History MindScrew / Music

** Forget it. Let's just say ''Kyary Pamyu Pamyu's'' the Japanese equivalent of ''Creator/LadyGaga''...

** Forget it. Let's just say ''Kyary Pamyu Pamyu'''s the Japanese equivalent of ''Creator/LadyGaga''...

* The music video of [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzC4hFK5P3g Pon Pon Pon]]. Good luck trying to figure out what's going on. Whatever it is, it seems to involve microphones coming out of people's ears and eyeballs dancing.

* The Evillous Chronicles. To give you an example? A doll is pregnant with God after the BigBad impregnated her with his soul. Said BigBad fused with her ArchNemesis a while later, and they caused [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8L75guzMn4 THIS]] to happen to create [[UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans Utopia]]. Maybe. Which may also be the EndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt.

* [[Music/Mothy The Evillous Chronicles]]. To give you an example? A doll is pregnant with God after the BigBad impregnated her with his soul. Said BigBad fused with her ArchNemesis a while later, and they caused [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8L75guzMn4 THIS]] to happen to create [[UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans Utopia]]. Maybe. Which may also be the EndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt.

* [[TheWho Pete Townshend]] is prone to this in his concept albums. When The Who were at work on ''{{Tommy}}'', their manager Kit Lambert actually had to act as his TranslatorBuddy just to explain to people "what [he] was on about". It got worse when Pete attempted ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifehouse_(rock_opera) Lifehouse]]'', a project so complex and ambitious in its scope that ''no one but himself'' could understand it, leading to his having [[HeroicBSOD a complete nervous breakdown]] and the project being scrapped in favor of the album ''Who's Next''.

* TheMelvins! How could they not have been mentioned yet? Many, many songs by them are just plain odd. Their whole style is pretty bizarre.

** "Life on Mars?", has been described as "a cross between a Broadway musical and a Salvador Dali painting." A girl leaves her house as her parents fight, goes to the movies, and then there's something about fighting sailors, corrupt cops, and Mickey Mouse.

** "Life on Mars", which has been described as "a cross between a Broadway musical and a Salvador Dali painting." A girl leaves her house as her parents fight, goes to the movies, and then there's something about fighting sailors, corrupt cops, and Mickey Mouse.

* DavidBowie's 1995 concept album ''1. Outside'' is a story told in anachronic order of a 25-year-long investigation into illegal trade in body parts harvested in ritual murders centered in [[LondonEnglandSyndrome Oxford (NJ) and London (OT)]], which also seems to be a metaphor for Bowie's own career, including an apparent disco/industrial elegy to Major Tom. The fact that it was planned as part of a [[AbortedArc scrapped 5-part cycle]] does ''not'' help.

** A lot of David Bowie is like this, and that's not even counting ''{{Labyrinth}}''.
** The song ''1984'' was written as part of an aborted rock-opera version of the book [[Literature/NineteenEightyFour 1984]].

** Special mention to African Night Fight which has a new sound and parts of it are sung in a Kenyan dialect and bizarre lyrics describing some kind of fight and stuff about a baby being born silent and hardships.

* [[TheWho Pete Townshend]] is prone to this in his concept albums. When The Who were at work on ''{{Tommy}}'', their manager Kit Lambert actually had to act as his TranslatorBuddy just to explain to people "what [he] was on about". It got worse when Pete attempted [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifehouse_(rock_opera) the Lifehouse project]], which was so complex and ambitious in its scope that ''no one but himself'' could understand it, leading to his having [[HeroicBSOD a complete nervous breakdown]] and the project being scrapped in favor of the album ''Who's Next''.

* [[TheWho Pete Townshend]] is prone to this in his concept albums. When The Who were at work on ''{{Tommy}}'', their manager Kit Lambert actually had to act as his TranslatorBuddy just to explain to people "what [he] was on about". It got worse when Pete attempted [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifehouse_(rock_opera) the Lifehouse project]], which was so complex and ambitious in its scope that ''no one but himself'' could understand it, leading to his having [[HeroicBSOD a complete nervous breakdown]] and the project being scrapped in favor of the album ''Who's Next''

* [[TheWho Pete Townshend]] is prone to this in his concept albums. When The Who were at work on ''{{Tommy}}'', their manager Kit Lambert actually had to act as Townshend's TranslatorBuddy just to explain to people "what [he] was on about". It got worse when Pete attempted [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifehouse_(rock_opera) the Lifehouse project]], which was so complex and ambitious in its scope that ''no one but himself'' could understand it, leading to his having [[HeroicBSOD a complete nervous breakdown]] and the project being scrapped in favor of the album ''Who's Next''

* Doseone (perhaps best known for his involvement in {{cLOUDDEAD}}) was an ordinary battle rapper once upon a time. Nowadays his lyrics tend to form weird, tightly-interlocked cadences that may or may not actually mean anything in particular.

* The very lifeblood of Music/DirEnGrey is basically this trope. They take their GenreBusting seriously, producing nigh-[[NeoclassicalPunkZydecoRockabilly unclassifiable]] material with lyrics that [[WordSaladLyrics don't really make much sense]] unless analyzed. In addition, vocalist Kyo's HarshVocals make both his English ''and'' his Japanese completely [[TheUnintelligible incomprehensible]]. To top it off, all their music videos are just plain weird.

* Music/DirEnGrey is, in simplest form, a walking MindScrew. They take their GenreBusting seriously, producing nigh-[[NeoclassicalPunkZydecoRockabilly unclassifiable]] material with lyrics that [[WordSaladLyrics don't really make much sense]]. In addition, vocalist Kyo's HarshVocals make both his English ''and'' his Japanese completely [[TheUnintelligible incomprehensible]]. To top it off, all their music videos are just plain weird.

* BritneySpears has a video where she see's a video of someone complaining abouttsomething she did, which made many people mad then she decided to do it, but at the end of the same video is played, at the same time, but she is no longer there to witness it.

* Music/KyaryPamyuPamyu, while only debuting in late 2011, is certainly in this section. Her first song is PONPONPON (meaning "clap clap clap") has [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzC4hFK5P3g this]] video, though the [[http://superhappyawesome.wordpress.com/2011/07/21/hengao-pon-pon-pon-lyrics-and-a-chance-to-meet-kyary-pamyu-pamyu/ lyrics]] make slightly more sense.
** Her second song was called "Tsukema Tsukeru" which is about putting on false eyelashes. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLy4cvRx7Vc Video makes... sense..]]

* BoardsOfCanada thrives on this, but their song Aquarius is particularly egregious. It starts of with samples of sarcastic children, then a woman starts counting, then she starts saying the numbers in a seemingly random order, and finally starts outright inventing numbers (sixty-ten and sixty orange)...and there's a sample of a man saying the word "orange" throughout the song. If there's a meaning behind any of it, no one seems to know what it is

* Oingo Boingo (a.k.a. DannyElfman's old band) has had its fair share of these (which is kind of unsurprising when you consider their headliner). Most notable include [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CyjmxEoRFg Reptiles and Samuri]] from the album Nothing to Fear and [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqunhHxfiug Long Breakdown]] from Dark at the End of the Tunnel. You figure out a) Why a reptile AND a samuri would have one's head and 2) Why would someone wander in geometric patterns in the dark?

* Music/DreamTheater's ''Scenes From A Memory: Metropolis Part 2'' Album definitely has some mind screwing going on. It tells the story of Nicholas, who has visions of a girl. He visits a hypnoterapists and under his guidance realises that he is just a reincarnation of Victoria, a girl that was murdered by The Miracle, one of her two lovers, the other one being The Sleeper (and The Miracle and The Sleeper are brothers, too!). However, in the last song on the CD Nicholas is [[spoiler: shot by the hypnotherapist, who, in turn, is actually a reincarnation of The Miracle.]]

*** From the CD notes of ''Scheherazade and other stories'': "...a delicate story of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Wood Roy Wood]] and [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annie_Haslam Annie Haslam]] showing up at Hampstead Heath for a fair that had closed down..."

** "Correctional Facility Food Sucks" possibly wins the award for "Mid Screwiest" song, though.

** ''Joe's Garage'' is a full double-album Mind Screw. The first half sounds like a pretty straightforward story of a guy guy playing music in a totalitarian society where music is illegal (OK so far) who discovers he likes to have sex with appliances (ok, so maybe not so straightforward) but by the end of the second disc, it, uh ... well he ends up working in the Utility Muffin Research Kitchen, pooting little green rosettas onto muffins. All narrated by The Central Scrutinizer -- a cheap looking flying saucer kinda thing about five feet across covered with stupid looking headers and exhaust hoses and some spoked wheels but who actually gets around by being dangled from a string held by a union guy eating a sandwich.

* Quite a few of PeterGabriel's solo work, including the Family and the Fishing Net, which somehow describes both a Voodoo ceremony and regular old fashioned wedding.

** All of these have the disadvantage that they [[TheWalrusWasPaul don't really give a sense of expecting to make sense]]...unlike "Eleanor Rigby," probably their most effective MindScrew.

* The {{Ayreon}} RockOpera "The Human Equation" appears to simply be a look into the mind of a comatose man dealing with a lifetime's worth of angst and misdeeds... until the very end of the final track, where [[spoiler:It's revealed that it is simply a computer simulation being run for the benefit of an advanced alien life form]].

** Some of [=McLean=]'s lyrics allegedly reference BobDylan (The Jester). Who, incidentally, is famous for his own well-known, mind-screwy song: "Desolation Row". . .to name one of MANY in Dylan's catalog.

*** It's rather ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin. The song is a homage to the classic 1930s and 1940s movies, and the lyrics are either quotes or references from them. The title directly refers to ''Film/TheMalteseFalcon''; the sampled dialogues are, among others, from ''Film/TheThiefOfBagdad''; the song ends with a sound of an old movie projector shutting down; and at one point, Anderson references ClarkGable, (Douglas) Fairbanks and Maureen O'Sullivan by name.