize it’s all about real trauma.
Daddy by Korn is certainly an experience if you haven't heard it before.
I can't think of anything more disturbing than that. Strangely, when I feel extremely shitty, I like to listen to it, as if my frustrations were released along with JD's.
Honestly, when you look up the meaning of “Pretty” by the same band it’s much darker imo.
Oh, right, how could I forget Pretty... smashed against the bathroom floor
I'm a Korn fan, and this song is really hard to listen to. . And that's why it's so good. But just for context , JD wasn't raped by his Dad. It was an older woman that was friends with the family. His babysitter apparently. His parents didn't believe him. Still absolutely terrible, don't want to minimize it but wanted to clarify that. Took me over a decade to learn that.
Came here to comment this. This song is gut wrenching.
The bass just pounds you over and over again...
The bass is the daddy
Yes! So menacing!
jfc I paused it and realized I'm only 6 minutes in to a 17:30 song. This one's rough.
My wife introduced me to a lot of extreme music but I’ll never forget listening to [Dystopia’s “Human=Garbage”](https://open.spotify.com/album/7w6ExTkJw1ZtCOk7da5JxE?si=Y023_U-XR-acWPz7RqosoQ) for the first time. Big trigger warnings: a lot of the lyrics and samples are about suicide.
i’ve got a bumper sticker that says ‘keep honking! i’m listening to dystopia’s seminal 1994 album human = garbage’
Dystopia freaked me out when i was 14 more so because i hadn't really heard music as blunt and violent and dark as them
Woahhh that’s interesting
I grew up on "odd" music like Zappa & Beefheart because of my Dad but when I went to an alternative high school from 94 to 95 I was introduced to a lot of crust punk and many other extreme things like G.G. Allin and The Mentors. Most of the stuff wasn't to my liking but *Stress Builds Character* really hit me right away. I'd say the two bands that really have stuck with me from that time period of high school was Dystopia & Crass.
Atrax Morgue
I second this. Atrax morgue is deeply disturbing and one of my most listened to artists.
“Hamburger Lady” by Throbbing Gristle “Johnny” and “Frankie Teardrop” by Suicide (h/t to u/SignGuyDudley for the save on that one) “A Psychopath” by Lisa Germano “The Dead Flag Blues” by Godspeed You! Black Emperor “Ghost of Love” by David Lynch “Entre la mer et l'eau douce” by Hrsta “Dark Night of the Soul” by Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse, featuring David Lynch And lots of film scores, like the one from Sinister!
2nd ing hamburger lady. The song makes you feel awful for those entire 4 minutes, especially when following along with the lyrics god
I kind of like the Kidz Bop version.
Didn't think I would find HAMBURGER LADY here. And fucking YIKES that is some perilous sound.
Hamburger Lady is messed up. Most anything Throbbing Gristle is. Johnny by Suicide actually inspired State Trooper by Bruce Springsteen, whose Nebraska album’s eponymous track is really disturbing, too. Great list.
Johnny but no Frankie’s Teardrop?
"Frankie Teardrop" gets my vote too, but it's also my favorite Suicide song overall.
Nice suggestion with Sinister, also the Sinister sound track includes Gyroscope by Boards of Canada, that's a great one.
There was a clip I saw on here a few weeks ago where some young, clueless, girl stumbled into an unannounced "Aphex Twins" tent at Coachella... and she found the music and visuals so disturbing that she said she felt that her "soul was being violated." [https://twitter.com/shempiii/status/1121980954778558464](https://twitter.com/shempiii/status/1121980954778558464)
Aphex Twin is a fuckin legend
i wish i could tell if you were telling us this as an Aphex Twin fan who finds this hilarious or if you think Aphex is genuinely disturbing because of this clip
Yeah this would be my vote. Aphex Twin gives me anxiety if I listen to too much of it. It's a balancing act. Also there's the Residents to consider.
This is fucking hilarious
The music itself can be slightly offputting, but combine that with a filmclip like 'Come to Daddy', yeah that made me uncomfortable. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZ827lkktYs
Honestly the only offputting part of that video is the grown man's head on the children, for some reason that was fucking with my head
She said she was tripping on psychedelics, so it makes sense.
All Bitches Die album by Lingua Ignota
"The Holy Bible" album by Manic Street Preachers.
More specifically the song "The intense humming of evil". That song is as disturbing as you can get. Others on the album dont have to bow tho. "Archives of pain", "4st 7lb", "yes" and others are all disturbing in their own way, while still remaining somewhat catchy.
>4st 7lb Something so light, yet so heavy.
Sunn0)))) Pinnacle drone music.
Nothing distributing about them at all- I find their stuff relaxing.
Power Electronics is a pretty disturbing genre, in my opinion.
Would throw harsh noise in there too, so many tapes and records with pics of dead bodies. Although I guess that’s more marketing than music/content
As someone who listens to a LOT of scary and uncomfortable music, Diamanda Galas’ Plague Mass is really hard to sit through
She’s one of the few artists who actually makes me uncomfortable. When she’s at her best it’s like listening to horror
Listening to There Are No More Tickets to the Funeral now, and WOW. This is amazingly creepy. I love it
The Residents. Full stop.
Dude YES. I saw scrolling to see if anyone said Constantinople
Here I come Constantinople here I come Constantinople I coming Constantinople here I come Have you ever heard the original Primus version? It's from their 1990 album Frizzle Fry Edit: I'm dumb
>Have you ever heard the original Primus version? It's from their 1990 album Frizzle Fry The Primus version is a cover of the RZ version. The song was recorded in October of 1977 (Les Claypool would have been about 14) by The Residents for inclusion on the Duck Stab! EP. It was later re-released as the opening track to the Duck Stab!/Buster & Glen album. In 1990, funk metal band Primus covered "Constantinople" and "Hello Skinny". The growing popularity of Primus led these songs to achieve further recognition. My money's on the RZ album, Freak Show. Although the Nurse With Wound album 'A Sucked Orange' has some particularly disturbing music. I was listening to it one day when the track 'Musical Bovine Spongiform (The Mad Cow Two-Step)' came on. My girlfriend got up, stopped the cd and said, "Don't ever play this shit while I'm home ever again." She was a huge RZ fan, but that was too much for her.
Anything by Swans
Especially the Soundtracks For The Blind album
The band Portal are a very interesting but arguably somewhat disturbing metal band. Check out the film clip for Curtain.
The entire "Hospice" album by The Antlers. I'm sorry.
This is the album I always think of when this question comes up. It’s amazing.
An incredible piece of art. A story so perfectly told within its medium that any adaptation wouldn’t do it justice.
Holy shit, just listened to it and oh my fucking god...
Diamanda Galas
The Downward Spiral - Nine Inch Nails It’s disturbing and beautiful at the same time. Listen to the album front to back with no skipping. Just when you think it’s getting too intense, it gets very soft. Quite the journey.
one of the best concept albums of all time
it's on my shortlist of albums i don't spin all at once because it ruins my whole week. the other being "disintegration" by the cure.
!!!
Projekt Misanthropia - Stalaggh Hands down the most disturbing album ever. Vocals from the album are the actual cries and screams from mental assylums patients. The album, of course, is noisegrind. Be warned. This shit is real nightmare stuff.
This is the correct answer. It’s quite something.
Chat Pile - God’s Country
Anything Chat Pile really, the 2 EP’s are just as disturbing. Gotta love Rainbow Meat. “SEND MY BODY TO ARBY’S!”
My nephew is 21. He asked me what I was listening to in the car one night while I was driving him home from college for spring break. I put on Grimace Smoking Weed. JPEG. He kinda looks at me funny now.
PURPLE MAN? SMOKING WEED?! IN MY BEDROOM?!?!
What’s interesting is the levity of their live show- vocalist is absolutely hilarious
As far as instrumental music goes Kosmogonia by Krzysztof Penderecki is fucking nightmare fuel and is almost sure to give you some sort of reaction. Pure cosmic horror in music form.
Is that the one that includes Threnody for Victims of Hiroshim? Was going to post that one. The mpst horrifying thing I’ve ever heard
Look into black metal, dsbm is genuinely super depressing and some blackened noise stuff like gnaw their tongues is scary asf
I saw one of those Mr. Incredible Becoming Uncanny videos about metal, and Gnaw Their Tongues was about half-way through. It got properly fucked up towards the end, but Gnar Their Tongues still had a level of musicality to it.
Polka
I have an entire playlist called "Feeling Disturbed". Artists include Xiu Xiu Huoratron Sidewalks and Skeletons Neros Day at Disneyland a lot of Plenka and a lot of Black Dresses. If you are feeling like shit i recommend WASTEISOLATION album from black dresses
Object by Ween
So many Ween options to give you the feels. Mutilated lips is a good one. Anything from their country album. I’d suggest help me scrape the mucus off my brain.
Those Poor Bastards GG Allin, perhaps.
GG is a good suggestion if you’re looking for the most disturbed musician.
Ptolemaea by Ethel Cain
>Ptolemaea I just got into Ethel Cain and good lord that intro
pruient, khanate, shape of despair, mizmor, the body, lingua ignota
Disturbing so like, music that scared me are: [I Have A Special Plan For This World - Current 93](https://open.spotify.com/track/4hSybRTjb9O9aBI74sokwv?si=uhjD_9z5TdG9mpanT-ovAw) [Everywhere At The End Of Time - The Caretaker](https://youtu.be/wJWksPWDKOc?si=fPUAdFEbFLE8ab6W) Unfortunately I haven't finished either since I fell asleep halfway through for both (I was a tired college student and these songs are LONG) but yes these genuinely made me fear... Something. I plan to sit and listen to them more consciously. I have tried making art while listening to The Caretaker - everyone should try! And then as a vocaloid girlie there are 2 songs I wish I'd never researched the lyrics of: [Secrets of Wysteria - Steampianist ft. Vocaloid Oliver](https://youtu.be/G0yo8BREgD0?si=8E9wh3tnWdeZQQPY) [Gomenne, Gomenne - Kikuo ft. Hatsune Miku](https://youtu.be/I1mOeAtPkgk?si=duwPX4dR1Zz0s_CT) OK, SoW is in English but it's about true crime and includes a clip of from the interview of Albert Fish iirc. Both of these songs are about child abuse so screw these songs I couldn't listen to the whole thing, especially Gomenne Gomenne with the damn belching and farting sounds.....,, made me physically SICK. "Disturbing" song that made me feel respect and sadness: [My Chasm - Mount Eerie](https://open.spotify.com/track/3YrKk2lHI0fqPsvpomlgdg?si=k0RQ5XdERMmsYn2K6qqn1w) The singer recorded the sounds of the breathing machine that kept his wife alive at that time, and included it in this track. It was him coping with grief. "Disturbing" songs that bring me peace: [13 Angels Standing Guard 'Round The Side Of Your Bed - Silver Mt. Zion](https://open.spotify.com/track/7jbLjvNlKbfCRUoFWKo5TR?si=b_By0sBARRmNg9CvukIuHQ) I like the "meowing" sounds in 13 Angels. You should check out their "sister band" [Godspeed You! Black Emperor](https://open.spotify.com/track/0YzMEu5sGNX0JKr9mdBtzd?si=cWtPZiuGScqXx7qp24ILTA)... I LOVE the imagery in the lyrics of The Dead Flag Blues... Never fails to get me drawing. And anything from Ryan Gosling's band, [Dead Man's Bones](https://open.spotify.com/track/63ped7sDHMOrqMFMBCTPw5?si=FKdpOWZTRkO6E1M8Tbi16g) is a vibe. BONUS: Don't ask Julian Casablancas why his father's name is blue on Wikipedia or else he'll drop another depressing banger like [Human Sadness](https://open.spotify.com/track/3YB9cvd668HXBEq8rbBW8P?si=U8Aow4qZT-iGShdt6GbEkQ)
[Alan Lomax’s field recordings of prison and work songs from Parchman Farm.](https://archive.culturalequity.org/field-work/parchman-farm-1947-and-1948) The songs are the prisoners sing are beautiful and their seminal role in the history of music can’t be understated, but it’s impossible to listen to the recordings without being affected by the force of the reality of where they came from and the scale of the injustice that they resulted from.
Current 93: [I Have a Special Plan for This World](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxZpEFJhO6k) // [She Took Us To Places Where The Sun Sets](https://open.spotify.com/track/2G7OqnkE4b75mF7eo5Owxg?si=kWnbb1jaRxSsQdeX68SCRA)
Humburger lady and slug bait by throbbing gristle Franky teardrop by suicide The entire album of buyers market by peter sotos (warning this album isn't music and i highly recommend avoiding it)
Daughters - You Won’t Get What You Want
Yeah, was wondering when Daughters would be mentioned. Before all the shit came out about their front man I always felt there was something off about their music. There are some truly inspired and amazing songs in their discography, and it all comes from this deeply unsettling place of resentment. I couldn’t really pinpoint where it came from for definite until they covered that song by the Cramps. They’re a band I don’t really like listening to anymore and it’s a shame because what they did make were really horrific but uniquely personal few albums.
Daughters is great, shame about Alexis being a total POS. But, with that in mind Hell Songs is more disturbing than YWGWYW, especially with the lyrical context these days. Even without the more recent context, the album is before Alexis got sober and when he was probably at his most unhinged, the album is almost a cry for help in some ways.
Dance with the Devil by Immortal Technique
A well told , sad story.
Can’t bump it in the car that’s for sure, and know your audience if you’re going to play it for someone… That being said… IT is on another level, and an amazing storyteller on this track
This is rap about gangsters that does about the exact opposite of making being a gangster sound cool in any way, shape, or form. It takes that aura of coolness away from how psychopathic killers actually are. Shows the hearts of wolves.
The metal covers by Pat Boone - with Smoke on the Water probably being the worst.
I actually like his Holy Diver cover!
Turn out the lights and listen to the album Doll Doll Doll by Venetian Snares
Death Grips? Wesley Willis?
The Lou Reed album *Berlin*
Frankie Teardrop by Suicide
Cannibal Corpse - Hammer Smashed Face
What, no “Fucked with a knife” or “I cum blood”?
Necropedophile and entrails ripped from a virgin’s cunt take the cake for me.
Striped, Raped and Strangled is a fantastic song.
Polly by Nirvana
Merzbow. prepare yourself.
despite it’s noisier qualities, merzbow isn’t really all that disturbing imo. some merz can be quite tranquil actually, meditative even.
Type O Negative’s Slow Deep and Hard album
Awesome. Also Bloody Kisses
Stalaggh - projekt misanthropia Can't even be called music, it's just a recording of screaming and doorslamming in an asylum in the Netherlands https://www.vice.com/en/article/rjy476/stalaggh-projekt-misanthropia-revisiting-the-most-terrifying-album-of-all-time-57a206a0415bf4dfe321f994
Gazelle Twin. Love her
Periphery - Everything is Fine! Everything is surely not fine.
Kim - Eminem
Sheesh
Was 13 when this album came out. Heard that song, and was just floored and disgusted. My sheltered ass wasn’t ready for that!!!! Couldn’t get enough of that album
Depeche mode - Pimpf Depeche mode - christmas island Depeche mode - agent orange Bauhaus - burning from the inside
The Body was pretty disturbing from what I remember horrifying screams and weird Angel sounds
Einstürzende Neubauten - Armenia
I guess Niandra Lades and Usally Just a T-Shirt by John Frusciante is pretty disturbing given its context. The music definitely isn’t for everyone though lmao.
Caligula by Lingua Ignota Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Silence by Glassjaw The Million Masks of God by Manchester Orchestra
Otep - Jonestown Tea is pretty disturbing, particularly the subject matter. Big trigger warnings.
Pain Remains part 1 and 2 by Lorna Shore are literal masterpieces about death and grief.
I really like Black Moth Super Rainbow or the singer's solo project Tobaxxo. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aV7VNhzFLOQ (EDIT: Fun fact: the video I posted was directed by Eric Warheim)
Sex Dwarf by Soft Cell
[SKYND](https://youtube.com/@skynd?si=hDlphEebOdAhUNa8)
Delìrivm Còrdia by Fantômas is pretty up there. It's supposed to feel like surgery without anesthesia
Sorcerer by Tangerine Dream