Michael Daniel Penn (born August 1, 1958) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and composer whose career has moved between literate alternative pop and film and television scoring. Born in New York City and raised in Los Angeles, he grew up in a family connected to the entertainment industry. His father, Leo Penn, was an actor and television director, while his mother, Eileen Ryan, and younger brothers Sean Penn and Chris Penn became actors. Michael, however, pursued music, learning guitar and writing songs while still in school.
During the early 1980s, Penn formed the Los Angeles band Doll Congress, which developed a local following without securing a broader national audience. After a period away from music, he returned to performing when his brother Sean hosted Saturday Night Live in 1987 and invited him to appear as a musical guest. Penn subsequently reconnected with former Doll Congress keyboardist Patrick Warren, and the pair helped shape the material for his first solo album.
Released in 1989, March established Penn as a distinctive singer-songwriter with a refined pop sensibility, sharply drawn lyrics, and arrangements that balanced melodic accessibility with unusual instrumental detail. Its lead single, "No Myth," became a surprise success, reaching the Top 20 in the United States and earning Penn the 1990 MTV Video Music Award for Best New Artist. Other songs from the album, including "This and That" and "Brave New World," also received significant radio and video exposure. March remains his best-known recording and the central reference point for his work as a songwriter.
Penn followed it with Free-for-All in 1992. Although critics praised the album's writing and more forceful sound, it performed less successfully commercially. A long dispute with his record company contributed to an extended gap before Resigned appeared in 1997. That album continued Penn's emphasis on detailed songwriting while moving toward a more direct rock approach. MP4: Days Since a Lost Time Accident followed in 2000, and Mr. Hollywood Jr., 1947 arrived in 2005 on Penn's own Mimeograph Records label. The latter presented a song cycle set against the atmosphere of postwar Los Angeles. In 2007, Palms and Runes, Tarot and Tea collected songs and alternate versions from across his recording career.
Penn's work increasingly shifted toward composition for visual media. He scored Paul Thomas Anderson's first two features, Hard Eight (1996) and Boogie Nights (1997), and made a small appearance in Boogie Nights. He later composed music for films including The Anniversary Party, Melvin Goes to Dinner, The Last Kiss, American Teen, Sunshine Cleaning, and That Evening Sun. His television work included the HBO series Girls, Showtime's Masters of Sex, NBC's Good Girls, and HBO's Here and Now. These projects made him a prominent composer even as his solo recording became less frequent.
In 2020, Penn released "A Revival," his first non-soundtrack song in 15 years. The single demonstrated that his melodic and lyrical voice remained intact while reflecting his later preference for carefully made, studio-based work over regular touring. Across both his albums and scores, Penn is recognized for craftsmanship, understated vocal delivery, and a willingness to let arrangement and production deepen the emotional force of a song.