Nick Drake - Wikipedia

On Nick Drake:

Drake suffered from depression and insomnia throughout his life, and these topics were often reflected in his lyrics. Upon completion of his third album, 1972's Pink Moon, he withdrew from both live performance and recording, retreating to his parents' home in rural Warwickshire. On 25 November 1974, Drake died from an overdose of amitriptyline, a prescribed antidepressant; he was 26 years old.

Drake's music remained available through the mid-1970s but the 1979 release of the retrospective album Fruit Tree caused his back catalogue to be reassessed. By the mid-1980s Drake was being credited as an influence by such artists as Robert Smith and Peter Buck. In 1985, The Dream Academy reached the UK and US charts with "Life in a Northern Town", a song written for and dedicated to Drake.[6] By the early 1990s, he had come to represent a certain type of 'doomed romantic' musician in the UK music press, and was frequently cited by artists including Kate Bush, Paul Weller and The Black Crowes.[7] The first biography in English of Drake appeared in 1997, and was followed in 1998 by the documentary film A Stranger Among Us. In 2000, Volkswagen featured the title track from Pink Moon in a television advertisement, and within a month Drake had sold more records than he had in the previous 30 years.

Rasputin in popular culture - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ideas not to work on:

• In Team Fortress 2, there is an achievement for the Heavy class named after Rasputin, given for being shot, burned, bludgeoned and exploded in a single life.
• Grigori Rasputin plays a major role in the game Shadow Hearts: Covenant. In the game, he is a genuine mystic with dark powers, and he is head of a secret group which is plotting the overthrow of the Czar.
• In White Wolf Game Studio's World of Darkness role-playing game metaverse, many factions of supernaturals claim Rasputin as one of their own, including one faction of mages (the Cult of Ecstasy), at least five factions of vampires (the Brujah, Malkavians, Nosferatu, Ventrue, and Followers of Set), and one faction of werewolves (the Shadow Lords). The second edition of Wraith: The Oblivion has a description of the 'Stamina' attribute referring to the stories of Rasputin's assassination. The in-game "truth" is still disputed, though Ethan Skemp (developer of Werewolf) has since mentioned that the multiple conflicting stories were meant as little more than an in-joke running through many of White Wolf's early books.
• Rasputin is a playable character in Alpha Denshi's 1992 coin operated 2-D fighter arcade game World Heroes as well as its sequels. The character bears his likeness and uses a combination of bizarre and magical attacks against opponents, while preaching for a worldwide peace. The arcade games had high distribution in terms of available machines, but were poorly received by gaming critics. [7]
• The main character in the PS2/Xbox game Psychonauts is called Razputin (better known as 'Raz'). Due to his psychic abilities, he is presumably named after Rasputin. The backstory of the character Raz includes a fear of drowning (like Rasputin's siblings) and a life in the circus (like his daughter Maria).
• In the game Half-Life 2, a crazed Russian priest named Grigori aids the player through a zombie-infested town.
• In Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2, the character Yuri was most likely inspired by Rasputin; he is a mysterious man with special powers who has a hold on the Russian leader.
• Rasputin appears as a primary antagonist in Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner.
• In the game Resident Evil 4, the village chief bears a striking resemblance to Rasputin. Also, as Rasputin cared for the peasantry, Chief Mendez is the only possessor of a queen Plagas that shows any care for the ganados as revealed by a note encountered shortly before the boss battle with him.
• In the Call of Duty: World at War Nazi Zombies mode, on the Downloaded map Shi No numa, Nikolai Belinski can be heard saying after killing a zombie "Who are you, fucking Rasputin? Stay dead this time!"
• In Assassin's Creed II, a series of glyphs and codices describe Rasputin as a Templar agent who infiltrates the Czar's palace so he can steal a powerful artifact in the Czar's possession.