History Music / Melvins

* SelfTitledAlbum: Sort of. ''Lysol'' was originally going to just be called ''Lysol'', but as it turns out, the name was [[UsefulNotes/{{Trademark}} a registered trademark]], so the album was recalled and black ink or electric tape covered the offending word, and the album was made a self-titled album. Originally, fans could peel off the tape or rub off the ink, however doing this now would only damage the record. A 2014 vinyl reissue re-titled the album as ''Lice-All'', which is of course pronounced exactly the same as the original title.

* RevolvingDoorBand: Melvins never had the same bassist for too long. Throughout their four-decade lifespan, they went through nine bassists. While they have a stable drummer in Dale Crover, he was briefly preceded by Mike Dillard, and he used to share drumming duties with Coady Willis for a couple years.

* SilenceIsGolden: "Pure Digital Silence" from ''Prick'' is, aside from a brief intro by Buzz in a fake British accent, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin precisely that]] - about a minute and a half of pure... digital... silence.

** "The Brain Center at Whipple's" is named for [[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E153TheBrainCenterAtWhipples an episode]] of ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959''.

** Their appearance on a [[CoverAlbum tribute album]] to Music/PinkFloyd's Music/TheWall is notable for pulling a fast one on listeners - what starts out seeming like a straightforward cover version of ''The Wall'''s opening track "In The Flesh" turns out to be a cover of the identically titled {{Music/Blondie}} song InTheStyleOf Pink Floyd.

* ExpoSpeakGag: The demo compilation ''Mangled Demos from 1983'' includes a track titled "Bibulous Confabulation During Rehearsal": it's five minutes of StudioChatter, and "bibulous confabulation" does in fact mean "drunken chatter".

** "Heathen Earth", from the CoverAlbum ''Everybody Loves Sausages'', is credited as a Music/ThrobbingGristle cover - Throbbing Gristle have an album called ''Heathen Earth'', but it doesn't have a TitleTrack (nor did the ever release a song of that title), and "Heathen Earth" seems to actually be an original Melvins piece InTheStyleOf Throbbing Gristle.

** "Heathen Earth", from the CoverAlbum ''Everybody Loves Sausages'', is credited as a Music/ThrobbingGristle cover - Throbbing Gristle have an album called ''Heathen Earth'', but it doesn't have a TitleTrack, and "Heathen Earth" seems to actually be an original Melvins piece InTheStyleOf Throbbing Gristle.

* WordSaladLyrics: If it makes even a lick of sense, chances are it's a cover. Sometimes goes far enough to be considered SpeakingSimlish, most prominently in "Hooch", the opening track of ''Houdini'', and the only song on the album to have its "lyrics" printed. It wasn't left unnoticed: the music video of the said song was featured in ''WesternAnimation/BeavisAndButtHead'', where Butt-Head tried to figure out the lyrics for Beavis. For reference, here's the first "verse" of the song, as transcribed by Metal Archives.

* WordSaladLyrics: If it makes even a lick of sense, chances are it's a cover. Sometimes goes far enough to be considered SpeakingSimlish, most prominently in "Hooch", the opening track of ''Houdini'', and the only song on the album to have its "lyrics" printed. It wasn't left unnoticed: the music video of the said song was featured in ''WesternAnimation/BeavisAndButtHead'', where Butt-Head tried to figure out the lyrics for Beavis.

** In 1992, the then-current members of the band (Buzz Osborne, Dale Crover, and Joe Preston) put out one solo [=EP=] each, largely as an elaborate reference to Music/{{KISS}} having done the same thing in 1978, but with full albums. Like those KISS albums, each EP was released under the band's name, with the member whose solo effort it was serving as the title. The artwork to each EP also featured an airbrushed portrait of a Melvins member, done in the same style of the [=Kiss=] releases, and the band's logo was changed to one that parodied that of KISS. Some non-KISS shout-outs on those releases also occurred in the form of {{Credits Gag}}s: ''King Buzzo'' credits Dale Nixon on bass, after the pseudonym Gregg Ginn used for playing bass on Music/BlackFlag's ''My War''. ''Joe Preston'' credits Marina Sirtis with "counseling", as a reference to the actress who portrayed Counselor Deanna Troi in ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration''.

** ''Elecroretard'' includes a special thanks to "A. Hilter" - WordOfGod is it's a reference to a Creator/MontyPython sketch where Adolf Hitler was living in Somerset, England, wearing a fairly transparent disguise and going by the name of "Mr. Hilter".

* BigRockEnding: Parodied by the instrumental "Pick It n' Flick It", where the ''whole song'' is what would normally be considered a big rock ending.
** Also, "The Talking Horse", being three minutes long, featured less than a minute of actual singing and shouting, and that's in the middle of the track. On this scale, the rest of the song definitely counts as one.

* DigitalPiracyIsEvil: The artwork to ''(A) Senile Animal'' includes a parody of the normal FBI anti-piracy warning often found on compact discs:

** The CD edition of ''The Maggot'' splits every song into two tracks - rumor has it that this was meant to troll would-be pirates by causing them to inadvertently only download half a song.
* DistinctDoubleAlbum: ''A Walk With Love And Death'': The ''Death'' disc is meant to be a relatively standard Melvins-style rock album. The ''Love'' disc is the soundtrack to a short film (also titled ''A Walk With Love And Death'') and is a mix of sound collage and pure noise.

* EpicRocking: The average length of a Melvins song is roughly two to five minutes (depending on the album), however there are some that exceed this. ''Bullhead'' contains the eight minute "Boris", ''Hostile Ambient Takeover'' has the sixteen minute "Anti-Vermin Seed", ''Lysol'' brings forth a ten minute song called "Hung Bunny" (or on some editions of the album, the entire thirty minute album as one track), and the live album ''Colossus of Destiny'' is an hour long jam on the song "Eye Flys" from their first album (which is itself a six and a half minute track).

* GreatestHitsAlbum: ''Melvinmania: Best of the [[Creator/AtlanticRecords Atlantic]] Years 1993–1996'', a UK-only compilation that featured a handful of songs each from the albums ''Houdini'', ''Stoner Witch'', and ''Stag'', and was released without the band's involvement. A more extensive, band-selected "Best Of" was included as a companion piece to the art-book ''Neither Here Nor There''.

* IdiosyncraticCoverArt: ''The Maggot'', ''The Bootlicker'', and ''The Crybaby'' all have very similar cover designs, which again relates to the band considering them a "trilogy:": They all have close-ups of different kinds of flowers as a cover image, the band name and title are rendered in the same fonts and appear in the same place, and above the "v" in "Melvins" is a grey circle with a number (1-3) inside it. And then there's the Music/{{Kiss}}-homaging artwork of their 1992 solo EP's.
** In general, the CD editions of many Melvins albums [[note]]most of the ones released or reissued on Ipecac Recordings[[/note]] have the quirk of placing the track-list, UPC, and copyright information on the front of the booklet, and the proper "cover art" on the back of the case, instead of the other way around as is usual: This allows for a slightly wider cover image.
* LuckyCharmsTitle: The demo collection ''Mangled Demos from 1983'' includes tracks with titles like "☘" and "✈" alongside more conventionally named songs. It's possible the band forgot the names of these long-forgotten songs or just never settled on proper names for them to begin with. There's also the song "HOW --++--" off of ''Honky''.

* RevolvingDoorBand: Melvins never had the same bassist for too long. Throughout their nearly 40 year lifespan, they went through nine bassists. While they have a stable drummer in Dale Crover, he was briefly preceded by Mike Dillard, and he used to share drumming duties with Coady Willis for a couple years.

* SdrawkcabName: The band wanted to release ''Prick'' on one record label while signed to another one. The latter label had the rights to their name at the time, so the band name was rendered in mirrored writing (i.e. "Snivlem") wherever it appeared on the artwork.

** "The Brain Center At Whipple's" is named for [[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E153TheBrainCenterAtWhipples an episode]] of ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959''.
** In 1992, the then-current members of the band (Buzz Osborne, Dale Crover, and Joe Preston) put out one solo [=EP=] each, largely as an elaborate reference to Music/{{KISS}} having done the same thing in 1978, but with full albums. Like those [=Kiss=] albums, each EP was released under the band's name, with the member whose solo effort it was serving as the title. The artwork to each EP also featured an airbrushed portrait of a Melvins member, done in the same style of the [=Kiss=] releases, and the band's logo was changed to one that parodied that of [=Kiss=].
*** Some non-Kiss shout outs on those releases also occurred in the form of {{Credits Gag}}s: ''King Buzzo'' credits Dale Nixon on bass, after the pseudonym Gregg Ginn used for playing bass on Music/BlackFlag's ''My War''. ''Joe Preston'' credits Marina Sirtis with "counseling", as a reference to the actress who portrayed Counselor Deanna Troi in ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration''.

** The title of "Phyllis Dillard" combines the names of actress/comedian Phyllis Diller and their first drummer Mike Dillard.

* StepUpToTheMicrophone: Being a solo [=EP=], ''Dale Crover'' has all vocals performed by Dale Crover. Crover also sings "Cottonmouth" from ''Stag''.
** ''Hold It In'' has Paul Leary and Jeff Pinkus of Music/ButtholeSurfers sing lead on three songs each: Pinkus on "Bride Of Crankenstein", "Nine Yards", and "Piss Pistofferson" and Leary on "You Can Make Me Wait", "Eyes On You", and "I Get Along (Hollow Moon)". This can be difficult to discern on "Bride Of Crankenstein" because Jeff Pinkus seems to be imitating Buzz.

* TakeThat: "Laughing With Lucifer At Satan's Sideshow" uses SpokenWordInMusic to satirize the less-than-cordial relations the band had with their former label.

* WordSaladLyrics: If it makes even a lick of sense, chances are it's a cover.
** SpeakingSimlish: Sometimes goes far enough to be considered this, most prominently in "Hooch". It wasn't left unnoticed: the music video of the said song was featured in ''WesternAnimation/BeavisAndButthead'', where Butthead tried to figure out the lyrics for Beavis.

* WildHair: The signature look of Buzz Osborne - he's the one in the top right of the page image. A common joke among the fanbase (especially on Website/YouTube) is that he [[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons "looks like Sideshow Bob and laughs like Krusty the Clown"]].

* SurrealMusicVideo: Pretty much every video they've released to some extent. But "The Talking Horse" stands out for having a MindScrew plot that spoofs multiple UsefulNotes/ConspiracyTheories, as well as for being an [[TheInvisibleBand invisible band]] video where inanimate objects lip sync.

Their (major) albums include:

* ''Lysol'' (a.k.a. ''[[SelfTitledAlbum Melvins]]'' or ''Lice-All''), 1992

* ''Prick'', 1994

* ''Pigs of the Roman Empire'' (collaboration with Lustmord), 2004
* ''Never Breathe What You Can't See'' (collaboration with Music/JelloBiafra), 2004

* ''Freak Puke'' (Melvins Lite), 2012

* ''Tres Cabrones'' (Melvins 1983), 2013

* ''Three Men and a Baby'' (collaboration with Mike Kunka from godheadSilo), 2016

* ''Working with God'' (Melvins 1983), 2021
* ''Five Legged Dog'' (all-acoustic album), 2021

* StepUpToTheMicrophone: Being solo [=EPs=], ''Dale Crover'' and ''Joe Preston'' have all vocals performed by Dale Crover and Joe Preston, respectively. Dale Crover also sings "Cottonmouth" from ''Stag''.

** "Divorced", a collaboration with Music/{{Tool}}, features a phone conversation between Danny Carey and Maynard James Keenan, which is apparently regarding a mutual friend going out with a woman who Maynard describes as having "a voice like a fuckin' modem, dude!".

** ''Hold It In'' has Paul Leary and Jeff Pinkus of Music/ButtholeSurfers sing lead on three songs each: Pinkus on "Bride Of Crankenstein", "Nine Yards", and "Piss Pistofferson" and Leary on "You Can Make Me Wait", "Eyes On You", and "I Get Along (Hollow Moon)". This is difficult to discern on "Bride Of Crankenstein" because Pinkus manages to imitate Buzz Osborne almost perfectly.

* AllLowercaseLetters: "amazon", the first track(s) on ''the maggot'', which is followed immediately by the almost-identically-titled [[CapsLock "AMAZON"]].

* ExpoSpeakGag: The demo compilation ''Mangled Demos From 1983'' includes a track titled "Bibulous Confabulation During Rehearsal": it's five minutes of StudioChatter, and "bibulous confabulation" does in fact mean "drunken chatter".

* IndecipherableLyrics: Several songs, "Roman Bird Dog" being the most notable with at least three different versions of the lyrics floating around out there.

* LuckyCharmsTitle: The demo collection ''Mangled Demos From 1983'' includes tracks with titles like "☘" and "✈" alongside more conventionally named songs. It's possible the band forgot the names of these long-forgotten songs or just never settled on proper names for them to begin with.
** There's also the song "HOW --++--".