Mark Mallman

Mark Mallman (born July 20, 1973) is a Minnesota musician, film composer, and memoirist.

He started his career in the late 1990s with the short-lived band, the Odd, a surprisingly popular postmodern joke on 1970s rock histrionics.

Mallman graduated from Waukesha South High School in 1991.

He studied jazz piano at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music then moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1991.

In 1995, at age 21, Mallman earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Minneapolis College of Art and Design, where he studied painting and performance art.

Mark Mallman has earned a reputation as one of the Twin Cities' must-see live acts, complete with his own star on the wall outside First Avenue.

Since 1998, he has released nine full-length studio albums, Happiness (2021) being his most recent.

Days after they topped the City Pages "Best new Band" poll, they broke up, but reunited to record and release one album, Oh My G*d – It's the Odd in 1998, which was co-written and co-produced by Mallman.

His solo debut came in 1998 with the release of The Tourist.

In 1999 Mallman performed a 26-hour long song titled "Marathon 1".

In 2000, Mallman issued his sophomore effort, How I Lost My Life and Lived to Tell about It, which featured guest spots by Kat Bjelland of Babes in Toyland and Mallman's schoolmate, Davey von Bohlen of The Promise Ring.

The Red Bedroom, his third album, was issued in Spring 2002.

It was produced by Radiohead producer Paul Q. Kolderie.

The Who's Gonna Save You Now? EP and the live effort Live from First Avenue, Minneapolis were released in 2003.

Mr. Serious, Mallman's first self-produced album, followed in 2004.

It marked his first album for Badman Recording Company.

His energetic performance style, combining the attitudes of punk rockers like Johnny Rotten and Darby Crash over the 70s disco-glam of Elton John, began to gain attention throughout the United States around the time of this record.

Later, in 2004, Mallman's "Marathon Two" session took place back at the Turf Club in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Seventy-five musicians took turns backing Mallman as he performed one song for over two consecutive days, only breaking to go to the bathroom.

While he tirelessly performed 150 shows per year, Mallman released Between the Devil and Middle C in 2006, and Invincible Criminal in 2009.

Invincible Criminal featured a duet with Craig Finn of The Hold Steady, and violins by Shannon Frid of Cloud Cult.

On October 10, 2010, he completed "Marathon 3", a 78-hour long song complete with 576 pages of lyrics.

During the performance, he injured his left foot.

After an extensive amount of touring the United States, he spent the first half of 2012 in Los Angeles writing and recording Double Silhouette, which was released later that year.

In late 2014, in hopes of changing his mood, he compiled a playlist of 50 feel-good songs and decided to listen to nothing but the playlist for the entire winter.

He also began journaling, the results of which eventually morphed into a memoir, The Happiness Playlist: The True Story of Healing My Heart With Feel-Good Music.

On March 25, 2016, Mallman released The End is Not The End. David Bowie's Scary Monsters and Super Creeps helped inspire the direction Mallman took with each of the album's twelve tracks.

The theme of life after death and constant rebirth on earth is affirmed throughout the entirety of the album.

Mallman created the album after his mother died and he was dealing with depression and anxiety attacks.

He says it's "a deliberate meditation on overcoming the roots of despair."

In the wake of his mother's death and a breakup with a longtime girlfriend, Mallman found himself struggling to listen to music that might trigger or amplify his despair, including previous favorites such as Joy Division.

The book was published in March 2019 by Think Piece Publishing, which promotes mental health advocacy through the arts.

It features a foreword by essayist Chuck Klosterman.

More memoir than self-help, the book follows Mallman through his day-to-day life in Minneapolis as he recovers from grief with the help of his new soundtrack.

Mallman has stressed that the playlist was just one tool — he also sought out therapy, antidepressants, meditation, and ceased consuming alcohol.

"Music is not going to cure you but it is gonna make things better," he said.

The Happiness Playlist was well received with an average 4.38 rating on Goodreads.

IndieReader called it "an uplifting memoir that earns its wings honestly, with humor and perception."

Forward Reviews said Mallman's "prose is fueled by short, declarative sentences and a narrative willingness to be emotionally vulnerable."

Jim Walsh, author of The Replacements: All Over But the Shouting, called it "wise, funny, and heartfelt."