Ariel Pink

Ariel Marcus Rosenberg (born June 24, 1978), professionally known as Ariel Pink, is an American musician, singer, and songwriter whose work draws heavily from the popular music of the 1960s–1980s.

Ariel Marcus Rosenberg was born in Los Angeles on June 24, 1978.

He is the only son of Mario Z. Rosenberg and Linda Rosenberg-Kennett.

Mario is a Harvard-educated gastroenterologist born to a Jewish family in Mexico City, while Linda is from New Orleans.

They moved to Los Angeles after Mario completed his medical specialty work at Tulane University hospital in New Orleans.

Ariel's first language was Spanish.

Although his family is Jewish, with his mother having converted, he himself is not practicing.

Mario and Linda divorced when Ariel was two years old.

Ariel's parents encouraged him to pursue a career in visual arts rather than music.

He said that "with music I had no discernible skills", whereas with drawing, they reportedly thought he was "going to be the next Picasso, and I believed them and I got better."

According to Linda, she wanted him to pursue a career in acting: "Acting coaches would come to me and say, 'He's the only kid in that age group who can speak to a girl."

He characterized himself as "maladjusted" as a child.

Linda commented that he was "a very difficult guy to understand, except for the fact that his heart is pure. [...] He'd rather be left alone. That's how he always was — even as a kid, he played much better by himself."

When he was young, Rosenberg was an avid record collector and reader of music magazines, he said, and "had a gross hunger for bootlegs and unofficial rare recordings by artists I worshiped; ate them all up and adopted certain criteria for what I longed for in music."

He was first drawn to music through watching MTV.

When his interest intensified, he was particularly fond of Michael Jackson, and after entering junior high school, expanded his tastes to metal, including bands like Def Leppard, Metallica, and Anthrax.

He then developed a taste for "death rock" groups such as Bauhaus and the Cure, the latter being his favorite band of all time.

Another artist he was particularly fond of was Lou Reed.

The majority of his recorded output stems from a prolific eight-year period (1996–2003) in which he accumulated over 200 cassette tapes of material.

He enjoyed the writings of rock critic Nick Kent and read Richie Unterberger's Unknown Legends of Rock 'n' Roll: Psychedelic Unknowns, Mad Geniuses, Punk Pioneers, Lo-Fi Mavericks & More (1998); later he recorded a cover version of one of the tracks included in a CD that came with the book ("Bright Lit Blue Skies").

Rosenberg was initially raised in Louisiana.

He chose to live there with his mother following child custody proceedings.

They lived in Pico-Robertson, and later, Bogalusa.

Due to the bullying he received in junior high school, his parents sent him to live with his cousins in Mexico City for a year.

There, he lost his virginity at age 13, to a prostitute named Sara, and discovered the Cure, a band he thought espoused "something unholy [...] something alive and dead at the same time."

He then returned to live with his father in the Beverlywood area of Los Angeles, where he attended Beverly Hills High School, branded himself as a goth, sold off his collection of metal records, and stopped following new music.

He cited Nirvana as the last group he enjoyed before this point.

His lo-fi aesthetic and home-recorded albums proved influential to many indie musicians starting in the late 2000s.

He is frequently cited as "godfather" of the hypnagogic pop and chillwave movements, and he is credited with galvanizing a larger trend involving the evocation of the media, sounds, and outmoded technologies of prior decades, as well as an equal appreciation between high and low art in independent music.

A native of Los Angeles, Pink began experimenting with recording songs on an eight-track Portastudio as a teenager.

His early influences were artists such as Michael Jackson, the Cure, and R. Stevie Moore.

Virtually all of his music released in the 2000s was written and recorded before 2004, the same year he debuted on Animal Collective's Paw Tracks label with The Doldrums (2000), House Arrest (2002) and Worn Copy (2003).

The albums immediately attracted a cult following.

In the 2000s, Pink's unusual sound prompted a renewed critical discussion of hauntological phenomena, for which he was a central figure.

His fame and recognition escalated following his signing to 4AD and the success of his 2010 album Before Today, his first recorded in a professional studio.

He then recorded three more albums – Mature Themes (2012), Pom Pom (2014), and Dedicated to Bobby Jameson (2017) – the last of which was recorded for Mexican Summer.

Throughout his career, Pink has been subject to several media controversies stemming from his occasional provocations onstage and in interviews.

In 2021, he lost support from Mexican Summer following his presence in Washington D.C. during the January 6 Capitol attack.

He then formed a new band, Ariel Pink's Dark Side, with whom he recorded two albums, The Key of Joy Is Disobedience (2022) and Never Made A Demo, Ever (2023).

Until 2014, his records were usually credited to Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti, a solo project sometimes conflated with his touring band.