Midlife Metal Crisis- top 10 Heavy Metal albums of the 1980's #9 Faith No More - The Real Thing

The Story so far...
A CD player failure has left me with the choice between sitting in silence or playing my eighties heavy metal records. The top ten of which I am revisiting, only albums from the eighties will be considered.

The Best Heavy Metal Albums of the 1980's #9 The Real Thing - Faith No more (1989)

'The Real Thing' was Faith No More's third album, they had previously released 'We care a lot' and 'Introduce yourself' with vocalist Chuck Mosley. Interestingly Courtney Love was in the band briefly in the early eighties, but it was when they replaced Chuck Mosely with Mike Patton the band really began to up their game. The previous album was ok but only really had a couple of stand out tracks (the title track and a re-recording of We care a lot). That was all to change in the summer of 1989 when the Real Thing was released. The first single released was 'From out of nowhere'. Pattons voice, the heavy stomp and prominent keyboards made a new and exciting sound that blasted away the hairspray and make up of the Glam metal bands such as Poison and Warrant that seemed to be everywhere at the time.






The album was well recieved by the music press and was selling well, then in January 1990 'Epic' was released and the band just took off. Top ten in the US, Top thirty in the UK and number 1 in Australia. It is still their most recognisable track and standard staple on Rock compilations ever since. With Epic, Faith No More have been accused of creating the Rock/Rap monstrosity of Nu Metal but to blame them for Limp Bizkit is unjust and unfair, Epic rocked the sound of scary rock discos worldwide and deserves it's place in Rock history.



  The last single from the album was Falling to pieces.   

The singles apart, the album races along at a heavy pace. Finishing with Woodpecker from Mars, a stonking instrumental that would get live outings. If you were posh and had a CD player you were treated to a couple of extra tracks. The most interesting of which was a perfect cover version of Black Sabbaths Warpigs. I never had a CD player at the time so would listen in envy as my friends album continued for an extra ten minutes. Warpigs was played live for years, this version is from Live at Brixton which followed the Real Thing.





Faith No More would go on to produce more fantastic albums throughout the nineties until finally the back stabbing and in-fighting got to much and they called it a day in 1998. Their biggest hit in the Uk would be an "ironic" cover version of the Commodores I'm Easy, which they had been playing live for while and I fucking hate. They recently reformed for a lucrative festival tour last year featuring the final not original line-up. There are also approximately 25 best of compilations of varying quality available. Stick with the albums they are cheap enough.

We care a lot

I know I am a little behind but I have only just hard about Faith No More's reformation. Sometimes bands should stay split, I didn't go and see the Pixies when they reformed as I thought it would be like going to a show that physically shows you how old you are. You are always intertwined with the bands you loved in your youth and to see them up there not in their prime, a bit fat and old looking reminds you that you are also a bit fat and old looking and far from your prime.



All these things don't count with Faith No More as they have only been split up for 10 years and they were quite old when they did. They are playing the Download festival this year, I had to look up as not being down with the rock kids I didn't realise they meant Donnington. Why isn't the Monsters of Rock any more? I remember my first Monsters of Rock, Iron Maiden were headlining with Kiss and Dave Lee Roth on support. All these were irrelevant though as everyone was there to see Guns'n'Roses who were second on the bill, Appetite for Destruction was out that week. This was before crappy acoustic EP's and overblown 11 minute ballads with cliff top guitar solos. I wish I could say they were good but I don't remember much about it, the whole festival was packed and 2 people died in the push. It was my first festival experience, I was hit by a bottle of piss and almost battered by some mad bastard. I was just turned 15 at the time, thinking that L is only 18 months away from that  makes me panic a little.



Anyway download is out of the question at £160 per ticket I think I'll sit this one out, besides the other headliners are Slipknot and Def Leppard and unless they were going ot play Pyromania back to back I'm not interested (yes I know its a guilty pleasure). I told D that the drummer of Def Leppard had only got one arm and he looked at me like I was stupid.

Update: After looking on youtube I found the actual gig, fucking hell they were shocking:



This is when they first came on, you can see all the crowd trouble. This is probably when the two people got killed. I don't understand why it takes people to die to improve crowd control.