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From left to right: Kitty, Steve, Righ?, Jimmy Urine and Lyn-Z

"I am not into that whole 'Well, you don't like my music so I am going to get you!' Who cares? I don't like my music! It's all about being an asshole and not all the testosterone you can handle. Look at me, I am just a skinny little nothing, somebody's grandmother could kill me!"
Jimmy Urine, lead singer

Mindless Self Indulgence (usually shortened to MSI) is an American electronic band formed in New York City in 1997.

Their sound was at first described by themselves as "Industrial Jungle Pussy Punk", but they have since denounced the term. It is difficult to describe their music, on the grounds that they never seem to adhere to a single set genre. Their early music is industrial punk with hip-hop elements, while their modern stuff goes more in the direction of electronica-laden dance music.

However, attitude-wise, they're a punk band, in the truest sense of the word. The majority of their songs involve repeated profanity of some sort, almost all of them are about sex and feature Jimmy squealing, screeching, and doing a dozen different voices. Their live shows are intense and involve backbends, masturbation, stripping, piss-drinking, and/or rants.

Current Members:

  • Jimmy Urine, main vocalist, song-writer and programmer note 
  • Steve, Righ?, guitarist, co-writer with Jimmy note 
  • LynZ, bassist from 2002-present note 
  • Kitty, drummer note 

Former Members:

  • Vanessa Y.T., Bassist, 1997-2001 note 
  • Markus Euringer: Played second guitar and electronics during the band's very early years.

Albums:

  • Tight (1999, reissued 2011 with bonus content as Tighter)
  • Frankenstein Girls Will Seem Strangely Sexy (2000)
  • You'll Rebel to Anything (2005, reissued 2008)
  • If (2008)
  • How I Learned to Stop Giving a Shit and Love Mindless Self Indulgence (2013)
  • Pink (recorded/written initially between 1990-1997, released, remastered and rerecorded in 2015)

Other Releases:

  • Mindless Self Indulgence (1995, when the band was still a solo-project by Jimmy)
  • Crappy Little Demo (1997)
  • Alienating Our Audience (2002, Live album}
  • Despierta Los Niños (2003)
  • Our Pain, Your Gain (2007, Live DVD release)
  • <3 (released Valentine's day 2011, featuring several cut tracks from If)


I CAN'T WAIT FOR YOU TO TROPE ME UP AND MAKE ME HIP LIKE BADASS:

  • A Hell of a Time: "5TR82H3LL".
    I'm going straight to hell
    And it was fucking worth it, man!
  • Accidental Misnaming: Invoked on an interlude from Tight. A club owner calls to book Mindless Self Indulgence for a show, and the poor guy just can not say the band's name correctly.note 
  • Alphabetical Theme Naming: The tracks on Frankenstein Girls are alphabetically sorted.
  • Appropriated Appellation: Steve, Righ?'s stage name, word for word.
  • Ass Shove: In an early show, Jimmy jammed a wad of toilet paper into his butt, then threw it into the crowd, all the while yelling "CLONE ME!"
  • Audience Participation: On the intro song "Backmaskwarning!".
    "When I say we, you say suck!"
    • Also frequently employed in live performances of "Faggot"; Jimmy usually allows the audience to sing the chorus, and he'll jump in for the fast-paced verses. On occasion, an audience member will be called onto the stage to sing into the mic.
    • Nowadays, "Bring the Pain" is pretty much always performed as an "acoustic" version, with just Jimmy and the audience rapping the lyrics.
  • Black Comedy: The band is well-known for their crude, obscene, over-the-top lyrics. "Panty Shot" is particularly infamous, the song was the reason they were never accepted by a major label and had to self-publish.
  • Brown Note: "Diabolical" ends with a sudden, extreme bass boost that was designed to break listeners' speakers. It had to be lowered considerably for the remastering.
  • Call-Back:
    • A lot, concerning a side project of Jimmy and Steve, called The Left Rights;
      • The leitmotif of "Free Porn" is a loop taken from "Bullshit."
      • Several of the artists who did videos for them on If and You'll Rebel to Anything were involved with the side project's promotion.
      • Heck, for a non-Left Rights example: The opening and closing scenes of "Shut Me Up" were scored with a different loop from "Bullshit."
      • Also, in their cover of "La-Di Da-Di", they referenced "Bitches":
        "Bitches love me 'cuz they know that I can BONK!"
      • The Left-Rights song "Why You in My Phyzical" has not one, but TWO shout-outs to MSI, from "Tornado" and "I Hate Jimmy Page" respectively:
        "You ain't no operator, so who the fuck are you, then?!"
        "No need to ask..." and later, "When you look me upside down..."
      • "I Hate Jimmy Page" contains a reference to "Panty Shot," then an obscure song that had no officially released recordings:
        "Who like that song 'five year-old panty shot?' Yeah, yeah, that could be a real big record..."
      • Speaking of The Left Rights, "Deuce Courtesans and a Lambs Tail of Snuff" from their second album Bad Choices Made Easy counts as well, consisting of the lyrics from "2 Hookers and an Eightball" off You'll Rebel to Anything read in backwards order.
    • Their video for "Personal Jesus" has the Frankenstein Girls monster girl peeking over a corner at one point.
    • A lyric from "Bullshit" is a reference to "Faggot".
      "Fuck me now, rip me off later"
    • A bit of an obscure one: "Vanity" off of Pink uses a lyric from the "Make Me Cum"-demo.
      "I'm the one who makes me so happy, and I want me all just for myself"
  • Camp Gay: Urine is known to make an affectionate mockery of this on stage, even though he fits the trope played straight occasionally too.
  • Careful with That Axe: Possibly too many to list them all. A major style element to accompany their obscene lyrics.
  • Chick Magnet:
    Bitches love me 'cus they know that I can FUCK!
  • Cloudcuckoolander: Steve, Righ? was this in the early years.
  • Cluster F-Bomb: Earlier stuff especially.
  • Crossdresser: In the earlier days, Jimmy and Steve used to wear skirts, tights, hair clips or bras on stage. Nowadays they've toned it down to long hair, tank tops and lots of pink.
  • Crossover: With We Are the Strange. The music video for "Animal" takes place in the same universe.
  • Defying the Censors:
    • The backside of the album Frankenstein Girls Will Seem Strangely Sexy has every single vowel in every song title censored with an asterisk. Along with this quote:
      It's the suppression of the word that gives it the power, the violence, the viciousness. - Lenny Bruce
    • "Shut Me Up" is a big rant on how you need to censor and water down your songs to make them appeal to a larger audience.
  • Don't Like? Don't Read!: "Ready for Love," though there's a big overlap with Self-Deprecation.
  • Drugs Are Good: At least for making you popular.
    Jimmy: "Always, always, always talk about drugs in you songs. Whether you do them or not, the kids love it!"
  • Early-Installment Weirdness: The first incarnation of the band from 1995. Closer to 90s Industrial than the weirdness of later years.
  • Eye Scream: 32 bit Sega Genesis-style eye gouging in the video for their cover of "Personal Jesus".
  • Exactly What It Says on the Tin: At least according to them.
  • Extreme Omnisexual :Jimmy Urine himself. When asked about sexuality once, he made a comment about not caring what revs his engine, be it a man, a woman, or a chicken. In a different interview:
    “I like whatever is clever... my dick is a divining rod,” (..) If my dick gets hard, you’re in luck... or in bad luck, however the case may be. (...) But as for boys specifically, I like boys who look very pretty and androgynous, basically I would so fuck Macauley Culkin... and then he would so fire his agent.”
    • Steve and Jimmy used to pretend to fuck stuffed animals on stage.
  • Faux Yay: First for shock, then for humor.
  • Gayngst: "Faggot", "Last Gay Song", "Royally Fucked" and "5TR82H3LL".
  • Genre Mashup: AKA "industrial jungle pussy punk" (and they've since ditched that label, too). Their style combined throughout their entire career is a blend of punk rock, shock rock, drum and bass, hip-hop, industrial, metal, synth-pop, dance, and even noise rock. Once, as a joke, they listed themselves on iTunes under "religious."
  • Groin Attack: Allegedly, Jimmy once attempted to light his junk on fire live.
  • Growing Up Sucks: "Hey Tomorrow, Fuck You and Your Friend Yesterday" and "You're No Fun Anymore, Mark Trezona". A big theme of Jimmy's solo side project's album EURINGER is him having become an old man out of touch with what the cool kids are doing.
  • Hypocritical Humor: From a sticker found on the clean version of Frankenstein Girls Will Seem Strangely Sexy:
    this recording has been carefully wiped clean and has absolutely no filthy words like FUCK so that you can play it at your radio facility. now hurry the fuck up and play the fucking thing.
  • I Can't Believe It's Not Heroin!:
    • Played for Laughs: On some shows, while playing "Planet of the Apes," Jimmy would open Steve's guitar solo by announcing he didn't need the microphone, getting increasingly desperate the longer he was without it, and lunging towards it partway through the solo. In some cases, he even jabbed it into his arm while feigning ecstasy.
    • Jimmy seems to eat enough sugar (he's noted a specific fondness for Cherry Coca-Cola and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups) to explain his extremely high energy, ADHD-like actions on stage. During some interviews, he seems to drink enough soda to go through several cans.
    • He's also snorted Pixie Stix on stage on multiple occasions.
  • Indecipherable Lyrics: The beginning of "La-Di Da-Di"; "Stupid MF".
    • The rap part in the second verse of "Played" is just gibberish meant to imitate Spanish.
  • Intentionally Awkward Title: Oh so many. "Masturbates", "If I Only Didn't Want to F the Ones Who Didn't Want to F Me" and the incredible "Dicks Are for My Friends", to name a few.
  • Intercourse with You: Their songs about sex are very specific, to put it nicely.
    • The most famous example, "Get It Up".
      "I wanna make some babies
      I wanna get it on
      I wanna make you horny
      But I can't get it up"
    • "Faggot".
      Dig me now
      And fuck me later
    • "Masturbates".
      Masturbation is good but it is not the best
      'Cause nothing beats the touch of your clitoris
    • Pussy all night, come and get some.
    • "Jack You Up".
    • "Tight".
      All you n***s in the back, come and jack me off!
    • Inverted (and parodied) in Capitol P:
      I don't want to be the one
      Who's stuck with me when I whip my meat out
      Trapped in the room when I start to beat it
      I don't want to be the one
      Who's touching me when I whip my meat out
      Juggling my balls and I start to get a beat down
  • In the Style of: Jhonen Vasquez directed the music video for "Shut Me Up"... It shows.
    • In a livestream, Jimmy and his wife Chantal once did impressions of songs from Pink... in the style of Bon Jovi.
  • Keet: Jimmy is a ball of energy, on stage and on vocals.
  • Large Ham: Jimmy Urine, Steve, Righ?, and Lyn-Z during live performances. They jump around, make random vocalizations, stage dive, stand on (and leap off of) stage equipment, and perform all sorts of other antics. Lyn-Z is famous for her impressive back-bends.
    • Their social media, specifically their Facebook and Jimmy's twitter, is almost sarcastic posts in all caps.
  • Last Note Nightmare:
    • "Straight to Video".
      I never noticed
      No, never noticed
    • "Vanity" gets more and more warped and glitchy in the end.
      I'm the one who HATES ME SO MUCH!
    • The bass in "Diabolical" gets louder and louder in the last few seconds of the song. This effect was supposed to actually break the listener's speakers.
  • Long-Runner Line-up: Type 2.
  • Looped Lyrics: "Dicks Are for My Friends" and "Diabolical".
  • Lyrical Cold Open: One of the best ever, from "Witness": "SON OF A BITCH!!!"
  • Lyrical Dissonance: "Hey Tomorrow, Fuck You and Your Friend Yesterday".
    I’m sinking down the fucking drain
    Drinking away all the pain
    I think I’ll blow my brains out
  • Metal Scream: "Backmaskwarning!", "Bring The Pain", "I Hate Everyone" and many more.
  • Miniscule Rocking: Most of their older songs are very, very short.
    • Frankenstein Girls, an album with 30 tracks, doesn't even make it to the 1 hour mark since most songs are only about two minutes long, if not shorter.
  • Motor Mouth: Done in several songs such as "Stupid MF", "Like Shit", "Thank God" and "Dickface".
  • Minimalistic Cover Art: On the cover for three editions of If: it's just the title with some red splatters on paper looking like it was made in Microsoft Paint.
    • The cover for Pink is black text on black background, ironically.
  • My Beloved Smother:
    • "Backmaskwarning!" features its backwards messages in the end of a middle-aged woman telling you to eat your vegetables and do your homework.
    • ... "Mark David Chapman" features Jimmy's actual mother scolding him in Spanish for signing off with record labels and wearing pink clothes.
  • Narcissist: "Make Me Cum" and "Vanity".
  • The New Rock & Roll: Subverted with intent to parody. Play the end of "Backmaskwarning" backwards, and you hear a middle-aged mother telling the listener to do things like "Go to church", "Don't sit too close to the TV", "Do your homework" and "Eat your vegetables". Ironically, the last phrase you'd hear playing the song forwards is "Don't listen to this song" backwards.
  • New Sound Album: Their 2013 album How I Learned to Stop Giving a Shit and Love Mindless Self Indulgence is less guitars and a lot more synthesizer-heavy, with a general electronic dance party-like sound instead of the usual industrial/punk mix.
  • Nobody Loves the Bassist: Inverted with Lyn-Z. Hell, she's the most popular band member and the reason why a lot of people only ever heard of the band in the first place.
  • N-Word Privileges: Averted on occasion, particularly in their older works, as homage to the hip-hop artists Jimmy owes to.
    • Discussed on the Crappy Little Demo track literally titled "Niggers", which is just an excerpt from a Lenny Bruce stand-up show. Take a listen. Even if you don't agree with it (which is completely understandable), it's worth thinking about.
  • The Not-Remix: Pink not only remixes and remasters some of the tracks Jimmy Urine recorded before the band was founded, but also adds new vocals and instrumentation in several places from now 41-year-old Jimmy Urine.
    • In fact, the vocals are almost exclusively from his 20-something year old self, with one exception being the "Personal Jesus" cover. Jimmy said in a stream that the original demo recordings were so muddled and low-quality that they couldn't be used, so he worked on the original idea with the technical and musical skills he has today.
  • Our Product Sucks: A sticker on Frankenstein Girls:
    Be the first one on your block to throw this album out of your house!
  • Parental Incest:
    • In "Royally Fucked".
      "Mommy, daddy, why don't you finger me too?"
    • "I'm Your Problem Now":
      I love my mommy 'cause she fucked my dad
      I love my mommy 'cause she FUCKED THE SHIT OUT OF MY DAD
  • Parody/Pastiche: "Apple Country" and "Ecnegludni Fles Sseldnim", both parodies of folky singer-songwriter songs, the former specifically from the early ages of Pop music.
  • Piss-Take Rap: While Jimmy actually has a pretty good flow, the band still sticks to Stylistic Suck as their aesthetic, like in "Get It Up" or "You're No Fun Anymore Mark Trezona".
  • Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: "DICKS! ARE! FOR! MY! FRIENDS!"
    • "Casio."
  • Rap Rock: Most of their early stuff, like "Bitches" and "Bring the Pain".
  • Real Life Writes the Plot: The album If was named that way because nobody really knew how the band would go on after that. The band members were starting to settle down, getting married, having children. Nobody really knew how the band would go on, or if the band would stay together, or if this was going to be the last album before they break up, and so on and so forth.
  • Recycled Soundtrack: The bonus track "I Am Not Here to Make Any Friends" from How I Learned... is an edited studio version of the final boss theme from Lollipop Chainsaw, which Jimmy worked on.
  • Refuge in Audacity: Their lyrics and shows are so over the top that nothing is offensive anymore.
  • The Remake: The album Pink is a compilation of songs that Jimmy wrote before his music career began, along with a lot of remastered songs from the first self-titled EP.
    • The song "Vanity" is a remade version of the "Make Me Cum" demo. Or the "Make Me Cum" demo is a remade version of "Vanity" since "Vanity" was written in the 90s, however you wanna see it.
  • Religion Rant Song: "For the Love of God" from Pink, which is an angry rant about religion preying on the poor and weak. Also from the same album, "Do Unto Others".
  • Sampling: By the barrel, when they started. Mostly using Atari sounds. In fact, a lot of songs can't be played live because they consist of too many drum loops or samples that would have to be edited too much.
  • Screw Yourself: From "Make Me Cum":
    Me on top
    Getting fucked, by myself
    In and out
  • Self-Backing Vocalist: Employed in many songs; it's especially noticeable during live performances where Jimmy's singing can be sporadic at times.
  • Self-Deprecation: Plenty. In fact, they're prone to mocking themselves much more often than others.
    • One show had a noticeable guitar flub which prompted Jimmy, without missing a beat, to add "oop, should've practiced."
    • "I Hate Jimmy Page" may be less about him and more about the band and the music industry as a whole.
    • "Joke" basically refers to the band as such, adding "it's all downhill from here."
    • Their song "2 Hookers and an Eightball" opens with these lyrics:
    Two hookers and an eight Ball
    Can you believe that I write this shit?
    Two hookers and an eight ball
    Just so stupid people will think I am cool?
    • "Bullshit".
      After this, the rest is all bullshit.
  • Self-Harm: More often mocked than played for drama, with pretty much the only exception being "Stalkers".
    I'm going to slit my wrists
  • Self-Titled Album: Jimmy Urine's little-known solo album (though Steve, Righ? did collaborate on "Bed of Roses") Mindless Self-Indulgence provided the title for the band. The tracks would later appear on Pink.
  • Sensory Abuse: The band used to create their songs entirely from samples and Atari sounds, and till this day, MSI songs are always electronic. Add Jimmy's squeaking, squealing and screaming voice to it, and you will get some really strange and ear-piercing little tunes.
    • Such as "Whipstickagostop", "This Isn't Good", "Step Up, Ghettoblaster" or "Bite Your Rhymes".
    • Less extreme in their more recent songs, like "Straight to Video" with its high electronic tune in the intro and chorus or "Genius" from the <3 EP, which is two and a half minutes of techno madness.
  • Sex God:
    • "Get It Up":
    Excuse me, do you want to screw?
    'Cause I'm so amazing in the sack
    • "Jack You Up":
    I watch you die a thousand times, motherfucker
    I watch ya UH when you get on top
  • Shaped Like Itself: "M" (titled "F" on the digital album version).
    Caller: Yo, you mofoggaz is faggots, yo. I'm sayin' you be suckin' dick and them bitches be eatin' pussy, know what I'm sayin', yo? [[Beat...]] Bitch.
  • Shout-Out: Multiple.
    • "Clarissa."
    • The speaker's antics on "Golden I" resemble the sort that GG Allin built his name on.
  • Soprano and Gravel: Jimmy jumps from piercingly high falsetto to a guttural growl on a regular basis, prominently in "Pussy All Night", "Bullshit" or "I Hate Jimmy Page".
  • Spelling Song: "C! A! S-I-O!"
  • Stage Names: Jimmy Urine (James Euringer), Steve, Righ? (Steve Montano), Lyn-Z (Lindsey Way) and Kitty (Jennifer Dunn).
    • Ex-bassist Vanessa YT. What does the YT stand for? We don't know...
  • Studio Chatter: The end of "Diabolical":
    Steve: I lost my pick in the last part.
    Kitty: That was, that was... That was the best we could do. (chuckles)
    • From "Whipstickagostop":
    • In the beginning of "Device", paired with the sounds of his engineer's mixing desk.
  • Subliminal Seduction: Parodied in "Backmaskwarning", where the backwards lines are actually pretty mundane and nice actions like doing homework or eating vegetables.
  • Suicide Dare: The song "Backmaskwarning" has this as it's central theme, with the chorus encouraging the listener to go kill themselves, with the verses featuring all kinds of horrific imagery that presumably would also encourage suicide:
    Hate and devour the young and the weaker ones, and don't forget the guns
    (You're gonna need 'em to go kill yourself)
  • Stylistic Suck: Their general style and aesthetic. But also songs like "JX-47" or "I Think I Turned 22".
  • Surprisingly Gentle Song:
    • "Apple Country". In fact, once they played a really good show in a goth club and decided to do this song as an encore... and confused the hell out of the audience.
    • "Stalkers (Slit My Wrists)" is pretty gentle even for How I Learned... which is in general a much more tame, less industrial punk-esque album.
    • A lot of songs from Jimmy's first self-titled EP.
  • Take That!: "F"
    Jimmy: Who ya callin' a faggot? Yo, [...] while you're out gay-bashing, I'm gonna be at your house fucking your girlfriend. In the ass!
    • Jimmy frequently pokes fun at various subjects on stage including Miley Cyrus, Twilight, goths/emos, and Katy Perry. In particular, he had one infamous outburst towards Jared Leto.note 
  • Take That, Audience!: The entirety of "You'll Rebel to Anything (As Long as It's Not Challenging)" is one long one toward angsty emo kids.
    • Also mocks people who can't keep up with his fast paced singing in "Stupid MF".
    "Should I talk slower like you're a retard?
    Should I talk slower like you're retarded?"
    • "Bullshit".
    The mission fishin' for the
    Disenfranchised little kids
    We shoot 'em in a barrel
    It's so easy when they're pissed!
  • Teeny Weenie: Stage banter in the intro for "Grab the Mic", where a girl in the audience calls Jimmy out on his small dick. This same exchange was edited into the music video for "Bring the Pain".
    It's a very little penis and I'm very happy to say
    It's a little penis come to visit you today!
  • Tempting Fate: One trademark aspect of Jimmy's get-up is a jacket with one phrase or another (it varies) written on the back. One of the phrases? "Kick Me."
  • Troubled Abuser: "Slim". A disturbing song consisting of a loop of short sound clips and drums as an instrumental and lyrics about an abuser lamenting their problems and reasons for what they do.
    It's my own fault that I tied the noose
    'Cause I cannot love what I want to abuse
  • Unusual Euphemism: Possibly "I kick my juice" from "Bite Your Rhymes", for jacking off.
  • Wangst: "You'll Rebel To Anything (As Long As It's Not Challenging)" criticizes this mindset. It's bashing people who act suicidal because they just want attention, saying that everyone has issues yet most people seem to get by without acting like they want to kill themselves.invoked
    Boo fuckin hoo you're not the only one whose life's a piece of shit
    And yet miraculously somehow we all seem to deal with it
    Did anybody think that you would really seriously slit your wrists?
    In fact I think that everybody thinks you're seriously full of shit
  • Word Salad Lyrics: "Be Like Superman".
    Like you know I should
    Like you know I would
    Like you know I might
    'Cause you know I'm right!
    Like you know I will
    'Cause you know I'm ill
    Like you know I can
    'Cause I'm Superman!
  • Who Writes This Crap?!: In "2 Hookers and an Eightball":
    Can you believe that I write this shit?
  • Xtreme Kool Letterz: Lyn-Z and Vanessa Y.T..
    • "Golden I".

"Everybody say: 'We want our money back!'"
"And, cut."

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