h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Faith No More - the Band - A995691
Author: Nylarthotep - U200240

A monumental band who are sorely missed...

Four weeks, no comments. booooooo!

This looks fine to me - any comments from anyone who knows anything about the band?

Well found there Otto

Yes, this is an excellent entry about a sorely missed band. We've a detailed history here, a description of their influences and how their music went on and influenced others. Really nice

If I were to ask for more, I would be looking for the story of their live performances. I saw the band a couple of times and it was always the energy and musicianship of their live performances that blew me away. I always recall them as a band who one was recommended to go and see as they were great entertainment, regardless of whether the records were really one's cup of tea.

One curiosity I noticed was your mention of the track 'I'm Easy' on the Angel Dust LP. My copy -- bought in Canada soon after its release -- doesn't include that track. I've just checked with a few of the on-line record shop sites around the world and I could only find this song included on the UK release. Is there a story there? I don't know.



Oh, and you've spelled industry wrong in the first sentence, but I would leave that in. Hey, we've got have the Subs do some work for their badge

Thanks for the +feedback.

As far as the Canadian version of Angel Dust and I'm Easy, that's news to me. The single did very well over here in Blighty and I can't see why such a classic would be ommited in Canada apart from some bizarre reason linked to licensing.

Anyone else know anything about this one?

FNM's cover of Easy wasn't released on Angel Dust in the USA either. I also bought Angel Dust within weeks of its appearance on shelves of record stores here in the US, and never even knew they had done Easy until I saw them live a couple years later (when they did it as a sort of tongue-in-cheek encore for the few, but very rowdy fans [of which I was one ] that'd turned up to see them open for Metallica and the then-pathetic Guns-n-Roses. Sorry for the excessive length of that last sentence.

- JD (just nudging a great entry up the queue again)

Thanks for the push!

I'm suprised that the song didn't see release in North America as it was a huge hit over here in the UK.

Stranger than fiction...

Any more, or is this ready to go?

I guess I have to get nitpicky. In the 2nd paragraph this sentence crops up: "Without the fusion of metal, rap and even blues that the band pioneered, today we would be without such popular contempory artists as Korn, Incubus and Linkin Park." To be accurate, FNM were not pioneers of fusing blues into heavy metal. Those that virtually defined the heavy metal genre, Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin, were very heavily influenced by the blues, and the influence is far more obvious in their work than with FNM's work some 10-20 years later. FNM's style is more rooted in heavy metal and funk, though there is quite a bit to their style that make them about as avant-garde as so-called progressive metal ever got (I'm thinking of material from Angel Dust and Album of the Year). Also, I couldn't agree with the author more that, without FNM, contemporary artists like Korn and Incubus and Linkin Park would probably not exist - or at least, would likely sound very different.

I think it needs to be made clear that only later editions of Angel Dust released in the UK contained the cover of "Easy." That song never was realesed in the states outside of the single, as we've covered in the forum here already. (BTW, I think it's actually called just "Easy" and not "I'm Easy")

Is there perhaps any way to mention the highlights of the two "glory years" albums outside of just mentioning "Epic" from The Real Thing (which, since I'm being nitpicky already, was first released in 1989, not 1990) and the cover of "Easy" from the UK release of Angel Dust (and not even a part of the album for the band's home country)? I mean, there really is a lot more to FNM to be had on The Real Thing and Angel Dust that deserves a mention in any article about the band.

Here are some suggestions:

I would at least mention such standout tracks such as "From Out of Nowhere," "Surprise! You're Dead," "Zombie Eaters," the wonderfully weird instrumental "Woodpecker From Mars" and the fantastic homage-cover of "War Pigs" - all from The Real Thing. Those tracks (indeed the entire album) had such an impact on many of us budding metal guitarists at the time, the only reason there wasn't a FNM tribute band was that no one could ever figure them out! As for the "confounding and complex" release of Angel Dust, it would be remiss to ignore such tracks as "Midlife Crisis," "Land of Sunshine," the incredible vocal gymnastics on "Jizzlobber," and the excellent cover of the "Midnight Cowboy" theme ...

I don't *think* I'm the only FNM fan that likes all those songs, and I hope I'm not bugging with all these suggestions to be added, but I just love the band and think we could put a bit more in there about them.

- JD

Can you let me know when this fine entry is ready to be processed for the EG?

Toodle pip

Ashley

You still there Mat?

Yeah, I'm still here. The reason that I haven't commented on this in a while is that as far as I'm concerned the article is ready to go into the EG. The points that were raised in the rather lengthy comment above seem to me to be the personal preferences of the researcher who made them and I'm a little reluctant to spend a great length of time fiddling around with an atricle which I think is as good as it's gonna get.

I'd like this to go into the guide as it is, but I don't want to sound like I'm just shouting this guy down over his comments on my article.

Would you accept the entry as is?

I tend to agree with you that those comments, whilst interesting as someone's personal opinion, wouldn't make any great addition to the entry. I think the entry as it stands now is very good and of the quality demanded by the Edited Guide. So I'll have another go at picking it

I've been guilty of putting together a pretty poor set of comments, I guess. Here's the two comments that are not opinion that I made earlier but got buried in crap:

To be accurate, FNM were not pioneers of fusing blues into heavy metal [as was stated in the article - my previous post contains the exact quote that is inaccurate]. Those that virtually defined the heavy metal genre, Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin, were very heavily influenced by the blues, and the influence is far more obvious in their work than with FNM's work some 10-20 years later.

I think it needs to be made clear that only later editions of Angel Dust released in the UK contained the cover of "Easy" - in the US, the band didn't release that song outside of an EP - as I meant to say earlier and as we've covered here already. Also, the song is in fact called just "Easy" and not "I'm Easy".

As for all the opinionated stuff, I was just trying to make suggestions to round out the article better since I think it contains quite a bit of its own opinion already. At least we can agree that FNM are a great band!

- JD

This is really minor in the face of a great article, but have you thought about translating into GuideML and turning your topic headings into subheaders. If they were red, it would make them stand out better. Whatever.

NC*

"Say hello to my little friend!"
Random quote guild

Guide ML eludes me...even though we share the same innitials!

If it needs GuideML before it can be picked I'll do it I know the subs used to be able to convert entries, but I don't know if they still do or not.

I think this is a fantastic entry

It had been years since I had listened to them, and just by chance I came across The Real Thing last week and was listening to it over the weekend. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed them.

While I feel that all the relevant information is here in your entry, there are a few places where the text doesn't flow very well... missing punctuation or words. I'm terribly guilty of this when I write because I write like I think so if I pause in my thinking I'll stick a comma in where it shouldn't be, likewise if I'm thinking in a rush I'll miss stuff out. If you read through it carefully again you can probably pick a few of these out and see about fixing them.

The word on the streets from the Subs is that they prefer no GuideML to bad GuideML, as it is easier on the editing process.

Now as this entry is neatly laid out, dropping in the etc stuff is a trivial exercise. This is one case of 'leave it to the Subs'.

Your Guide Entry has just been picked from Peer Review by one of our Scouts, and is now heading off into the Editorial Process, which ends with publication in the Edited Guide. We've therefore moved this Review Conversation out of Peer Review and to the entry itself.

If you'd like to know what happens now, check out the page on 'What Happens after your Entry has been Recommended?' at EditedGuide-Process. We hope this explains everything.

Thanks for contributing to the Edited Guide!

So I guess we're just going to ignore the facts that The Real Thing was released in 1989 (not 1990 as the article says), that FNM did not release the song "Easy" on their Angel Dust album except in the UK, that the name of the cover is "Easy" (not "I'm Easy" as the article says), and that FNM did not pioneer the fusion of blues and heavy metal (as the article says)? Have I not made myself clear about these facts?


- JD