History Music / TheResidents

** Gamelan Sekar Jaya joined the band on stage and in studio multiple times, most notably on local performances of songs from *Wormwood* in 1998 and 2001.

To this day, only one member is known: Hardy Fox, one of the Cryptic Corporation heads. He was the group's keyboard player, pianist and lead songwriter, among many other roles, from the founding years until 2016. It wasn't until 2017 that he admitted his role in the group. He died of brain cancer on October 30th, 2018. He was 73.

-->'''Randy (as Mr. Skull):''' Nowhere does the Good Book say 'Jesus loves me.'

* BunnyEarsLawyer: Their "managers" (officially speaking, friends of theirs who handle the business side of things for them) described working with them as more or less baby-sitting, but are basically willing to put up with it because they make awesome music.

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: Possibly the only reason they got away with the [[https://www.residents.com/historical/media/image/Tweedles.jpg artwork]] (NSFW) for ''Tweedles!'' was the [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/2c/Tweedles.jpg way that they packaged it.]]

To this day, only one member is known: Cryptic Corporation employee Hardy Fox was a founding member. He left the band in 2016, and did not announce his involvement until 2017. He died in 2018, of brain cancer, a day before Halloween.

The Residents are a San Francisco-based avant-garde rock group that has released over 100 albums, starting with 1974's ''Meet the Residents''. They helped pioneer the modern MusicVideo, and produced some of the creepiest songs, both original [[TheCoverChangesTheMeaning and covers]], for nearly five decades--all while [[AnonymousBand staying anonymous to the public]].

For additional info, Creator/MattGroening wrote [[http://www.residents.com/historical4/info/ The True Story of The Residents]] for Uncle Willie. A documentary, ''Theory of Obscurity: A Film About The Residents'', was released in 2015.

* {{Yandere}}: In ''Wormwood'', “Bathsheba Bathing” basically presents King David as one of these, the unsettling melody only adding to it. Especially due to how there’s some... rapey implications implications too.

* {{Yandere}}: In ''Wormwood'', “Bathsheba Bathing” basically presents King David as one of these, the unsettling melody only adding to it. Especially due to how it also give it some... rapey implications.

* {{Gorn}}: The climax of ''God in Three Persons''.

** Up until the mid-to-late seventies, there was no one Singing Resident. Even then, the other members all regularly did vocals on albums until the early '80s, at the earliest.

* HarshVocals: The lead singer of the group is known for his gravelly, twangy vocals, but another of the founding members had him easily beat, just by having a higher range.
* TheHedonist: The protagonist of ''Tweedles!''

** Initially, there was no one Singing Resident. In fact, their lead singer was not appointed as such until the mid-seventies, and had fewer vocals parts than his bandmates, in the earliest years.

* HarshVocals: The lead singer of the group is known for his gravelly, twangy vocals (and in earlier years, a tendency to belt or affect voices well outside of his range on purpose), but another of the founding members (heard throughout ''Not Available'' and during the first movement of "Final Confrontation") had him beat easily.

* DirtyOldMan: Randy shows shades of this.

** Initially, there was no one Singing Resident--bandmates often split vocal duties. The most prominent cases are Hardy Fox, who continued the practice well after a lead singer was established, and ''Not Available,'' which features vocals from the whole band, sometimes at once.

* PerishingAltRockVoice: Hardy Fox had a uniquely unpleasant variation of this--WordOfGod states he had horrible stage fright, which bandmates and producers would openly encourage.

* HarshVocals: The lead singer of the group is known for his gravelly, twangy vocals (and in earlier years, a tendency to belt outside of his range on purpose), but another of the founding members (heard throughout ''Not Available'' and during the first movement of "Final Confrontation") had him beat easily.

* AlmightyJanitor: Frequent guest singer Molly Harvey did not have a musical career at all prior to the band, whose label had hired her to work at their mail-order department.

!!"Tropes of Two Cities":

** The song titles "Guylum Bardot" and "The Booker Tease" are puns on the names of musicians: Guy Lombardo, a big band leader, and Booker T. Jones, front-man of the instrumental soul group Booker T & The M.G.'s. Similarly "Krafty Cheese" references Kraft cheese and the fact that the group thought the song sounded like "cheesy {{Music/Kraftwerk}}".
* RealitySubtext: ''The Big Bubble'' has this in spades; it was their first project in the Mole Trilogy after the disastrous Mole Show tour, which nearly ended the band, caused Ralph Records to collapse, drove away two bandmembers, and left the band without the massive studio they'd been using for the six years prior as two of the Cryptic Corporation heads stepped down. Not only does this account for the pared-down sound, but it also explains titles like "Sorry," "Go Where You Wanna Go," and "Fear For the Future," as well as "Cry For The Fire's" deeply mournful tone.

* StealthPun: Their CoverVersion of "Kaw-Liga", originally by Music/HankWilliams, prominently samples [[Music/MichaelJackson "Billie Jean"]] - this has been interpreted as a reference to Williams' marriage to Billie Jean Horton.
* StylisticSuck: Was de rigeur for the band's pre-*Santa Dog* years--the band refused to learn from professionals, and insisted on teaching themselves how to write or play their instruments. This, coupled with their irreverent sense of humor, led to many tracks in which the band went out of their way to sound terrible, either as counterpoint to instruments some of them knew better or as a piss-take towards the styles and artists they were imitating.