1999.

1999 was an important year.

Well, at the least I've always assumed that it was an important year. It's burned into my memory; every now and then I'll stop and think, "what happened in 1999?"

I go over and try to remember what happened around that time that was important-
-Faith No More released Album of the Year in 1997.
-Soundgarden broke up in 1997.
-Faith No More broke up in 1998.
-Theodore Kaczynski was arrested in 1996.
-Faith No More released The Real Thing in 1989.
-Quantum Leap debuted in 1988.
-The current millenium began in 2001 (this is disputed).
-Faith No More released You Fat Bastards: Live at the Brixton Academy in 1990.
-Kaczynski confessed in 1998.
-Faith No More released Angel Dust in 1992.
-The Day of Lavos happened in 1999, but that was just a video game.

I also have the same thing with 2004, and I think it has something to do with it being a leap year. I get this a lot; I have an extremely bad memory and will associate importance to events that I will later forget. For all I know, something very important happened in 1999, that I cannot recall, possibly something that I must recall, for some unimaginable reason; that if I did not recall this reason, I would cease to exist.

But that hasn't happened, so it couldn't possibly be that important. Of course, if I can remember that Angel Dust was released in 1992, if that strikes me as one of the most important events of that decade, then why don't I associate any importance with 1992? And it's a leap year, at that.

Angel Dust's release was an important event. Perhaps my reluctance to associate importance with 1992 is that Angel Dust's importance is greater than the date that it was released. So could it have been released any year? That would inevitably change the course of history, and who is to say that it would have been as important, then, or even the same album? A few years later, Jim Martin had left the band, and a few years earlier, Mike Patton had joined. Many FNM fans agree that the two albums that they were together for were the two greatest albums of the greatest band ever. And of course, we can still respect Chuck Moseley's two quality albums, or the two that came after with whoever the devil those guitarists were (one of them was Trey Spruance, as I recall, who also played in another one of Patton's bands from that time, Mr. Bungle). But Angel Dust and The Real Thing were the best, by far.

Angel Dust's importance was as Faith No More's experimental album. Since The Real Thing was written before Patton joined, it was still very traditional and about as simple as Faith No More ever became (which was still damn well more interesting than most music in these black days). Angel Dust had Patton. Patton's ability and creativity are ridiculous. Patton was able to sing just about anything; he could sing, rap, growl, scream and a lot of things that we simply don't have a name for (listen for Patton's performance as the eponymous entity in the video game The Darkness; his voice, unedited, is not quite like anything I had heard prior to this). A lot could be speculated of how this talent connects to his experimental work, but I suppose the most important thing was that he was willing to record it, and now the two went together.

Angel Dust contained a lot of odd things. The album opened with Land of Sunshine, which was surprisingly ordinary for a 3/4 power ballad with lyrics taken from fortune cookies and Scientology depression tests. So it wasn't ordinary, but it was close. Land of Sunshine's lyrics were meant to be positive, uplifting, the kind that could turn your life around. Perhaps maniacal laughter and lines like "does life seem worthwhile to you?" were the wrong choice. "And life to you is a dashing, bold adventure!"- That will stay stuck in my mind for as long as I live. That and "Here's how to order!" It was a strangely uplifting tune, one that could sound a bit cruel but ultimately let you know that you were here to live and that was that. For all its ironic tone, it was easy to get caught up and know, deep down, that fortune really was smiling upon you.
Caffeine was tougher. Common belief has it that both Land of Sunshine and Caffeine were written under sleep deprivation experiments by Patton. His interest in the sound of words, rather than the meaning of them, shows here; few people can find a meaning in to "mumble a jackhammer", but just about all of them know what it sounds like. If it does mean anything, you'll note that "jackhammer" is not a word to be mumbled, unlike "mumble"; its harsh consonant element is quite obvious, and almost painful, like a stab wound or something equally unpleasant. It's an unpleasant song made of unpleasant experiences, and it's easy to feel the difficulty found in brief moments of existence that seem to last for years. Pardon me for rambling, it's a habit of mine, and unfortunately just about the only way that I can get to the point of anything, and the rest of the time I confine myself primarily to nonsense out of courtesy.
Midlife Crisis was supposedly about Madonna, although this does not show in the same way as Caffeine (although it may have something to do with my unfamiliarity with Madonna; I really only know her name). Patton alternates between a low, harsh, almost spoken, almost growled voice, and a lofty melody. The drum riff is perfect for the song; it's a hypnotic tom beat to match. It sounds like a Midlife Crisis, and is only matched for accuracy in title by Mastodon's "Trampled Under Hoof". To have a midlife crisis is to feel stepped upon by society, to desire some sort of escape, to make up for the things we forgot as youths. It's become a cliché to regret the past, almost as much as the term "cliché".
Then we come to RV, one of my favourites. RV stands for "recreational vehicle" and stands as a constant reminder, like a monolith, of trailer trash stereotypes. The plot is that of a white trash man that never amounted to anything and expects the same of his children. Well, I made that the plot, it's a habit of mine to put a story to everything I see, and by the time that I'm done I can scarcely remember my initial impressions nor what the thing is without its story. Has that become a stereotype, then? White man expects nothing of himself, and then does so? How much do we control our own fates, and are we truly simply a product of self-fulfilled prophecies? It's not as if people have never had Great Expectations before (get it?). I remember a time when everyone expected me to go to university for mathematics and do something fantastic, and then I decided that I was actually mostly interested in writing and linguistics, and then that just ruined everyone's day, and I'd think that this is exactly what they think will happen to me, married young, overweight, poor, with nothing to show for myself, no prospects or assets, nothing, as if my existence was nothing. The joke is on them, though, because I was already fat when I was born. Take THAT, America!
I suppose that has nothing to do with anything, though, and RV happens to be a terrific song, and another example of an amazing power ballad by Faith No More.
Smaller and Smaller, and Everything's Ruined, are two good tracks, though I'm not quite in the mood to discuss their infinite detail, and I'll take the advance opportunity to do the same with Kindergarten and A Small Victory. All wonderful, mind you, the album works as a whole, but I'm not quite a terrific critic and it's only so long that I can blather on about nothing at all. Then, Malpractice, I once listened to it endlessly, I think I appreciated its strange, mechanical noises meant to imitate some kind of horrific medical operating device that I could not fathom. Be Aggressive is plainly disturbing yet entertaining for its description of certain sexual practices that I'll hope you'll indulge me and allow me to leave the matter at that. Crack Hitler was written about a big time drug dealer who was brilliant enough to think that his connections and how many people he had under him made him comparable to Hitler (since, as we all know, World War II was all about the drug trade and how much street cred you had), and as such is another ironic tough guy song (they're still good). The last song (not really, but it may as well be) is the heavy metal and oddly titled Jizzlobber, and once again I will pretend that I have heard no speculation on the meaning of its lyrics. The song is notable in that it was about the only song on the album that Jim Martin had influence over, and it was one of the heaviest songs that Faith No More ever wrote. Oddly enough, as a heavy metal fan, I'm less interested in this song than the rest of the album, and I doubt that pure heavy metal was ever Faith No More's strength (as far as Faith No More had areas that were not strengths, which admittedly became quite clear by their last album). The ending is beautiful, though; the song fades out into organ and choir, that finishes with the perfect chord with which to finish.

After that is the best cover of the theme to Midnight Cowboy that I have ever heard, and that is Angel Dust.

The point that I am making, of course, is that I can remember just about every minute detail about Faith No More, and I can't remember anything, at all, that happened in 1999, excluding a number of video games that were set in that year, and the release of Mr. Bungle's final album, California. I guess I just don't have the focus for such trite detail.