Very few bands are as deliberately self-destructively idiosyncratic as MSI, and very few are quite as successful for it. How many bands claim that they came up with their sound from attempting to "play Pac-Man with the joystick up [their] butt", throw chairs and instruments at their audience, or release an album of 30 songs with all the vowels asterisked out? And of these bands, how many can pay for a many-month-long tour in a single week?
Since their debut as a full band in 1999 with Tight, MSI has gained a cult following. 2000's Frankenstein Girls Will See Strangely Sexy, with a whopping thirty songs covering everything from drugs and the rock scene to homosexuality and androgyny, was a bizarre enough release to gain them recognition, but it wasn't until You'll Rebel to Anything (2005) that the band became a household name amongst those of a more rebellious, foulmouthed persuasion.
Bear in mind, MSI creates a context so absolutely over-the-top offensive that everything means nothing, and if anyone's offended, they're missing the point.
Combining electronica, punk, rap, rock, pop and even Atari videogame music, and with vocals that range from a fluttering falsetto to grunge rage and speed-talking, MSI is a spastic, genre-bending, delightfully nonsensical band that's always good for some mindless self-indulging.
Tight has been discontinued and is ridiculously hard to find, so I feel little remorse in sharing half the CD.
From Tight (1999):
TightMollyDiabolicalPussy All NightBite Your RhymesHail Satan! (Tornado Live) From Frankenstein Girls Will Seem Strangely Sexy (2000):
BackmaskFaggotGolden II Hate Jimmy PageKill the Rock From Alienating Our Audience: Live (2002):
RevengeLike ShitLast Gay Song From You'll Rebel to Anything (2005):
Shut Me UpStraight to VideoWhat Do They Know?Stupid MF From Another Mindless Rip-Off EP (2006):
Frying PanBorn to Be Beheaded