The Bad Penny (beta)

Writing about music is often an intimidating proposition. And we all make mistakes (probably no one more than yours truly). But are we at the point where even a quick Wikipedia search is asking too much?

Faith No More is — or was, depending on whether they reunite again — not an ” ’80s band,” despite the egregiously sloppy headline to this post. To wit …

• “Epic,” the song and video that made Faith No More “popular” (per the description accompanying this news article), came out in 1990.

• The album on which it appeared, The Real Thing, achieved platinum status well after the ’80s had finished. Angel Dust, arguably Faith No More’s best record, hit stores in June 1992.

• Even though The Real Thing technically came out in 1989, Faith No More released “Falling to Pieces” as a single in July 1990 and re-released “From Out of Nowhere” as a single in April 1990. That same year saw the release of “Surprise! You’re Dead!” as the fourth single from the album.

• The band’s other best-known songs all surfaced well into the 1990s: “Midlife Crisis,” “A Small Victory,” “Everything’s Ruined,” “Easy” (by Lionel Richie), “Digging the Grave,” “Ricochet,” “Evidence,” “Ashes to Ashes,” “Last Cup of Sorrow,” “Stripsearch” and “This Town Ain’t Big Enough for Both of Us” (with Sparks).

• The vast majority of songs on any given Faith No More set list, with the exception of their two shows in August 2016 with hugely influential and belated original vocalist Chuck Mosley, dropped post-1989.

• Faith No More released their very well-received comeback album, Sol Invictus, on singer Mike Patton’s Ipecac Recordings (with Reclamation!) in 2015. They toured heavily that same decade.

It’s entirely fair to question why this egregious mistake was made in the headline to an article about one of the best rock bands of the past 30-plus years. Maybe more perplexing, though, is the reason why this outlet was publishing a “news” story about Faith No More — and paying to license one of the band’s images from The Associated Press — in the first place.

Throw stones, glass houses … time better spent … music nerd-ery at its worst … Mike Patton hates people who write about music by him or any other artist … blah, blah, blah. The fact remains — huh?

This entry was posted on 10/29/2024 at 8:34 am and is filed under Essays with tags Faith No More. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.