Freak Magnet is the eighth and final studio album released by the Violent Femmes

Violent Femmes

Violent Femmes were an American alternative rock band from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, initially active between 1980 and 1987 and again from 1988 to 2009...

. It was released on February 22, 2000, and the featured single was "Sleepwalkin'." Originally scheduled for a 1998 release on Interscope Records

Interscope Records

Interscope Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group that currently operates as one third of UMG's Interscope-Geffen-A&M label group.-History:...

, Freak Magnet was pulled when the band was dropped from the label, although promo copies with a different tracklist were released and still circulate. Due to the poor performance of the album both critically and commercially, the band has since decided they would no longer record new music. The UK edition was released via Cooking Vinyl

Cooking Vinyl

Cooking Vinyl is a UK-based independent record company, founded in 1986. Its original orientation was toward contemporary folk music—notably Billy Bragg, and Michelle Shocked's Texas Campfire Tapes, recorded on a Sony Walkman, one of its first releases...

 in 2000, whilst a reissue complete with live bonus tracks was released via Shout! Factory

Shout! Factory

Shout! Factory is an entertainment company founded in 2003 that was started by Richard Foos , Bob Emmer and Garson Foos initially as a specialty music label...

 on May 24, 2005.

2000 Cooking Vinyl album track listing

1. "Hollywood Is High" – 2:22
2. "Freak Magnet" – 2:35
3. "Sleepwalkin'" – 2:21
4. "All I Want" – 3:32
5. "New Generation" (Rose Marie McCoy, Albert Ayler
   Albert Ayler
   Albert Ayler was an American avant-garde jazz saxophonist, singer and composer.Ayler was among the most primal of the free jazz musicians of the 1960s; critic John Litweiler wrote that "never before or since has there been such naked aggression in jazz" He possessed a deep blistering tone—achieved...
   
   , Mary Parks) – 2:38
6. "In the Dark" – 3:50
7. "Rejoice and Be Happy" – 2:11
8. "Mosh Pit" (Gano, Ritchie) – 2:13
9. "Forbidden" (William Carlos Williams
   William Carlos Williams
   William Carlos Williams was an American poet closely associated with modernism and Imagism. He was also a pediatrician and general practitioner of medicine, having graduated from the University of Pennsylvania...
   
   , Gano) – 2:59
10. "When You Died" – 2:34
11. "At Your Feet" – 2:51
12. "I Danced" (Max Dunn, Gano) – 2:43
13. "I'm Bad" – 2:42
14. "Happiness Is" – 4:18
15. "A Story" (Gano, Ritchie) – 5:00

2005 Shout! Factory reissue bonus tracks

16. "Rejoice And Be Happy" (live) – 2:24
17. "Freak Magnet" (live) – 2:34
18. "Positively 4th Street
    Positively 4th Street
    "Positively 4th Street" is a song written and performed by Bob Dylan, first recorded by Dylan in New York City on July 29, 1965. It was released as a single by Columbia Records on September 7, 1965, reaching #1 on Canada's RPM chart, #7 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, and #8 on the UK Singles Chart...
    
    " (live) (Bob Dylan
    Bob Dylan
    Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
    
    ) – 3:56

1998 Interscope promo CD track listing

1. "I'm Bad" – 2:42
2. "Freak Magnet" – 2:37
3. "All I Want" – 4:09
4. "Rejoice and Be Happy" – "2:11
5. "I Wanna See You Again" – 2:43
6. "I'm Nothing" – 2:24
7. "Positively 4th Street" (Bob Dylan
   Bob Dylan
   Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
   
   ) – 2:52
8. "A Story" (featuring Pierre Henry
   Pierre Henry
   Pierre Henry is a French composer, considered a pioneer of the musique concrète genre of electronic music.-Biography:...
   
   ) (Gano/Ritchie) – 4:58
9. "Happiness Is" – 4:20
10. "Forbidden" (William Carlos Williams
    William Carlos Williams
    William Carlos Williams was an American poet closely associated with modernism and Imagism. He was also a pediatrician and general practitioner of medicine, having graduated from the University of Pennsylvania...
    
    /Gano) – 2:55
11. "Mosh Pit" (Gano/Ritchie) – 2:13
12. "Yes Oh Yes" – 3:22
13. "When You Died" – 2:34
14. "Requiem" – 3:48
15. "Reckless Stones" (Special bonus composition featuring Pierre Henry) – 4:41

Violent Femmes

• Gordon Gano
  Gordon Gano
  Gordon James Gano is an American musician. He is best known for being the singer, guitarist and songwriter of American alternative rock band Violent Femmes.-Early life:...
  
   – vocal
  Singing
  Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
  
  , guitar
  Guitar
  The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
  
  
• Brian Ritchie
  Brian Ritchie
  Brian Ritchie was the bass guitarist for the alternative rock band Violent Femmes.In addition to his bass playing, Ritchie is proficient at the shakuhachi, a Japanese bamboo flute...
  
   – bass
  Bass guitar
  The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
  
  , keyboards
  Keyboard instrument
  A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...
  
  , percussion
  Percussion instrument
  A percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound when hit with an implement or when it is shaken, rubbed, scraped, or otherwise acted upon in a way that sets the object into vibration...
  
  , shakuhachi
  Shakuhachi
  The is a Japanese end-blown flute. It is traditionally made of bamboo, but versions now exist in ABS and hardwoods. It was used by the monks of the Fuke school of Zen Buddhism in the practice of...
  
  , vocal, additional recording, cover design
• Guy Hoffman
  Guy Hoffman
  Guy Hoffman is a drummer and vocalist, formerly of such bands as Oil Tasters, BoDeans, Violent Femmes and Absinthe. He is a composer for such films as Field Day and a founding member of Radio Romeo.-Life:...
  
   – drums
  Drum kit
  A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
  
  , percussion, vocal

Technical personnel

• Violent Femmes – co-producer
• Warren Bruleigh – co-producer, mixing, additional recording
• Pierre Henry
  Pierre Henry
  Pierre Henry is a French composer, considered a pioneer of the musique concrète genre of electronic music.-Biography:...
  
  – co-producer, additional recording
• Tom Grimley – co-producer, additional recording
• Martin Brass – recording, mixing
• David Vartanian – mixing, cover design
• Howie Weinberg – mastering
• Roger Lian – mastering
• Bill Emmons – additional recording
• Mark Mason – assistant engineer
• Ken Feldman – assistant engineer
• Rich Tapper – assistant engineer
• Nicola Stemmer – assistant engineer