When Actors Attack!

Keeping with our music and film/tv theme for the week, Phil The Intern and I had a discussion about actors who try their hand at making music.  Try as we might we had a really hard time coming up with any actor who had an actual good record.  I mean there have been a lot of musicians who have had success acting, just look at some of the Academy Award nominees for this year.  Mark Whalberg (dance Marky Mark, dance!), Jennifer Hudson and Will Smith all had music careers before they started acting.  However when the actors try to do the Rock it's usually pretty frickin' painful.  Here are just some thespians who have polluted our ears with what they consider music. The rule for the list is that they had to be actors FIRST, so people like Jennifer Lopez don't count.

The eighties were full of actors trying to sing, but two of the more memorable ones were Don Johnson and Academy Award Nominee Eddie Murphy.  Both scored Billboard top 100 hits with their singles. Don Johnson even had a duet with Barbara Streisand [MP3].  I guess she'll work with just about anyone!

Don Johnson - Heartbeat [MP3] / [YouTube Video]

Eddie Murphy - Party All The Time [MP3] / [YouTube Video] (Awesome!)

Eddie Murphy - Good Day Sunshine (Beatles Cover) [MP3]

Eddie Murphy, Michael Jackson and clouds:

A lot of actors must think they got loads rhythm, soul and sorrows as it seems like they all want to be in a Blues Band, or at least a cheesy countrified-variation of one.  Our favorite is Steven Seagal whom we actually dedicated an entire post to last month, but some other notable downtrodden multi-millionaires include Billy Bob Thorton, Kevin Bacon and Russel Crowe.  Of course who could forget good ol' Bruce Willis:

Bruce Willis - Respect Yourself [MP3]

Nice sunglasses, Bruce:

The last category of Actors with the music bug are usually a bit younger and tend to scream a lot or create music that fits into current trends.  These are the actors that are seen by the mainstream as "Alternative."  Keanu Reeves did it back in the 90s with Dogstar, we all know about Jared Leto and the sh*t that he consistently dumps upon the unsuspecting American public with 30 Seconds to Mars, there's also Juliette Lewis and the Licks and don't forget Jason Schwartzman in Phantom Planet.  That is all fine and good, but our favorite hipster is hands down Bill Shatner.  Here he is with his now infamous version of the Pulp classic:

William Shatner - Common People (Pulp Cover) [MP3] / [YouTube Video]

That wraps it up. We think they should all keep their day jobs, except of course for this guy as he can do pretty much whatever he wants!

Robert De Niro and Liza Minelli - Blue Moon [MP3]