Old Music Tuesdays: Faith No More

I have a confession to make: Mike Patton (second from the right) is my favorite musician of all time. I started this Old Music Tuesdays post as a tribute to my favorite songs that he’s been involved with, but the list soon got to be too long and unmanageable as he’s been making music since the 80s with no sign of slowing down. He’s got hundreds of guest credits and quite a few projects both under his belt and currently in the works. In fact, his wife filed for divorce years ago citing his workaholism.

To cut down the playlist, I decided to focus on one project and start at the beginning… not the beginning of his career, but my introduction to his work: Faith No More. You may remember Faith No More as that one-hit wonder band from the late 80s with that song Epic. You wouldn’t be wrong, but there’s so much more to the Faith No More story than Epic. (In fact, that’s probably my least favorite Faith No More song.)

Faith No More started as a funk metal band, fronted by Chuck Mosely. (Patton wouldn’t come on until their third full length album.) From this era, you may have heard the song We Care A Lot, which in recent years was the song used for the promotions for Discovery Channel’s Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe. Their music was fun and enjoyable, and very 80s. They didn’t really achieve prominence until Patton replaced Mosely for their breakthrough album, The Real Thing, on which you can hear Epic and a pretty great cover of Black Sabbath’s War Pigs.

Angel Dust was the follow-up to The Real Thing and is arguably Faith No More’s best album. Instead of re-hashing the themes and styles of the album that brought them into the limelight, the band recorded what they wanted, experimented with sound effects and genre-flipping, and essentially created an entire new sound. As this was the first album with a heavy Patton influence, I credit/blame him for much of it. I highly recommend Angel Dust, and you’ll notice that most of the songs in my playlist are from this album. The two follow-up albums are continuations of the Angel Dust experimentation, and are highly enjoyable as well.

 
My playlist (below) only includes Patton-era Faith No More songs, but I’ve included an image link (above) to Introduce Yourself (featuring Mosely) and to their most recent greatest hits album, as well as the Patton-era Faith No More full-length LPs. Please note that Faith No More released far more than the six discs I’ve linked here, but this is a good start if you’re looking for an introduction to the band.

Reunited and it feels so good…

I was lucky enough to attend one of Faith No More’s reunion concerts in June of 2009 in Brooklyn, New York with my best friend Joe. Fitting, since he’s the one who introduced the band to me. The huge crowd in attendance proved the lasting influence Faith No More has had on heavy music all these years later. Earlier this year, I was able to see Mike Patton again, this time with his band Tomahawk. It was a much more intimate show, and you can read my review of the Tomahawk concert by clicking here. If you can’t see the playlist below, click here to be taken to my Grooveshark profile page. Thanks for listening!

Mike Patton stuff on this website

• Mike Patton’s Guest Spots
• Faith No More concert review
• Old Music Tuesdays: Faith No More
• Faith No More Stripsearch
• Old Music Tuesdays: Mr. Bungle
• Tomahawk concert review
• Tomahawk Red Fox

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