The 90's US One-Hit Wonders Rate: WINNER REVEALED - Goodbye, farewell and amen
- Thread starter Ironheade
- Start date
I've never actually seen Catwoman from start to finish, but I've caught enough 5-10 minute snatches of it (from when ITV2 used to show it almost every Sunday) that it probably adds up to the whole thing.
Never seen Beethoven's 2nd, because I missed the first one so I just assumed the complexities of the plot would go straight over my head.
Never seen Beethoven's 2nd, because I missed the first one so I just assumed the complexities of the plot would go straight over my head.
So, I fudged the truth a little bit. We're not just eliminating an 11 here, oh no. We're eliminating TWO 11's!
...Le sigh.
48. EPIC
Average score: 5.755
Highest scores: 2 x 11 (@Ironheade , @Auntie Beryl ); 4 x 10 (@DJHazey , @unnameable , @Andy French , @chanex )
Lowest scores: 2 x 0 (@Daniel_O , @Untouchable Ace )
Chart positions: #9 Hot 100, #81 Radio Songs, #25 Mainstream Rock
Year-End Hot 100: #75 (1990)
Who? Oh yeah, them...
Sigh. Well, it looks like it's happened again, just like in the second half of the 90's #1's rate: my 11 is the first one to be cut. So let me give you a good long look at the career of Faith No More, one of my favourite bands of all time since my teenage years, and one of the artists most responsible for getting me to appreciate “alternative”/”experimental” music via providing an accessible in. It's what they deserve.
The seeds of Faith No More were first sown in 1979, in their hometown of San Francisco. Drummer Mike Bordin and bassist Billy Gould were founding members, with keyboardist Roddy Bottum entering the picture a few months later. They were originally a post-punk group called Sharp Young Men (showing off their irreverent attitudes already, the name was meant to be a swipe at the “elegant” new wave bands of the time), later changing to Faith No Man, and put out their first release, the single “Quiet Heaven/Song of Liberty”, in 1983. The band's original frontman Mike Morris exited the group shortly afterwards, and the remaining three members, after changing their name to Faith No More and going through a number of short-lived singers and guitarists (including a very young Courtney Love – who lasted six months, but apparently got kicked out for her “high maintenance” personality, which sounds about right), they eventually settled on the lineup that would first get them on the road to fame: Jim Martin on guitars, and Chuck Mosley on lead vocals.
Well, it's a dirty rate, but someone's gotta run it.
Faith No More would sign to the independent punk label Mordam Records, and their first full-length album, 1985's We Care a Lot, was the first to be put out on that label. It showcased some of the funk and rap-influenced hard rock that would make them famous, but carried a post-punk and early goth influence that is unlike anything else in their catalogue, and overall, it was quite evidently the work of a band that isn't sure where they want to go. The band has effectively disowned it, with the discography on their website listing their 1987 major-label debut Introduce Yourself as their first album. That was the record where the band signed to Slash Records, which was distributed in the US by Reprise. And while We Care a Lot isn't as awful as it's sometimes been made out to be, having its rough charms, Introduce Yourself was definitely the first sign that this was a ban that was going places. With the increased major-label budget came an uptick in production values, and a tighter sound, one that made Faith No More emblematic of the rising SoCal funk-rock-rap-metal style that would provide mainstream rock music with one of its more interesting currents over the coming years. A re-recorded version of “We Care a Lot”, from the previous album, did not become a chart hit, but it did get a fair bit of MTV play and won Faith No More something of a cult following in certain circles. But, of course, bigger and better things were yet to come for Faith No More.
Mosley was fired from the band in 1988, due to his increasingly erratic behaviour, personality conflicts with the band members, and, according to some sources, because they felt they could not progress with his limited vocal abilities (I don't mean to shade him too badly though, his scruffy hardcore-style shouting worked well enough for Faith No More's earlier material). “Limited vocal abilities” are certainly not something you could use to describe the man who replaced him, certainly. Because the band had got hold of the demo tapes of Mr. Bungle, a Eureka-area experimental metal band (they described one of the tapes as “funkadelic thrashing circus ska”, which isn't anywhere close to a precise description, but attempting to do that would probably make you go mad), featuring on vocals one Mike Patton. Mike Patton! If you had heard only a quarter of what I have heard about him, and I have heard only very little of all there is to hear, then you would be prepared for any sort of tale. This is the man who, in one study, was found to have the widest vocal range of anybody in popular music: a whole six octaves, and every one of 'em is stellar. And you find me another singer who is equally adept at bass, baritone and tenor clean vocals, falsetto crooning, death growls, insane whistle shrieks, rapping, scatting and beatboxing. Anyway, impressed with those vocal abilities of his, the band invited him in to be their new lead, with the first fruits of their collaboration coming on their third album The Real Thing, released in 1989.
Burn baby burn.
I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that, over the next decade, The Real Thing would prove to be one of the most influential hard rock albums there would ever be. This is, effectively, the album that created the genre of alternative metal. Patton's fluid switching between rapping, shouted hardcore-style vocals and the infamous nasal, almost cartoonish tones (that he used mostly for effect, his natural voice never sounded like that) set out the stall for all those who followed him. Yet Faith No More were clearly far more adventurous than their imitators, looser and funkier in their rhythms, while Jim Martin's guitar proved equally adapt at chugging groove-thrash riffs and lighter chord progressions, and the keyboards added an extra layer of atmosphere that most of their competitors could never get to grips with. The record's title track was an eight-minute progressive opus that combined delicately drifting spacey melodies with a bottom end that remained curiously airy for all its heaviness; “Surprise! You're Dead!” rages and thrashes for less than three minutes, yet never loses sight of those steel-barbed hooks; “Zombie Eaters” led with soft acoustic guitar and strings for two minutes, before exploding into a crushing rap-metal groove perfect for pulverizing the eardrums; and all the while, the band proved masters of memorably twisted yet incredibly catchy melodies. And every good album needs to end with these three things: a) a heavy as bricks prog-rock instrumental with Eastern tinges; b) a superb Black Sabbath cover; c) a piano-jazz ballad about a pedophile. Faith No More got all of them. Well done!
The band released the album's opening track “From Out of Nowhere” as the lead single with an accompanying video, in the UK and Europe only, but it failed to chart. But then “Epic” suddenly took off, becoming one of the most popular videos on MTV after its January 1990 release. That was enough to propel it onto the Hot 100 and get Faith No More some mainstream buzz, and by August it was riding high in the Top 10, with strong sales making up for a lack of pop radio airplay. It even became a number one hit in Australia and took the #2 spot in New Zealand! However, the video in question also attracted controversy, thanks to its slow-motion shots of a dying fish flopping out of water. But don't worry, animal rights brethren! The fish was only kept out of its tank for short shots, being put back in its tank in between them, and did not in fact die from exposure, nor did it die when the piano exploded in the video as it was long rumoured to have done. (And no, the fish also did not belong to Bjork, and the band did not steal it from her at a party. Both Faith No More and Bjork put that story around to be more interesting; the truth was that they had bought it at a pet shop.)
So what do I think?
MOTHERFUCKING ELEVEN.
Yeah, you probably guessed this was going to be it for me, and you know me, I don't disappoint. Where to even start with this five minutes of immaculate construction? The titanic slap bass and the thundering thuds of Mike Bordin's toms and snare fills hold down the bottom end in the most rock-solid way possible, while Bottum laces the music with new-wave-meets-prog-rock keyboard hooks and synthesized strings that send the chorus soaring into the upper atmosphere. And just look at the way Jim Martin takes advantage of his fast right-hand picking to drive the song towards its second chorus in a clever variation on the original verse, before letting the singular chords ring out and fuse with the keyboards to create a towering edifice of fuzz – actually, the whole band sneak in some clever variations of their usual lines throughout the entire song, ensuring that it never gets remotely close to being repetitive or monotonous, even as the lyrics and their constant repetition of “it” thread through it. Patton puts in an equally strong performance on two vocal fronts, pounding out a simplistic yet catchy rap rhythm to the beat on the verses, before taking advantage of his nasality and somehow transforming it into something genuinely soaring and arena-filling for the hook. And what a hook it is – the best possible expression of the lyrics, which may be nothing but fragmentary references to an unspecified “it”, but goddamnit, do they ever sound good. But even better is the second half of the song, kicked off by those call-and-response shouts that one cannot help but join in with. First comes the incredible guitar solo, the perfect combination of primal metallic sizzle and the elegance of a jazz-fusion maestro, slipping almost imperceptibly into the final chants and chorus before the wild, impressionistic leads Martin lets loose on as the band fades out. And as it all comes to a head with the closing piano solo, which genuinely does bring all the EPIC promised with its fragile yet hopeful melodies, there is no denying it, nobody can say that they have not witnessed something that is truly special and unlike anything else in the world of rock. And I've just been rocking out to “Epic” for so long... honestly, there are Faith No More songs I like more, but it's a masterwork all the same, and it's tied in to so many good memories for me, that I absolutely could not let it pass. There was literally no chance that anything else was ever going to get my 11 from this list, no matter how much I might like it.
Where Are They Now?™
The Real Thing ultimately went platinum off the back of the success of “Epic”, and the time was ripe for Slash and Reprise to capitalize on the burgeoning alt-metal wave that was rising in the underground. “From Out of Nowhere” got re-released, and became a hit in the UK, reaching #23, two spots higher on the charts than “Epic”. But the other US single from The Real Thing, “Falling to Pieces”, did not do quite so well in Faith No More's home country; it only reached #92 on the Hot 100 and barely even scratched Mainstream Rock. Which is not too much of a surprise, I suppose, considering how much of a fluke pop hit “Epic” was to begin with. Frankly, that was the sort of chart performance you might have expected the song in question to have. But Patton now had enough clout to get Mr. Bungle signed to Warner Bros., and while I usually hold up Boredoms as the most utterly bizarre major label signings of the alternative rock boom, I have to say, Mr. Bungle run a pretty close second. Because, well... if you think Faith No More are weird, then brother, you ain't seen nothing yet. Patton also attracted media attention for his feud with Anthony Kiedis, who had accused him of ripping off his musical persona and style in the “Epic” video, and the two would end up slagging each other off in interviews for years to come. (Patton wins. No contest.)
Still, nobody could have been prepared for the impact that would be made when Faith No More followed up with Angel Dust in 1992. And what's that? Why, it's another entry into my 100 favourite albums of all time!
A well a bird bird bird well the bird is the word.
It's really difficult to describe Angel Dust, one of the most sui generis works ever put out by a mainstream rock band, but I shall do my best. To say the least, anyone expecting the bright funky hard rock of The Real Thing was in for the shock when they first put on this nightmarish opus. The guitars took a backseat role for the most part, either reinforcing the ritualistic thunder of the rhythm section or smashing out singular ominous doom metal chords to reverberate away into the haze, while Roddy Bottum's gloomy keyboard lines and carnivalesque sense of melody took the lead. Patton's rapping and exaggeratedly nasal “geeky” vocals were gone, replaced with his more familiar mixture of dark baritone power with interludes of demented screeching and gibbering, displayed to its best effect on “Malpractice” and “Jizzlobber”. The lyrics dug even further into the warped and surreal than those of The Real Thing, covering topics such as Native American genocide (“Smaller and Smaller”), drug-induced psychopathy (“Crack Hitler”), and the brainwashing techniques of cults (“Land of Sunshine”). And then there was “Be Aggressive”, an explicit account of homosexual fellatio penned by Bottum, who would publically come out as gay the following year, one of the first metal musicians to do so. He wrote the song as a joke on Patton, thinking that he would be embarrassed to sing it... but not only did Patton get it onto the album, he got his own back by insisting that the band perform it at every single concert! And of course, the album ended with a faithful cover of the Commodores' “Easy”. Just for some light relief, you understand
Now, really, I could gush for hours here. Faith No More showed off a rare ability to synthesize strands of so many different genres, yet somehow make it all sound like a coherent whole that can only be called Angel Dust; the bizarro death metal of “Malpractice” and the spoken-word-and-piano piece “RV” might be worlds apart musically, yet it makes total sense somehow that they would be on the same album. And then there's the vocals of Mike Patton, whose performance on this record I might well choose as the best in rock history. Not to mention the songwriting, with vocal and instrumental melodies that I have never heard anything quite like, so atmospheric and strange, yet catchy in a way that sneaks up on you. I can honestly say that it changed the way I think about music forever. But of course any album so experimental was doomed to be a commercial failure, right? Well, actually, no. The lead single “Midlife Crisis” went all the way to #1 on the Modern Rock chart, no mean feat considering its mostly guitar-free construction based around tribal drums, eerie gothic synthesizers and half-death-growl-half-rap vocals; the band earned themselves another moderate rock hit with the Asian-inflected hard rock of the #11 Modern Rock single “A Small Victory”, and their cover of “Easy” even made it all the way to #58 on the Hot 100, their last single to ever enter that chart; ultimately, Angel Dust would be certified gold in the United States. But none of them were pop crossover hits on the level of “Epic”, certainly. There's really no way that they could have been. The singles from The Real Thing would all be playable on Top 40 radio without too much trouble, but where the hell is “Midlife Crisis” going to fit in? And what songs offer themselves up as singles immediately on Angel Dust, anyhow? None of 'em, really.
Dog will hunt.
The album resulted in a schism in the band, when Jim Martin, who favoured the heavier directions of Faith No More's earlier albums and was unhappy with the lack of emphasis on his guitar riffs on Angel Dust, ended up departing in 1993. And that was only the start of the difficulties they faced in recording their follow-up album, King for a Day... Fool for a Lifetime. Patton's Mr. Bungle bandmate Trey Spruance was brought in as the new guitarist, but he ended up departing before the album's supporting tour under murky circumstances – the band claims that he was unwilling to commit to their lengthy touring schedule, while Spruance maintains he wasn't supposed to be a permanent member of Faith No More in the first place. Meanwile, Bottum sat the majority of the sessions out, due to his struggles with drug addiction, and grief over the deaths of his father and of his close friend Kurt Cobain, leading to the album largely being written without keyboards.
As you might expect, given how odd the band had already proved themselves to be and its chaotic creation process, King for a Day was a rather schizophrenic effort. The jazz-funk of “Evidence”, the country-tinged “Take This Bottle” and the gospel-ballad climax of “Just a Man” sat somewhat uncomfortably next to the likes of “Cuckoo for Caca” and “Ugly in the Morning”, two bent and sludgy slabs of prog-metal on which Spruance's avant-garde guitar tricks and some of Patton's most extreme and eccentric vocal performances yet collide; meanwhile, the lead single “Digging the Grave” was about as stripped-down and uncomplicated of a heavy metal rager as Faith No More ever made. But as good as many of the individual compositions were, I can't help but feel a little disappointment. Angel Dust blended massively disparate influences into a totally coherent whole, resulting in an identity that was all its own, rather than cordoning off the “weird” experiments into their own tracks. Still, Patton's vocals were just getting better and better, so who could complain? The record label, probably, as King for a Day failed to reach certification domestically, and none of the singles charted in the US. To make matters worse, Faith No More's replacement touring guitarist Dean Menta got fired after the album's supporting tour, under yet another set of murky circumstances. So it goes.
This is getting old, and so are you.
With Billy Gould's former roommate Jon Hudson installed as guitarist, 1997's Album of the Year proved to be something of a disappointment. This, effectively, was the closest thing the band have to a radio-rock album, composed mostly of hard rockers hewing fairly close to the more stripped-down moments of King for a Day, alongside a few of their now-standard genre experiment tracks like the R&B stylings of “She Loves Me Not”. “Last Cup of Sorrow” was actually Faith No More's biggest hit on the Mainstream Rock charts, besting “Epic” by eleven positions when it reached #14, and “Ashes to Ashes” also charted there at #23. But sales were even worse domestically than those of King for a Day, with the album falling just shy of the Top 40. And Faith No More were soon to be overtaken by their imitators, anyway. The nu-metal wave was really hitting hard by that time, a whole genre of bands on which Faith No More was one of the biggest influences – and yet, with some notable exceptions, they generally elided the progressive and atmospheric experimentation that had made their forebears so special. (As for their influence on the genre, Patton said of that in an interview: “it's their mothers' fault, not mine”. Ouch.) This might be evidenced by the fact that, on the supporting tour for Album of the Year, Faith No More were paired with Limp Bizkit, a band they disdained and did not get along with; a passing of the torch, of sorts. And so it might come as no surprise that, in early 1998, Faith No More called it quits, Patton stating in an interview three years later that they had broken up “because we had started to make bad music”. I don't quite agree there, but it's certainly best to get out before you really hit that downward slope, and move on to better things.
...Hold me.
Patton continued working with Mr. Bungle, who released their third and final album California in 1999, though their breakup was not officially announced until 2004. He's since been involved in scads of other projects, most prominent among these being two supergroups, the utterly out-there avant-garde metal project Fantomas and the more straightforwardly rock-oriented (though still very progressive) Tomahawk; his current and most recent concern is a third supergroup, the hardcore band Dead Cross, and he's also found time to collaborate with anybody and everybody across the musical spectrum, from the Dillinger Escape Plan to John Zorn. Bottum founded the indie-pop outfit Imperial Teen, who have released five albums on Merge Records, while Mike Bordin took a spot as Ozzy Osbourne's drummer for twelve years (in which capacity he played on his biggest latter-day hit, 2007's “I Don't Wanna Stop”). But you can't keep a good band down for too long!
Faith No More reunited with their Album of the Year lineup in 2009 (Jim Martin was apparently approached to be part of it, but he declined – he was probably too busy with his endeavours in championship pumpkin growing, no seriously, I'm not kidding). After a bit of dithering as to whether or not they would actually do it and making a permanent thing, they decided to make a reunion album. Sol Invictus came out in 2015, and it certainly was not an undignified reunion effort, blending the straightforward rocking tendencies of Tomahawk's more accessible side with the good old-fashioned Angel Dust way of idiosyncratic genre-bending. It's a very safe effort in some ways, but well worth a purchase for big fans. Had it been their last record, which a few suggestions around the time had it being, it certainly would have been a more suitable coda than the unfocused Album of the Year. Things returned to quietness after that, with Patton in particular working on his many side projects, and his own label, Ipecac Recordings (home to many an artist who likes to push the envelope). The band, according to recent updates, have been working in a casual way on writing for new material, and we don't really know when it's going to come out, but whenever it appears, you can guarantee it, I'll be right on that. There's nothing left to prove; they've already left a massive mark on rock history, in a way that few so-called “one-hit wonders” ever get to do.
And as a final, sad note: Chuck Mosley, the man who did so much for Faith No More in the early years of their career, passed away in 2017 at the age of 57, from a suspected heroin overdose. He had been suffering from financial trouble for some years, and at the time of his death, he was engaged in a legal battle with the band members over who had the rights to re-release We Care a Lot (due to all sorts of contractual nonsense). He may have been overshadowed by Patton in the public memory, but we owe it to him as Faith No More fans not to forget the contributions he made; he will be missed.
OVER TO THE PEANUT GALLERY
This ain't it chief
Untouchable Ace (0): From the depths of Hell. One of the most deserved zeroes here. (Bill and Ted are shaking their heads in disapproval.)
4Roses (3): What in the white male mediocrity hell is this.
Blond (1): What a fucking racket.
əʊæ (2): Giving me Robbie Williams b-side with some guitar thrown in. (Holy shit, if that's true I gotta listen to Robbie's B-sides stat!)
Empty Shoebox (3): "What is it" - My thoughts exactly 'buddy'. Did I American correctly? (More or less.)
Seventeen Days (4): This one just seems to pop up every time there’s a “hey remember the 90s?” type retrospective of any sort. I can see how this became popular, but it’s always been a very overrated song to me.
saviodxl (5): My cousin, a rocker, admits this is a bit cringe-worthy now. Back then he thought it was awesome. I don't have an opinion about this, but can listen without skipping.
yuuurei (2): I threw it a couple points for the guitar bit in the middle and the piano outro but it's just not a great song. That one guy's voice is really obnoxious too. (Weird how Mike modified his voice pretty much just for The Real Thing; it's been suggested that he was copying melodies written for Chuck Mosley, but Chuck never sang like that either. I don't mind it personally, though the nasal voice did take me a while to get used to.)
Hudweiser (5): Sounds a little more Motley Crue-ish (vocally) than I expected.
Filippa (4): I’m not a big Faith No More fan. I quite like the chorus and that very odd piano solo in the end. (Roddy Bottum, you mad genius.)
ModeRed (6): Have always thought I like this more than I do but its actually not much more than ok.
WowWowWowWow (6): I’m not sure I ever heard this song before the rate? I know I had heard “of” it though. There are parts that I like within it, but I don’t know that I will ever seek it out again. Preparing myself to be the low-scoring voter here and I apologize in advance to anyone who 11’d it. (Apology accepted, seeing as you weren't even close to the lowest!)
Cause I gotta have faith!
iheartpoptarts (6): My first thought was that Hazey must stan this. Apparently I was right, too. (And you liked the Eurodance songs, I would hazard a guess?)
Ganache (8): Lives up to it's title. IT'S IT! WHAT IS IT? for example. ("What is it? It's it." - Buddha)
pop3blow2 (7.5): This song always bugged me a little. Parts of the track are great, but the weird RHCP meets GNR vibe just never completely clicked for me. It just comes sounding confused rather than 'epic'. (Ooh, don't let Patton hear you make those RHCP comparisons...)
DominoDancing (7): It's a good song, but Mike Patton is a dick with an oversized ego. (...Yeah, he kind of is, honestly. But considering SOME of the people I have in my record collection, I think I'll let it slide.)
berserkboi (9.7): Indeed is EPIC!!
unnameable (10): Launched the entire rap-metal scene and is amazing. (Anthrax may have been first, but Faith No More made the formula good.)
chanex (10): One of the only hard-core-ish guitar jams or whatever it's called that I truly respect for its artistry and ingenuity. When I first heard it I was floored, I still love it when I hear it, and ill never get the image of that flopping fish out of my head. (All Icelandic pop stars keep an eye on your pets from now on, or rap-metal bands will steal them.)
DJHazey (10): The 'nu metal' bands I loved around the turn of the century have a lot ot owe to bands like Faith No More. This kind of mix of rapping/metal was a direct influence on the sound to come a decade later. I consider this to be an anthem for life for that reason. (Heh, don't take my nu-metal disses in the writeup above personally. I mean, I'm literally listening to Mudvayne right now, so...)
Auntie Beryl (11): When this hit in the UK, I was 17, and kind of a bit sort of rock/metal ish, as was the habit of the day for people my age in the Home Counties who were NOT COOL. Faith No More were kind of metal, kind of funk, kind of pop, and I adored them. Still do. They were everything the bloody Red Hot Chili Peppers weren’t. As I worked through the list in turn, I wondered if anything was going to challenge this for my 11. Nothing came close. (I love you.)
...Le sigh.
48. EPIC
Average score: 5.755
Highest scores: 2 x 11 (@Ironheade , @Auntie Beryl ); 4 x 10 (@DJHazey , @unnameable , @Andy French , @chanex )
Lowest scores: 2 x 0 (@Daniel_O , @Untouchable Ace )
Chart positions: #9 Hot 100, #81 Radio Songs, #25 Mainstream Rock
Year-End Hot 100: #75 (1990)
Who? Oh yeah, them...
Sigh. Well, it looks like it's happened again, just like in the second half of the 90's #1's rate: my 11 is the first one to be cut. So let me give you a good long look at the career of Faith No More, one of my favourite bands of all time since my teenage years, and one of the artists most responsible for getting me to appreciate “alternative”/”experimental” music via providing an accessible in. It's what they deserve.
The seeds of Faith No More were first sown in 1979, in their hometown of San Francisco. Drummer Mike Bordin and bassist Billy Gould were founding members, with keyboardist Roddy Bottum entering the picture a few months later. They were originally a post-punk group called Sharp Young Men (showing off their irreverent attitudes already, the name was meant to be a swipe at the “elegant” new wave bands of the time), later changing to Faith No Man, and put out their first release, the single “Quiet Heaven/Song of Liberty”, in 1983. The band's original frontman Mike Morris exited the group shortly afterwards, and the remaining three members, after changing their name to Faith No More and going through a number of short-lived singers and guitarists (including a very young Courtney Love – who lasted six months, but apparently got kicked out for her “high maintenance” personality, which sounds about right), they eventually settled on the lineup that would first get them on the road to fame: Jim Martin on guitars, and Chuck Mosley on lead vocals.
Well, it's a dirty rate, but someone's gotta run it.
Faith No More would sign to the independent punk label Mordam Records, and their first full-length album, 1985's We Care a Lot, was the first to be put out on that label. It showcased some of the funk and rap-influenced hard rock that would make them famous, but carried a post-punk and early goth influence that is unlike anything else in their catalogue, and overall, it was quite evidently the work of a band that isn't sure where they want to go. The band has effectively disowned it, with the discography on their website listing their 1987 major-label debut Introduce Yourself as their first album. That was the record where the band signed to Slash Records, which was distributed in the US by Reprise. And while We Care a Lot isn't as awful as it's sometimes been made out to be, having its rough charms, Introduce Yourself was definitely the first sign that this was a ban that was going places. With the increased major-label budget came an uptick in production values, and a tighter sound, one that made Faith No More emblematic of the rising SoCal funk-rock-rap-metal style that would provide mainstream rock music with one of its more interesting currents over the coming years. A re-recorded version of “We Care a Lot”, from the previous album, did not become a chart hit, but it did get a fair bit of MTV play and won Faith No More something of a cult following in certain circles. But, of course, bigger and better things were yet to come for Faith No More.
Mosley was fired from the band in 1988, due to his increasingly erratic behaviour, personality conflicts with the band members, and, according to some sources, because they felt they could not progress with his limited vocal abilities (I don't mean to shade him too badly though, his scruffy hardcore-style shouting worked well enough for Faith No More's earlier material). “Limited vocal abilities” are certainly not something you could use to describe the man who replaced him, certainly. Because the band had got hold of the demo tapes of Mr. Bungle, a Eureka-area experimental metal band (they described one of the tapes as “funkadelic thrashing circus ska”, which isn't anywhere close to a precise description, but attempting to do that would probably make you go mad), featuring on vocals one Mike Patton. Mike Patton! If you had heard only a quarter of what I have heard about him, and I have heard only very little of all there is to hear, then you would be prepared for any sort of tale. This is the man who, in one study, was found to have the widest vocal range of anybody in popular music: a whole six octaves, and every one of 'em is stellar. And you find me another singer who is equally adept at bass, baritone and tenor clean vocals, falsetto crooning, death growls, insane whistle shrieks, rapping, scatting and beatboxing. Anyway, impressed with those vocal abilities of his, the band invited him in to be their new lead, with the first fruits of their collaboration coming on their third album The Real Thing, released in 1989.
Burn baby burn.
I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that, over the next decade, The Real Thing would prove to be one of the most influential hard rock albums there would ever be. This is, effectively, the album that created the genre of alternative metal. Patton's fluid switching between rapping, shouted hardcore-style vocals and the infamous nasal, almost cartoonish tones (that he used mostly for effect, his natural voice never sounded like that) set out the stall for all those who followed him. Yet Faith No More were clearly far more adventurous than their imitators, looser and funkier in their rhythms, while Jim Martin's guitar proved equally adapt at chugging groove-thrash riffs and lighter chord progressions, and the keyboards added an extra layer of atmosphere that most of their competitors could never get to grips with. The record's title track was an eight-minute progressive opus that combined delicately drifting spacey melodies with a bottom end that remained curiously airy for all its heaviness; “Surprise! You're Dead!” rages and thrashes for less than three minutes, yet never loses sight of those steel-barbed hooks; “Zombie Eaters” led with soft acoustic guitar and strings for two minutes, before exploding into a crushing rap-metal groove perfect for pulverizing the eardrums; and all the while, the band proved masters of memorably twisted yet incredibly catchy melodies. And every good album needs to end with these three things: a) a heavy as bricks prog-rock instrumental with Eastern tinges; b) a superb Black Sabbath cover; c) a piano-jazz ballad about a pedophile. Faith No More got all of them. Well done!
The band released the album's opening track “From Out of Nowhere” as the lead single with an accompanying video, in the UK and Europe only, but it failed to chart. But then “Epic” suddenly took off, becoming one of the most popular videos on MTV after its January 1990 release. That was enough to propel it onto the Hot 100 and get Faith No More some mainstream buzz, and by August it was riding high in the Top 10, with strong sales making up for a lack of pop radio airplay. It even became a number one hit in Australia and took the #2 spot in New Zealand! However, the video in question also attracted controversy, thanks to its slow-motion shots of a dying fish flopping out of water. But don't worry, animal rights brethren! The fish was only kept out of its tank for short shots, being put back in its tank in between them, and did not in fact die from exposure, nor did it die when the piano exploded in the video as it was long rumoured to have done. (And no, the fish also did not belong to Bjork, and the band did not steal it from her at a party. Both Faith No More and Bjork put that story around to be more interesting; the truth was that they had bought it at a pet shop.)
So what do I think?
MOTHERFUCKING ELEVEN.
Yeah, you probably guessed this was going to be it for me, and you know me, I don't disappoint. Where to even start with this five minutes of immaculate construction? The titanic slap bass and the thundering thuds of Mike Bordin's toms and snare fills hold down the bottom end in the most rock-solid way possible, while Bottum laces the music with new-wave-meets-prog-rock keyboard hooks and synthesized strings that send the chorus soaring into the upper atmosphere. And just look at the way Jim Martin takes advantage of his fast right-hand picking to drive the song towards its second chorus in a clever variation on the original verse, before letting the singular chords ring out and fuse with the keyboards to create a towering edifice of fuzz – actually, the whole band sneak in some clever variations of their usual lines throughout the entire song, ensuring that it never gets remotely close to being repetitive or monotonous, even as the lyrics and their constant repetition of “it” thread through it. Patton puts in an equally strong performance on two vocal fronts, pounding out a simplistic yet catchy rap rhythm to the beat on the verses, before taking advantage of his nasality and somehow transforming it into something genuinely soaring and arena-filling for the hook. And what a hook it is – the best possible expression of the lyrics, which may be nothing but fragmentary references to an unspecified “it”, but goddamnit, do they ever sound good. But even better is the second half of the song, kicked off by those call-and-response shouts that one cannot help but join in with. First comes the incredible guitar solo, the perfect combination of primal metallic sizzle and the elegance of a jazz-fusion maestro, slipping almost imperceptibly into the final chants and chorus before the wild, impressionistic leads Martin lets loose on as the band fades out. And as it all comes to a head with the closing piano solo, which genuinely does bring all the EPIC promised with its fragile yet hopeful melodies, there is no denying it, nobody can say that they have not witnessed something that is truly special and unlike anything else in the world of rock. And I've just been rocking out to “Epic” for so long... honestly, there are Faith No More songs I like more, but it's a masterwork all the same, and it's tied in to so many good memories for me, that I absolutely could not let it pass. There was literally no chance that anything else was ever going to get my 11 from this list, no matter how much I might like it.
Where Are They Now?™
The Real Thing ultimately went platinum off the back of the success of “Epic”, and the time was ripe for Slash and Reprise to capitalize on the burgeoning alt-metal wave that was rising in the underground. “From Out of Nowhere” got re-released, and became a hit in the UK, reaching #23, two spots higher on the charts than “Epic”. But the other US single from The Real Thing, “Falling to Pieces”, did not do quite so well in Faith No More's home country; it only reached #92 on the Hot 100 and barely even scratched Mainstream Rock. Which is not too much of a surprise, I suppose, considering how much of a fluke pop hit “Epic” was to begin with. Frankly, that was the sort of chart performance you might have expected the song in question to have. But Patton now had enough clout to get Mr. Bungle signed to Warner Bros., and while I usually hold up Boredoms as the most utterly bizarre major label signings of the alternative rock boom, I have to say, Mr. Bungle run a pretty close second. Because, well... if you think Faith No More are weird, then brother, you ain't seen nothing yet. Patton also attracted media attention for his feud with Anthony Kiedis, who had accused him of ripping off his musical persona and style in the “Epic” video, and the two would end up slagging each other off in interviews for years to come. (Patton wins. No contest.)
Still, nobody could have been prepared for the impact that would be made when Faith No More followed up with Angel Dust in 1992. And what's that? Why, it's another entry into my 100 favourite albums of all time!
A well a bird bird bird well the bird is the word.
It's really difficult to describe Angel Dust, one of the most sui generis works ever put out by a mainstream rock band, but I shall do my best. To say the least, anyone expecting the bright funky hard rock of The Real Thing was in for the shock when they first put on this nightmarish opus. The guitars took a backseat role for the most part, either reinforcing the ritualistic thunder of the rhythm section or smashing out singular ominous doom metal chords to reverberate away into the haze, while Roddy Bottum's gloomy keyboard lines and carnivalesque sense of melody took the lead. Patton's rapping and exaggeratedly nasal “geeky” vocals were gone, replaced with his more familiar mixture of dark baritone power with interludes of demented screeching and gibbering, displayed to its best effect on “Malpractice” and “Jizzlobber”. The lyrics dug even further into the warped and surreal than those of The Real Thing, covering topics such as Native American genocide (“Smaller and Smaller”), drug-induced psychopathy (“Crack Hitler”), and the brainwashing techniques of cults (“Land of Sunshine”). And then there was “Be Aggressive”, an explicit account of homosexual fellatio penned by Bottum, who would publically come out as gay the following year, one of the first metal musicians to do so. He wrote the song as a joke on Patton, thinking that he would be embarrassed to sing it... but not only did Patton get it onto the album, he got his own back by insisting that the band perform it at every single concert! And of course, the album ended with a faithful cover of the Commodores' “Easy”. Just for some light relief, you understand
Now, really, I could gush for hours here. Faith No More showed off a rare ability to synthesize strands of so many different genres, yet somehow make it all sound like a coherent whole that can only be called Angel Dust; the bizarro death metal of “Malpractice” and the spoken-word-and-piano piece “RV” might be worlds apart musically, yet it makes total sense somehow that they would be on the same album. And then there's the vocals of Mike Patton, whose performance on this record I might well choose as the best in rock history. Not to mention the songwriting, with vocal and instrumental melodies that I have never heard anything quite like, so atmospheric and strange, yet catchy in a way that sneaks up on you. I can honestly say that it changed the way I think about music forever. But of course any album so experimental was doomed to be a commercial failure, right? Well, actually, no. The lead single “Midlife Crisis” went all the way to #1 on the Modern Rock chart, no mean feat considering its mostly guitar-free construction based around tribal drums, eerie gothic synthesizers and half-death-growl-half-rap vocals; the band earned themselves another moderate rock hit with the Asian-inflected hard rock of the #11 Modern Rock single “A Small Victory”, and their cover of “Easy” even made it all the way to #58 on the Hot 100, their last single to ever enter that chart; ultimately, Angel Dust would be certified gold in the United States. But none of them were pop crossover hits on the level of “Epic”, certainly. There's really no way that they could have been. The singles from The Real Thing would all be playable on Top 40 radio without too much trouble, but where the hell is “Midlife Crisis” going to fit in? And what songs offer themselves up as singles immediately on Angel Dust, anyhow? None of 'em, really.
Dog will hunt.
The album resulted in a schism in the band, when Jim Martin, who favoured the heavier directions of Faith No More's earlier albums and was unhappy with the lack of emphasis on his guitar riffs on Angel Dust, ended up departing in 1993. And that was only the start of the difficulties they faced in recording their follow-up album, King for a Day... Fool for a Lifetime. Patton's Mr. Bungle bandmate Trey Spruance was brought in as the new guitarist, but he ended up departing before the album's supporting tour under murky circumstances – the band claims that he was unwilling to commit to their lengthy touring schedule, while Spruance maintains he wasn't supposed to be a permanent member of Faith No More in the first place. Meanwile, Bottum sat the majority of the sessions out, due to his struggles with drug addiction, and grief over the deaths of his father and of his close friend Kurt Cobain, leading to the album largely being written without keyboards.
As you might expect, given how odd the band had already proved themselves to be and its chaotic creation process, King for a Day was a rather schizophrenic effort. The jazz-funk of “Evidence”, the country-tinged “Take This Bottle” and the gospel-ballad climax of “Just a Man” sat somewhat uncomfortably next to the likes of “Cuckoo for Caca” and “Ugly in the Morning”, two bent and sludgy slabs of prog-metal on which Spruance's avant-garde guitar tricks and some of Patton's most extreme and eccentric vocal performances yet collide; meanwhile, the lead single “Digging the Grave” was about as stripped-down and uncomplicated of a heavy metal rager as Faith No More ever made. But as good as many of the individual compositions were, I can't help but feel a little disappointment. Angel Dust blended massively disparate influences into a totally coherent whole, resulting in an identity that was all its own, rather than cordoning off the “weird” experiments into their own tracks. Still, Patton's vocals were just getting better and better, so who could complain? The record label, probably, as King for a Day failed to reach certification domestically, and none of the singles charted in the US. To make matters worse, Faith No More's replacement touring guitarist Dean Menta got fired after the album's supporting tour, under yet another set of murky circumstances. So it goes.
This is getting old, and so are you.
With Billy Gould's former roommate Jon Hudson installed as guitarist, 1997's Album of the Year proved to be something of a disappointment. This, effectively, was the closest thing the band have to a radio-rock album, composed mostly of hard rockers hewing fairly close to the more stripped-down moments of King for a Day, alongside a few of their now-standard genre experiment tracks like the R&B stylings of “She Loves Me Not”. “Last Cup of Sorrow” was actually Faith No More's biggest hit on the Mainstream Rock charts, besting “Epic” by eleven positions when it reached #14, and “Ashes to Ashes” also charted there at #23. But sales were even worse domestically than those of King for a Day, with the album falling just shy of the Top 40. And Faith No More were soon to be overtaken by their imitators, anyway. The nu-metal wave was really hitting hard by that time, a whole genre of bands on which Faith No More was one of the biggest influences – and yet, with some notable exceptions, they generally elided the progressive and atmospheric experimentation that had made their forebears so special. (As for their influence on the genre, Patton said of that in an interview: “it's their mothers' fault, not mine”. Ouch.) This might be evidenced by the fact that, on the supporting tour for Album of the Year, Faith No More were paired with Limp Bizkit, a band they disdained and did not get along with; a passing of the torch, of sorts. And so it might come as no surprise that, in early 1998, Faith No More called it quits, Patton stating in an interview three years later that they had broken up “because we had started to make bad music”. I don't quite agree there, but it's certainly best to get out before you really hit that downward slope, and move on to better things.
...Hold me.
Patton continued working with Mr. Bungle, who released their third and final album California in 1999, though their breakup was not officially announced until 2004. He's since been involved in scads of other projects, most prominent among these being two supergroups, the utterly out-there avant-garde metal project Fantomas and the more straightforwardly rock-oriented (though still very progressive) Tomahawk; his current and most recent concern is a third supergroup, the hardcore band Dead Cross, and he's also found time to collaborate with anybody and everybody across the musical spectrum, from the Dillinger Escape Plan to John Zorn. Bottum founded the indie-pop outfit Imperial Teen, who have released five albums on Merge Records, while Mike Bordin took a spot as Ozzy Osbourne's drummer for twelve years (in which capacity he played on his biggest latter-day hit, 2007's “I Don't Wanna Stop”). But you can't keep a good band down for too long!
Faith No More reunited with their Album of the Year lineup in 2009 (Jim Martin was apparently approached to be part of it, but he declined – he was probably too busy with his endeavours in championship pumpkin growing, no seriously, I'm not kidding). After a bit of dithering as to whether or not they would actually do it and making a permanent thing, they decided to make a reunion album. Sol Invictus came out in 2015, and it certainly was not an undignified reunion effort, blending the straightforward rocking tendencies of Tomahawk's more accessible side with the good old-fashioned Angel Dust way of idiosyncratic genre-bending. It's a very safe effort in some ways, but well worth a purchase for big fans. Had it been their last record, which a few suggestions around the time had it being, it certainly would have been a more suitable coda than the unfocused Album of the Year. Things returned to quietness after that, with Patton in particular working on his many side projects, and his own label, Ipecac Recordings (home to many an artist who likes to push the envelope). The band, according to recent updates, have been working in a casual way on writing for new material, and we don't really know when it's going to come out, but whenever it appears, you can guarantee it, I'll be right on that. There's nothing left to prove; they've already left a massive mark on rock history, in a way that few so-called “one-hit wonders” ever get to do.
And as a final, sad note: Chuck Mosley, the man who did so much for Faith No More in the early years of their career, passed away in 2017 at the age of 57, from a suspected heroin overdose. He had been suffering from financial trouble for some years, and at the time of his death, he was engaged in a legal battle with the band members over who had the rights to re-release We Care a Lot (due to all sorts of contractual nonsense). He may have been overshadowed by Patton in the public memory, but we owe it to him as Faith No More fans not to forget the contributions he made; he will be missed.
OVER TO THE PEANUT GALLERY
This ain't it chief
Untouchable Ace (0): From the depths of Hell. One of the most deserved zeroes here. (Bill and Ted are shaking their heads in disapproval.)
4Roses (3): What in the white male mediocrity hell is this.
Blond (1): What a fucking racket.
əʊæ (2): Giving me Robbie Williams b-side with some guitar thrown in. (Holy shit, if that's true I gotta listen to Robbie's B-sides stat!)
Empty Shoebox (3): "What is it" - My thoughts exactly 'buddy'. Did I American correctly? (More or less.)
Seventeen Days (4): This one just seems to pop up every time there’s a “hey remember the 90s?” type retrospective of any sort. I can see how this became popular, but it’s always been a very overrated song to me.
saviodxl (5): My cousin, a rocker, admits this is a bit cringe-worthy now. Back then he thought it was awesome. I don't have an opinion about this, but can listen without skipping.
yuuurei (2): I threw it a couple points for the guitar bit in the middle and the piano outro but it's just not a great song. That one guy's voice is really obnoxious too. (Weird how Mike modified his voice pretty much just for The Real Thing; it's been suggested that he was copying melodies written for Chuck Mosley, but Chuck never sang like that either. I don't mind it personally, though the nasal voice did take me a while to get used to.)
Hudweiser (5): Sounds a little more Motley Crue-ish (vocally) than I expected.
Filippa (4): I’m not a big Faith No More fan. I quite like the chorus and that very odd piano solo in the end. (Roddy Bottum, you mad genius.)
ModeRed (6): Have always thought I like this more than I do but its actually not much more than ok.
WowWowWowWow (6): I’m not sure I ever heard this song before the rate? I know I had heard “of” it though. There are parts that I like within it, but I don’t know that I will ever seek it out again. Preparing myself to be the low-scoring voter here and I apologize in advance to anyone who 11’d it. (Apology accepted, seeing as you weren't even close to the lowest!)
Cause I gotta have faith!
iheartpoptarts (6): My first thought was that Hazey must stan this. Apparently I was right, too. (And you liked the Eurodance songs, I would hazard a guess?)
Ganache (8): Lives up to it's title. IT'S IT! WHAT IS IT? for example. ("What is it? It's it." - Buddha)
pop3blow2 (7.5): This song always bugged me a little. Parts of the track are great, but the weird RHCP meets GNR vibe just never completely clicked for me. It just comes sounding confused rather than 'epic'. (Ooh, don't let Patton hear you make those RHCP comparisons...)
DominoDancing (7): It's a good song, but Mike Patton is a dick with an oversized ego. (...Yeah, he kind of is, honestly. But considering SOME of the people I have in my record collection, I think I'll let it slide.)
berserkboi (9.7): Indeed is EPIC!!
unnameable (10): Launched the entire rap-metal scene and is amazing. (Anthrax may have been first, but Faith No More made the formula good.)
chanex (10): One of the only hard-core-ish guitar jams or whatever it's called that I truly respect for its artistry and ingenuity. When I first heard it I was floored, I still love it when I hear it, and ill never get the image of that flopping fish out of my head. (All Icelandic pop stars keep an eye on your pets from now on, or rap-metal bands will steal them.)
DJHazey (10): The 'nu metal' bands I loved around the turn of the century have a lot ot owe to bands like Faith No More. This kind of mix of rapping/metal was a direct influence on the sound to come a decade later. I consider this to be an anthem for life for that reason. (Heh, don't take my nu-metal disses in the writeup above personally. I mean, I'm literally listening to Mudvayne right now, so...)
Auntie Beryl (11): When this hit in the UK, I was 17, and kind of a bit sort of rock/metal ish, as was the habit of the day for people my age in the Home Counties who were NOT COOL. Faith No More were kind of metal, kind of funk, kind of pop, and I adored them. Still do. They were everything the bloody Red Hot Chili Peppers weren’t. As I worked through the list in turn, I wondered if anything was going to challenge this for my 11. Nothing came close. (I love you.)
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she/her
Epic was always my go-to song on Rock Band.
Astonishing write up, @Ironheade. We're right, everyone else is varying degrees of wrong.
That write-up was even more epic than usual. You are truly outdoing most rate hosts.
he/him
Incredible history lesson on the band and of their influence on hard rock music for years to come. I always point to this band and specifically this song as a birthplace of the nu metal/rap metal I would start stanning for when I was 15 (and still do really), right up there with Helmet's Unsung. You take bands like that and the 'harder' elements of grunge from the 90s and you created the "new wave of American metal" that is really what took place between 1997-2003, with all sorts of influences thrown together to kind of re-create the wheel. So often I'll just label all my favorites as "nu metal" when really only a few really are like Limp Bizkit. Other bands like System of a Down, Disturbed, Deftones, and Korn are often thrown into it but are really just "modern alternative metal" for the lack of a better word, but would still trace their influences back to bands like Faith No More and are undoubtedly stanned by fans of "nu metal" music. There are only a number of bands that I could count my hands that embrace what 'nu metal' is and everyone else wants to distance themselves from the term with reason.
Mudvayne is always one of those bands that nu metal heads stan for but I never got them at all. I'd rather listen to Slipknot any day (and depending who you ask, they started the bunch of guys in scary masks trend not Mudvayne haha)
I just recently found a bunch of mix-CDs from my high school and college years and one was labeled '90s hits' and the first six songs are from this rate. "Epic" was one of them, I wonder if anybody could guess the others.
Mudvayne is always one of those bands that nu metal heads stan for but I never got them at all. I'd rather listen to Slipknot any day (and depending who you ask, they started the bunch of guys in scary masks trend not Mudvayne haha)
I just recently found a bunch of mix-CDs from my high school and college years and one was labeled '90s hits' and the first six songs are from this rate. "Epic" was one of them, I wonder if anybody could guess the others.
She/Her
When I was thirteen, my best friend's older brother was super into Mr. Bungle. He would play it really loud whenever he'd have to drive us anywhere. I kind of loved it. Every car ride was epic in its own way.
I also really liked the Lovage album Mike Patton did with Dan the Automator. The man has range, that's for sure.
I also really liked the Lovage album Mike Patton did with Dan the Automator. The man has range, that's for sure.
he/him
Mike Patton is a frightening and frighteningly talented person. The Peeping Tom album is iconic.
she/her
My favorite Mike Patton thing on the internet ever:
Heh, Mudvayne, I really only listen to L.D. 50 because I appreciate the heavy influence from Tool that it has in the more progressive songwriting... and the fact that Ryan Martinie is an absolute demon on the bass. (Those fast triplet runs in the chorus of "Death Blooms", gawd damn.)
In other news, the next song out is going to be one of my 10's, so I hope you're all very pleased with yourselves.
she/her
I'm gonna try this and you're gonna give me a score out of 5, mmmkay?
What is Love? - Haddaway
Sex and Candy - Marcy Playground
Steal My Sunshine - Len
Bitch - Meredith Brooks
My Own Worst Enemy - Lit
This is so hard. I feel like it really depends whether you were in high school or college.
he/him
You got 2/5! Not bad.
she/her
You know what, I'll take it!
Oh man, oh man... this is not my day in the rate, is it?
All I can say is that my writing's pretty plain...
47. NO RAIN
(EXCELLENT FONTS THERE LADS.)
Average score: 5.788
Highest scores: 4 x 10 (@Ironheade, @yuuurei , @Andy French , @Remorque )
Lowest scores: 1 x 0 (@əʊæ)
Chart positions: #20 Hot 100, #16 Radio Songs, #4 Mainstream Top 40, #1 Modern Rock, #1 Mainstream Rock
Year-End Hot 100: N/A
Who? Oh yeah, them...
This was one of the most pleasant surprises. I remember liking "No Rain" from having heard it before, but I didn't think it would hit me this hard relistening for the first time in years. And, having listened to their entire discography, I think I shall have to completely revise my opinion on Shannon Hoon and pals as one-hit wonders with an unusual hippy-dippy hit. Now, I would have to say that Blind Melon were one of the most underrated rock bands of their time, with a sound that is quite unlike any of their contemporaries. And yet they were tragically torn apart by the demons of drug addiction just off the peak of their career, and have never seemed, over the years, to have acquired quite the level of posthumous cult following that so many other cut-down-in-their-prime rock stars have. I hope I can do justice to their legacy here.
Man, we spent a LOT on music videos in the early 90's.
Blind Melon were formed in Los Angeles in 1990, but the band's founding members had all flown in from elsewhere: lead vocalist Shannon Hoon was from Indiana, rhythm guitarist Christopher Thorn was a Pennsylvania transplant, and the remaining three members (lead guitarist Rogers Stevens, drummer Glen Graham, and bassist Brad Smith) had all come from Mississippi. The name came from the nickname of a group of hippies that Smith knew from back home, and was an homage to both the 1920's blues singer Blind Lemon Jefferson and the Cheech & Chong character Blind Melon Chitlin'. The band quickly signed a deal with Capitol, and began using their musical connections to get a foothold in the music industry and immediately start building hype. Hoon struck up a friendship with Axl Rose, resulting in him singing backup vocals on several songs from the Use Your Illusion albums; most prominent among these was their #10 hit power ballad “Don't Cry”, in which Hoon doubles Axl's lead vocal (an octave higher and further back in the mix) for the entire song, and even earned himself an appearance in the song's video. Blind Melon also won themselves a slot opening for Soundgarden in 1991, a band who were just breaking out on the back of Badmotorfinger and the sudden grunge boom. Quite a set of feats, for a band who didn't even have an album out.
According to all known laws of physics...
Said album would not appear until 1992, in fact. They were unhappy with their initial recording efforts on Capitol, an EP called The Sippin' Time Sessions which was to come out in 1991; they scrapped the recordings and they were never released, the band considering them too “slick and doctored”. Instead, for their self-titled debut album, they intentionally eschewed any modern studio effects, and mostly recorded on vintage equipment. This should display one of the most obvious qualities that helped Blind Melon stick out, and yet simultaneously might have doomed them to curiosity status in the mainstream: from the very beginning, they were a band out of step with the times, unabashed worshippers of 70's rock in an age when the “classic rock” period was just beginning to be consigned to the history books. This probably explains a great deal about why their brand of psychedelic-influenced roots rock found great appeal among those hoary-headed classicists who didn't like grunge. (Ironically enough, the album was produced by Rick Parashar, who had served the same duties for Pearl Jam on Ten.) But they were no reactionaries feeding on the past to disguise a lack of their own original ideas; Blind Melon could take the spirit of 70's jam rock and make it their own. Thorn and Stevens proved an extremely adept guitar duo, equally capable of chilled-out acoustic strumming and genuinely rocking moments, while Hoon's high-pitched yet gritty vocals gave the band more of a bite. The casual hippie jam feel of the compositions gave them a great deal of charm, and while the lyrics were tinged with darkness and societal alienation as much of their contemporaries, they turned it to a unique end; instead of succumbing to self-pity or coming across as hopeless and bleak, Blind Melon had an almost wistful, accepting edge to their lyricism, seeming happy to exist on the outside and find a comforting light in the midst of the shadows.
Sales of the album were slow at first. The lead single “Tones of Home” had gained some traction on the rock stations (#10 mainstream and #20 modern), but it could not gain traction on the pop stations, and Blind Melon just seemed to lack that one big hit to break them through. And then, they found it, and it's all thanks to the indolent charms of “No Rain” - that, and an adorable little girl in a bee costume. I should point out, the Bee Girl on Blind Melon's album cover and the Bee Girl in the “No Rain” video are not the same person; the cover shot was of Graham's little sister, while for the video, child actress Heather DeLoach took on the role. The video's message of acceptance and the ability to find an escape from the cruelty of the world effectively communicated everything that Blind Melon's first album was about, in an instantly memorable package that is almost impossible not to like. (Best video of the rate? I dunno, it's got some stiff competition, but easily top 5 for certain.) “No Rain” soon became one of MTV's most played videos of 1993, and one of the most iconic of the 120 Minutes years; that translated to it becoming a massive hit on rock radio, and driving the record to quadruple platinum status. Party on, bee people.
So what do I think?
TEN.
OK, I'm just going to start with this right off the bat: DAT LEAD GUITAR TONE. That is pure clean liquid bliss right there, just as vivid and colourful as the Elysian fields of the video. The lead guitars in the right stereo channel blend absolutely perfectly with the ringing acoustic guitars in the left, while both guitarists throw in an odd muted chord to ensure the rhythm doesn't become too flatlined and add a peppier drive to the music. Meanwhile, that melodic bassline threads through the middle, adding yet another gorgeously smooth counterpoint, yet it is willing to get a little more aggressive and carries a powerful rhythm through the opening even without the presence of drums. And then there's the rambling song structure – the way the verses and refrain can both serve melodically as the main hook, running into each other loosely in order to form one massive, lazily catchy hook; and while the drums don't kick in until the guitar solo, when they do so it is in an almost casual manner. It's really charming and fun in my opinion, making it a perfect song to just kick back to. Oh yeah, and what a guitar solo it is, masterfully combining expressive bends with fluid and rapid-fire note runs. The lyrics of “No Rain”, though you probably wouldn't be able to tell it from the sunshiney hippie sounds of the music, deal with depression and the sense of defeatism and passiveness that can come with it. But Shannon Hoon, with the surprising power and raspiness he can put behind his high tenor voice, certainly does not sound like he is expressing indolence or content to wallow in it, but rather seems like somebody doing his level best to break out of it. The expressive quaver in his voice after the guitar solo is a genuinely powerful moment of vulnerability, and yet when he launches back into belting out the refrain, it represents him finding a strange sort of solidity in the midst of the chaos; “so stay with me and I'll have it made”, he says, and his confidence in that, in his ability to negotiate the troubles he runs into, is really difficult not to like to my ears. I don't know. It just gets me, on some level that I can't fully articulate. This looks a lot like my own struggles with depression and the lack of motivation that often hits me in its midst, and “No Rain” is the sort of song that I definitely would like to have heard more when I hit rock bottom back in early 2014. So that's why it gets a perfect score from me. It just feels right.
Where Are They Now?™
When a band like this breaks through to all sorts of wild hyperbole from critics, and a massive breakthrough hit that elevates them into the big leagues, the pressure comes on pretty rapidly. Blind Melon coped with it well enough and kept touring, playing at Woodstock 1994 (where Shannon Hoon memorably took the stage wearing his girlfriend's dress) and opening for the Rolling Stones on the tour supporting Voodoo Lounge. Unfortunately for them, the other two singles from the self-titled, “I Wonder” and “Change”, both failed to chart in the US (though the latter reached the Top 40 in the UK). And even worse, most of the band members fell into the depths of drug and alcohol addiction. Shannon Hoon got it the worst of all, spending multiple stints in rehab, and being arrested in New Orleans on a drunk and disorderly charge. But they had the critics on their side, and were still in with a fighting chance of further hits. And so, in 1995, the band hunkered down to work and put out their second album Soup.
Kind of looks like the letters spell BLANTO MLOEN there.
Anybody expecting more “No Rain” was probably in for quite a shock when they first popped Soup into their CD player. The upbeat psychedelic rock tunes were gone, and the lyrics touched on subjects like suicide and mental illness, as well as Hoon's fascination with serial killers. The songs were shorter, tighter and less jammy than on the debut, with a heavier edge to them, while venturing into unlikely musical waters – the album opened and closed with instrumental pieces written in the style of New Orleans jazz funeral music, while “Skinned” displayed influences from bluegrass, and the band also made use of instruments like mandolins, flutes and Hammond organs. The main attraction, though, was Hoon's fragmented writing style and fascinating lyrics, which sometimes verged on the uncomfortably candid: “2 x 4” and “Walk” provided chilling insights into his struggles with cocaine and amphetamine addiction, and even the seemingly positive “New Life”, about the birth of his daughter Nico, came across like a portrait of a man who knew he was losing his grip and desperately hoping that these events could restore some of his stability. It's quite a fascinating listen, disturbingly gripping at times, and showcases a band that were certainly not content to rest on their one-hit laurels. As good as the first album was, Soup is even better, and it displays all the signs of an artist on the verge of becoming something truly special. Perhaps Blind Melon never could have followed up “No Rain” with a similarly huge mainstream success – they were too outside the prevailing trends of the day for that. But I think they could have hung on for quite a while with a good cult following, existing just outside the bright lights of the mainstream, but continuing to draw a crowd who wanted to hear their unique style and what they had to say.
Sadly, as history tells us, it did not turn out that way, and two months after the record's release, the story of the original incarnation of Blind Melon would end in tragedy.
Where the debut had peaked at #3 on the album chart and gone four times platinum, Soup debuted at its peak of #28, slid off the Billboard 200 within nine weeks, and barely even made it past gold. The lead single “Galaxie” attracted only moderate interest on rock radio, making it to #8 on Modern Rock and #25 on Mainstream Rock, and the second single “Toes Across the Floor” did not chart at all. To make matters worse, Hoon's drug problems were totally out of control by this time, and he was constantly in and out of rehab. His drug counsellor had advised him not to tour behind the record for his own good, but he insisted, taking a counsellor out on the road with him; however, the counsellor in question was dismissed in fairly short order, as he was unable to keep Hoon from relapsing. This would ultimately prove a fatal mistake. For this downward spiral eventually came to its bitter end when, on October 21, 1995, Blind Melon's live sound engineer found Hoon dead on the band's tour bus, before a show in New Orleans. The singer had overdosed on cocaine, just a month after his 28th birthday.
Shattered by the loss of their bandmate and friend, Blind Melon limped on, as a name if not as an actively touring or recording musical project, for a while longer, but the damage had already been done. The band put out a third album called Nico the year after Hoon's death, an odds-and-sods collection of rejected tracks from the Soup sessions, cover songs, alternate versions of released songs, and some of Hoon's home demos that were polished up by the band. The album was named after Hoon's infant daughter, and the proceeds from its sales went towards her college trust. Blind Melon had in fact intended to carry on with a replacement frontman, but months of auditions produced no satisfactory results, and the difficult task of attempting to replace the guiding force of their band strained the relationships of the remaining members. Surprisingly enough, it took them until March 1999 for Blind Melon to officially announce that they had broken up. But it had been evident for a long time. Without such a wild and magnetic presence as Shannon Hoon, the core of the band seemed somewhat diminished; replacing him would be a tough ask, to say the least.
The band members splintered off into various lower-profile projects, most prominently Unified Theory, a one-album supergroup that featured Thorn and Smith playing alongside founding Pearl Jam drummer Dave Krusen. But evidently, they felt like there was still unfinished business to do with Blind Melon. In 2006, they announced their reformation, with Travis Warren, an uncanny soundalike for Shannon Hoon, on lead vocals, and all four of the other original members returning. They put out a new album entitled For My Friends in 2008... and while I have to say that the band really misses the genuinely desperate emotional edge that Hoon brought to the band, the quality of the composition and playing is still pretty damn good, and overall, the reunion without their original frontman could have gone a whole lot worse. There was a bit of a ruction at the end of 2008, with Warren apparently quitting the band, but after a fairly short hiatus, it was all resolved, with Blind Melon returning to touring and playing shows with him in 2010. The band said, at this time, that while Blind Melon was still an active entity, they had no plans to release any more studio recordings at the present time and would only play live shows. (One of which included a 2015 New Year's Eve show in Shannon's hometown of Lafayette, IN, where Nico Hoon stepped up for lead vocals in a nice little tribute moment to her father.) Last year, however, it was announced that Blind Melon were writing again, and working on songs for a new album with Warren, but that there was no set release date for the new material. And the very best of luck to them if and when it appears.
And here's one other unanswered question: what became of Heather DeLoach, the Bee Girl who was propelled to iconic status by the video? Well, she is 35 years old, and represents a fertility doctor in Orange County. To this day, she proudly lists “Bee Girl” in her Twitter bio.
I wonder if she can still do the dance?
OVER TO THE PEANUT GALLERY
Rain, rain, go away
Untouchable Ace (3.9): No, this one's a lemon. (Sorry, Blind Lemon was already taken.)
chanex (4): I hate myself for always being attracted to the lead singer of this putrid maudlin garbage of which the only redeeming factor is that the name of the bee girl in the video is Heather DeLOACH LOLOLOLOL.
WowWowWowWow (6): Ohhhhhhh not Bee Girl!!!!!
iheartpoptarts (4): Oh wow, the video. (I know, it's great!)
Ganache (3): I never liked this or Bee Girl. (Aww, no, you made her cry again!)
Empty Shoebox (3): Just plods along being completely unremarkable, before the unnecessary guitar solo bursts in and makes it worse. (ROGERS STEVENS, SWEETIE, I'M SO SORRY)
berserkboi (6.8): I realise this is a classic but was never for me, so never fully got into it.
4Roses (2): Did everyone try the Ambien, I thought the Ambien was lovely. (It sure waszzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...)
Singing in the rain
Auntie Beryl (6.5): Bands like Blind Melon used to have hits! (It was a better time.)
Seventeen Days (7.25): How can you not like this song? It’s so mellow and fun. Plus, Bee Girl (aka Heather DeLoach) is an icon of the 90s.
saviodxl (6.7): Good to see alternative rock slightly different from their pals of the early 90s. And poor little bee! (THAT VIDEO IS JUST SO ADORABLE MY GOD)
pop3blow2 (8.5): Buzz Clip. Iconic video. A 90’s time capsule, this song is. (Just like pretty much everything else here!)
DJHazey (8): Always a nice and chill listen for sure. More memorable for the video than the song though, I'm afraid.
DominoDancing (7.5): Cute song, but this became as huge as it was because of bee girl. (Hey, if Internet memes are any guide, everyone likes bees.)
unnameable (8): Fine little bop.
ModeRed (8): Relistening to these is a mixed bag, but the cheerful feeling this song has is a pleasure to hear again.
Filippa (7): I like the voice and the singing style of Shannon Hoon. And I like the lyrics. (I'll always be there when you ask.)
CasuallyCrazed (9.25): Iconic classic. Waiting for the Melanie Martinez cover of this. (NO THANKS.)
yuuurei (10): Might as well be my theme song. (Let's bee friends.)
All I can say is that my writing's pretty plain...
47. NO RAIN
(EXCELLENT FONTS THERE LADS.)
Average score: 5.788
Highest scores: 4 x 10 (@Ironheade, @yuuurei , @Andy French , @Remorque )
Lowest scores: 1 x 0 (@əʊæ)
Chart positions: #20 Hot 100, #16 Radio Songs, #4 Mainstream Top 40, #1 Modern Rock, #1 Mainstream Rock
Year-End Hot 100: N/A
Who? Oh yeah, them...
This was one of the most pleasant surprises. I remember liking "No Rain" from having heard it before, but I didn't think it would hit me this hard relistening for the first time in years. And, having listened to their entire discography, I think I shall have to completely revise my opinion on Shannon Hoon and pals as one-hit wonders with an unusual hippy-dippy hit. Now, I would have to say that Blind Melon were one of the most underrated rock bands of their time, with a sound that is quite unlike any of their contemporaries. And yet they were tragically torn apart by the demons of drug addiction just off the peak of their career, and have never seemed, over the years, to have acquired quite the level of posthumous cult following that so many other cut-down-in-their-prime rock stars have. I hope I can do justice to their legacy here.
Man, we spent a LOT on music videos in the early 90's.
Blind Melon were formed in Los Angeles in 1990, but the band's founding members had all flown in from elsewhere: lead vocalist Shannon Hoon was from Indiana, rhythm guitarist Christopher Thorn was a Pennsylvania transplant, and the remaining three members (lead guitarist Rogers Stevens, drummer Glen Graham, and bassist Brad Smith) had all come from Mississippi. The name came from the nickname of a group of hippies that Smith knew from back home, and was an homage to both the 1920's blues singer Blind Lemon Jefferson and the Cheech & Chong character Blind Melon Chitlin'. The band quickly signed a deal with Capitol, and began using their musical connections to get a foothold in the music industry and immediately start building hype. Hoon struck up a friendship with Axl Rose, resulting in him singing backup vocals on several songs from the Use Your Illusion albums; most prominent among these was their #10 hit power ballad “Don't Cry”, in which Hoon doubles Axl's lead vocal (an octave higher and further back in the mix) for the entire song, and even earned himself an appearance in the song's video. Blind Melon also won themselves a slot opening for Soundgarden in 1991, a band who were just breaking out on the back of Badmotorfinger and the sudden grunge boom. Quite a set of feats, for a band who didn't even have an album out.
According to all known laws of physics...
Said album would not appear until 1992, in fact. They were unhappy with their initial recording efforts on Capitol, an EP called The Sippin' Time Sessions which was to come out in 1991; they scrapped the recordings and they were never released, the band considering them too “slick and doctored”. Instead, for their self-titled debut album, they intentionally eschewed any modern studio effects, and mostly recorded on vintage equipment. This should display one of the most obvious qualities that helped Blind Melon stick out, and yet simultaneously might have doomed them to curiosity status in the mainstream: from the very beginning, they were a band out of step with the times, unabashed worshippers of 70's rock in an age when the “classic rock” period was just beginning to be consigned to the history books. This probably explains a great deal about why their brand of psychedelic-influenced roots rock found great appeal among those hoary-headed classicists who didn't like grunge. (Ironically enough, the album was produced by Rick Parashar, who had served the same duties for Pearl Jam on Ten.) But they were no reactionaries feeding on the past to disguise a lack of their own original ideas; Blind Melon could take the spirit of 70's jam rock and make it their own. Thorn and Stevens proved an extremely adept guitar duo, equally capable of chilled-out acoustic strumming and genuinely rocking moments, while Hoon's high-pitched yet gritty vocals gave the band more of a bite. The casual hippie jam feel of the compositions gave them a great deal of charm, and while the lyrics were tinged with darkness and societal alienation as much of their contemporaries, they turned it to a unique end; instead of succumbing to self-pity or coming across as hopeless and bleak, Blind Melon had an almost wistful, accepting edge to their lyricism, seeming happy to exist on the outside and find a comforting light in the midst of the shadows.
Sales of the album were slow at first. The lead single “Tones of Home” had gained some traction on the rock stations (#10 mainstream and #20 modern), but it could not gain traction on the pop stations, and Blind Melon just seemed to lack that one big hit to break them through. And then, they found it, and it's all thanks to the indolent charms of “No Rain” - that, and an adorable little girl in a bee costume. I should point out, the Bee Girl on Blind Melon's album cover and the Bee Girl in the “No Rain” video are not the same person; the cover shot was of Graham's little sister, while for the video, child actress Heather DeLoach took on the role. The video's message of acceptance and the ability to find an escape from the cruelty of the world effectively communicated everything that Blind Melon's first album was about, in an instantly memorable package that is almost impossible not to like. (Best video of the rate? I dunno, it's got some stiff competition, but easily top 5 for certain.) “No Rain” soon became one of MTV's most played videos of 1993, and one of the most iconic of the 120 Minutes years; that translated to it becoming a massive hit on rock radio, and driving the record to quadruple platinum status. Party on, bee people.
So what do I think?
TEN.
OK, I'm just going to start with this right off the bat: DAT LEAD GUITAR TONE. That is pure clean liquid bliss right there, just as vivid and colourful as the Elysian fields of the video. The lead guitars in the right stereo channel blend absolutely perfectly with the ringing acoustic guitars in the left, while both guitarists throw in an odd muted chord to ensure the rhythm doesn't become too flatlined and add a peppier drive to the music. Meanwhile, that melodic bassline threads through the middle, adding yet another gorgeously smooth counterpoint, yet it is willing to get a little more aggressive and carries a powerful rhythm through the opening even without the presence of drums. And then there's the rambling song structure – the way the verses and refrain can both serve melodically as the main hook, running into each other loosely in order to form one massive, lazily catchy hook; and while the drums don't kick in until the guitar solo, when they do so it is in an almost casual manner. It's really charming and fun in my opinion, making it a perfect song to just kick back to. Oh yeah, and what a guitar solo it is, masterfully combining expressive bends with fluid and rapid-fire note runs. The lyrics of “No Rain”, though you probably wouldn't be able to tell it from the sunshiney hippie sounds of the music, deal with depression and the sense of defeatism and passiveness that can come with it. But Shannon Hoon, with the surprising power and raspiness he can put behind his high tenor voice, certainly does not sound like he is expressing indolence or content to wallow in it, but rather seems like somebody doing his level best to break out of it. The expressive quaver in his voice after the guitar solo is a genuinely powerful moment of vulnerability, and yet when he launches back into belting out the refrain, it represents him finding a strange sort of solidity in the midst of the chaos; “so stay with me and I'll have it made”, he says, and his confidence in that, in his ability to negotiate the troubles he runs into, is really difficult not to like to my ears. I don't know. It just gets me, on some level that I can't fully articulate. This looks a lot like my own struggles with depression and the lack of motivation that often hits me in its midst, and “No Rain” is the sort of song that I definitely would like to have heard more when I hit rock bottom back in early 2014. So that's why it gets a perfect score from me. It just feels right.
Where Are They Now?™
When a band like this breaks through to all sorts of wild hyperbole from critics, and a massive breakthrough hit that elevates them into the big leagues, the pressure comes on pretty rapidly. Blind Melon coped with it well enough and kept touring, playing at Woodstock 1994 (where Shannon Hoon memorably took the stage wearing his girlfriend's dress) and opening for the Rolling Stones on the tour supporting Voodoo Lounge. Unfortunately for them, the other two singles from the self-titled, “I Wonder” and “Change”, both failed to chart in the US (though the latter reached the Top 40 in the UK). And even worse, most of the band members fell into the depths of drug and alcohol addiction. Shannon Hoon got it the worst of all, spending multiple stints in rehab, and being arrested in New Orleans on a drunk and disorderly charge. But they had the critics on their side, and were still in with a fighting chance of further hits. And so, in 1995, the band hunkered down to work and put out their second album Soup.
Kind of looks like the letters spell BLANTO MLOEN there.
Anybody expecting more “No Rain” was probably in for quite a shock when they first popped Soup into their CD player. The upbeat psychedelic rock tunes were gone, and the lyrics touched on subjects like suicide and mental illness, as well as Hoon's fascination with serial killers. The songs were shorter, tighter and less jammy than on the debut, with a heavier edge to them, while venturing into unlikely musical waters – the album opened and closed with instrumental pieces written in the style of New Orleans jazz funeral music, while “Skinned” displayed influences from bluegrass, and the band also made use of instruments like mandolins, flutes and Hammond organs. The main attraction, though, was Hoon's fragmented writing style and fascinating lyrics, which sometimes verged on the uncomfortably candid: “2 x 4” and “Walk” provided chilling insights into his struggles with cocaine and amphetamine addiction, and even the seemingly positive “New Life”, about the birth of his daughter Nico, came across like a portrait of a man who knew he was losing his grip and desperately hoping that these events could restore some of his stability. It's quite a fascinating listen, disturbingly gripping at times, and showcases a band that were certainly not content to rest on their one-hit laurels. As good as the first album was, Soup is even better, and it displays all the signs of an artist on the verge of becoming something truly special. Perhaps Blind Melon never could have followed up “No Rain” with a similarly huge mainstream success – they were too outside the prevailing trends of the day for that. But I think they could have hung on for quite a while with a good cult following, existing just outside the bright lights of the mainstream, but continuing to draw a crowd who wanted to hear their unique style and what they had to say.
Sadly, as history tells us, it did not turn out that way, and two months after the record's release, the story of the original incarnation of Blind Melon would end in tragedy.
Where the debut had peaked at #3 on the album chart and gone four times platinum, Soup debuted at its peak of #28, slid off the Billboard 200 within nine weeks, and barely even made it past gold. The lead single “Galaxie” attracted only moderate interest on rock radio, making it to #8 on Modern Rock and #25 on Mainstream Rock, and the second single “Toes Across the Floor” did not chart at all. To make matters worse, Hoon's drug problems were totally out of control by this time, and he was constantly in and out of rehab. His drug counsellor had advised him not to tour behind the record for his own good, but he insisted, taking a counsellor out on the road with him; however, the counsellor in question was dismissed in fairly short order, as he was unable to keep Hoon from relapsing. This would ultimately prove a fatal mistake. For this downward spiral eventually came to its bitter end when, on October 21, 1995, Blind Melon's live sound engineer found Hoon dead on the band's tour bus, before a show in New Orleans. The singer had overdosed on cocaine, just a month after his 28th birthday.
Shattered by the loss of their bandmate and friend, Blind Melon limped on, as a name if not as an actively touring or recording musical project, for a while longer, but the damage had already been done. The band put out a third album called Nico the year after Hoon's death, an odds-and-sods collection of rejected tracks from the Soup sessions, cover songs, alternate versions of released songs, and some of Hoon's home demos that were polished up by the band. The album was named after Hoon's infant daughter, and the proceeds from its sales went towards her college trust. Blind Melon had in fact intended to carry on with a replacement frontman, but months of auditions produced no satisfactory results, and the difficult task of attempting to replace the guiding force of their band strained the relationships of the remaining members. Surprisingly enough, it took them until March 1999 for Blind Melon to officially announce that they had broken up. But it had been evident for a long time. Without such a wild and magnetic presence as Shannon Hoon, the core of the band seemed somewhat diminished; replacing him would be a tough ask, to say the least.
The band members splintered off into various lower-profile projects, most prominently Unified Theory, a one-album supergroup that featured Thorn and Smith playing alongside founding Pearl Jam drummer Dave Krusen. But evidently, they felt like there was still unfinished business to do with Blind Melon. In 2006, they announced their reformation, with Travis Warren, an uncanny soundalike for Shannon Hoon, on lead vocals, and all four of the other original members returning. They put out a new album entitled For My Friends in 2008... and while I have to say that the band really misses the genuinely desperate emotional edge that Hoon brought to the band, the quality of the composition and playing is still pretty damn good, and overall, the reunion without their original frontman could have gone a whole lot worse. There was a bit of a ruction at the end of 2008, with Warren apparently quitting the band, but after a fairly short hiatus, it was all resolved, with Blind Melon returning to touring and playing shows with him in 2010. The band said, at this time, that while Blind Melon was still an active entity, they had no plans to release any more studio recordings at the present time and would only play live shows. (One of which included a 2015 New Year's Eve show in Shannon's hometown of Lafayette, IN, where Nico Hoon stepped up for lead vocals in a nice little tribute moment to her father.) Last year, however, it was announced that Blind Melon were writing again, and working on songs for a new album with Warren, but that there was no set release date for the new material. And the very best of luck to them if and when it appears.
And here's one other unanswered question: what became of Heather DeLoach, the Bee Girl who was propelled to iconic status by the video? Well, she is 35 years old, and represents a fertility doctor in Orange County. To this day, she proudly lists “Bee Girl” in her Twitter bio.
I wonder if she can still do the dance?
OVER TO THE PEANUT GALLERY
Rain, rain, go away
Untouchable Ace (3.9): No, this one's a lemon. (Sorry, Blind Lemon was already taken.)
chanex (4): I hate myself for always being attracted to the lead singer of this putrid maudlin garbage of which the only redeeming factor is that the name of the bee girl in the video is Heather DeLOACH LOLOLOLOL.
WowWowWowWow (6): Ohhhhhhh not Bee Girl!!!!!
iheartpoptarts (4): Oh wow, the video. (I know, it's great!)
Ganache (3): I never liked this or Bee Girl. (Aww, no, you made her cry again!)
Empty Shoebox (3): Just plods along being completely unremarkable, before the unnecessary guitar solo bursts in and makes it worse. (ROGERS STEVENS, SWEETIE, I'M SO SORRY)
berserkboi (6.8): I realise this is a classic but was never for me, so never fully got into it.
4Roses (2): Did everyone try the Ambien, I thought the Ambien was lovely. (It sure waszzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...)
Singing in the rain
Auntie Beryl (6.5): Bands like Blind Melon used to have hits! (It was a better time.)
Seventeen Days (7.25): How can you not like this song? It’s so mellow and fun. Plus, Bee Girl (aka Heather DeLoach) is an icon of the 90s.
saviodxl (6.7): Good to see alternative rock slightly different from their pals of the early 90s. And poor little bee! (THAT VIDEO IS JUST SO ADORABLE MY GOD)
pop3blow2 (8.5): Buzz Clip. Iconic video. A 90’s time capsule, this song is. (Just like pretty much everything else here!)
DJHazey (8): Always a nice and chill listen for sure. More memorable for the video than the song though, I'm afraid.
DominoDancing (7.5): Cute song, but this became as huge as it was because of bee girl. (Hey, if Internet memes are any guide, everyone likes bees.)
unnameable (8): Fine little bop.
ModeRed (8): Relistening to these is a mixed bag, but the cheerful feeling this song has is a pleasure to hear again.
Filippa (7): I like the voice and the singing style of Shannon Hoon. And I like the lyrics. (I'll always be there when you ask.)
CasuallyCrazed (9.25): Iconic classic. Waiting for the Melanie Martinez cover of this. (NO THANKS.)
yuuurei (10): Might as well be my theme song. (Let's bee friends.)
Last edited:
My commentary was a bit generic, ha!
I mean, a lot of the music in this rate is absurdly iconic or time capsule worthy. No Rain, is even more so in many ways, to me. Between that simply eternal video & the oddly out-of-step with grunge, yet completely still in zeitgeist song, the whole thing was a special 90's moment.
I mean, a lot of the music in this rate is absurdly iconic or time capsule worthy. No Rain, is even more so in many ways, to me. Between that simply eternal video & the oddly out-of-step with grunge, yet completely still in zeitgeist song, the whole thing was a special 90's moment.
he/him
WHAT THE FUCK.
