Rose McGowan: “You Must Headbang!”

THE CD THAT REMINDS ME OF BEING A NERD
Pulp, This is Hardcore
Island, 1998
“If you’ve ever felt like a complete nerd, there’s something eminently believable about Jarvis Cocker, with his big, thick glasses and sickly pallor. Growing up, I went to nine schools in 11 years. Before that I was in Italy, living in a commune with a bunch of freaky hippies. I bounced between places a lot: marriage-divorce, marriage-divorce, marriage-divorce. In some towns, I’d be the hot, popular thing, and then in the next I’d be a total freak.”


THE CD I DIDN’T UNDERSTAND IN FIFTH GRADE
Prince and the Revolution, Purple Rain
Warner Bros., 1984
“I came from Italy when I was 9. I hadn’t been doing a lot of pop-music listening there, just classical. Why? I don’t know. Why did we have to read the Bible every day? I don’t know. So Purple Rain was the fifth grade. I didn’t really understand what ‘Darling Nikki’ meant, but my brother and I would listen to it and snicker together. I knew there was something bad, but I wasn’t sure what it was. I’ve figured it out since then.”


THE CD THAT HELPED ME SLEEP AT NIGHT
Patsy Cline, The Patsy Cline Story
MCA, 1963
“When I was 11 or 12, I wandered into a movie theater in Eugene, Oregon, and it had Sweet Dreams playing. I walked in thinking it was going to be some teen movie — but it was Patsy and her life story. I promptly went out and bought a tape, and I used to listen to it so much that all the print wore off both sides. I was obsessed. I could go to sleep only with that playing at night — until I was 19.”


THE CD MY SISTERS MADE ME FEEL CREEPY ABOUT
Rod Stewart, Greatest Hits
Warner Bros., 1979
“I love me some Rod Stewart, mm-hmm. ‘Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?’ is my favorite. When we lived in Colorado, my little sisters used to put on performances of it. There was a big fireplace, and it had a ledge like a miniature stage coming out of it, and they would do their dances to ‘Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?’ in their pajamas and slippers. Even when I was 11, looking at them being 7 and 8, I thought there was something disturbing about the situation.”


THE CD THAT MAKES ME FEEL LONELY
Frank Sinatra, Where Are You?
Capitol, 1957
“I started listening to Frank when I was 14. I had a horrible crush on him. Before he had to start wearing a toupee, he was dead-on, wildly handsome. This is his great heartbreak period. If one is in that mood — and I’ve had so many of those periods — you can definitely go there with him. I have the ability to feel intense loneliness when I’m among 500 people or all by myself. I think I’m just born that way: the melancholy Irish.”


THE CD FOR OBLIGATORY HEADBANGING
AC/DC, Back in Black
Epic, 1980
“I had to have heard this when I was 14 — if I was in a town with a lot of hicks, they would always be blasting it out of their Corvettes. It’s my favorite record to rock out to: You can drink too much and be somewhere they play something off Back in Black, and you must headbang. I’ve got long hair; you can do some mean head-spinning. Then the next day you feel like you’ve been in a car crash.”


THE CD THAT REMINDS ME OF GOING TO GAY NIGHTCLUBS
Sinéad O’Connor, The Lion and the Cobra
Chyrsalis, 1987
“Here we go with the melancholy again. I bought The Lion and the Cobra in Seattle when I was 12. I hadn’t heard it — I just liked her face on the poster. It reminds me of sneaking into gay nightclubs in Seattle, staying up until 7 in the morning, sleeping in parks — I had told my father I was staying the night at a girlfriend’s house. I was doing a lot of strange, strange things. But I got being crazy out of my system very early.”


THE CD FOR SCRUBBING THE FLOOR
Various Artists, L.A. Confidential Soundtrack
Restless, 1997
“The movie was great. God, Russell Crowe was hot.…But I digress. It was really the songs. ‘Ac-cent-tchu-ate the Positive’ and Kay Starr singing ‘Wheel of Fortune’ can’t be beat. I love that period, the ’40s and early ’50s — my mom always listened to that kind of music, so I grew up with it. I was listening to this yesterday, very loud, because I was outside on my hands and knees, scrubbing algae off my tile.”


THE CD THAT MAKES ME GLAD I DON’T WORRY ABOUT MY MAN
Dolly Parton, Jolene
RCA, 1974
“So much country music is about keeping your man or their man done them wrong. I listen to it with slight terror of what could have been if my life had taken a different path — and you’re the kind of woman who’s living for a man, and your life is predicated on whether he’s coming home or running around with somebody else. I grew up with people around me who had that attitude toward men — but I don’t think it will happen to me.”


THE CD FOR ACTING OUT MY MURDER FANTASIES
Nick Cave, Murder Ballads
Mute/Reprise, 1996
“The murder ballads are all stories. Maybe it’s the acting thing, but in ‘Where the Wild Roses Grow,’ with Kylie Minogue, I imagine myself as that character, having my head beaten in with a stone. I don’t really care for the ones where it’s loud and raucous yelling and the men are getting killed. I don’t really relate. I prefer the songs where women are getting killed.”