A Cry For Help

[Illgresi]

I have, on occaision listened to albums that have, for want of a better phrase, been a suicide note. Some are obvious, some are more subtle.

My own suggestion is Gin Blossoms: New Miserable Experience. As if the album name didn't give it away:

"I drink enough of anything, to make this world look new again".

"If you don't expect too much from me
You might not be let down"

"Every day's much better since I've slowed my drinking pace
There's no swimming in the bottle it's just someplace we all drown
I lost myself in sorrow lost my confidence in doubt"

"I can't remember why I like this feeling
When it only seems to let me down
Soon I find I'm searching for the exit from the ground"

The lead singer and guitarist at the time, Doug Hopkins, was an alcoholic and suffered from depression, and less than two years after New Miserable Experince was released, he ended his own life. In retrospect, it seems that he clearly had these thoughts whilst writing the album. It'd be interesting to see if we can find the same awful helplessness and lonlieness from other albums/artists.

Also, ibf Bieber etc.

Cheers.

 

[Robosapien]

Manic Street Preachers - The Holy Bible, being so bleak, is pretty disambiguous in my opinion.

 

[oweneades]

Older Nine Inch Nails albums, specifically:

The Fragile & Downward Spiral

Whilst as far as I am aware the musicians involved (Reznor specifically) are all still alive, I have read that a lot of the content was written at a point where Reznor was suicidal / in a very bad place (alchohol, drugs etc).

Listening to The Fragile now as a coincidence (The day the World Went away - written about the loss of his Grandmother)....

An Excerpt from Wiki:

During the five years following the release of The Downward Spiral, Reznor struggled with depression, social anxiety disorder, and the death of his grandmother (who raised him). During this period of intense grief, he began abusing alcohol, cocaine, and other drugs. He eventually became addicted to alcohol and cocaine. He reached his darkest moment with substance abuse while touring in London for The Fragile, when he mistakenly purchased china white heroin, which he believed to be cocaine; he consequently overdosed and was resuscitated at a local hospital.[116]

Described by Reznor as a sequel to The Downward Spiral — an album with a plot detailing the destruction of a man — The Fragile is a concept album dealing with his personal issues, including depression, angst, and drug abuse

I wanted this album to sound like there was something inherently flawed in the situation, like someone struggling to put the pieces together. The Downward Spiral was about peeling off layers and arriving at a naked, ugly end. This album starts at the end, then attempts to create order from chaos, but never reaches the goal. It’s probably a bleaker album because it arrives back where it starts — (with) the same emotion. The album begins "Somewhat Damaged" and ends "Ripe (With Decay)".[16

"About 10 years ago or so I locked myself away in a house on the ocean, and I tried to... I said I was trying to write some music. Some of which wound up on The Fragile. But what I was really doing was trying to kill myself. And the whole time I was away by myself, I managed to write one song, which is this song. So when I play it I feel pretty weird about it, because it takes me back to a pretty dark and awful time in my life. It's weird to think how different things are now: I'm still alive, I haven't died yet. And I'm afraid to go back to that place because it feels kind of haunting to me, but I'm going to go back. I'm going to get married [to Mariqueen Maandig] there."

—Reznor, on the origins of the first instrumental written for the album, "La Mer", at a 2009 performance in Mansfield, MA.[15

On a positive note it looks like he has turned his life around.

 

[OhEsEcks]

Mayhem's catalogue during the Per "Dead" Ohlin period. He was nuts. He blew his brains out with a shotgun. The other members of the band tarted up the corpse a bit and then took a picture which they used for their album cover. Then Varg Vikernes stabbed the guitarist Euronymous to death a couple years later.

Metal.