What do you get when you put together a reggae drummer, a bassist influenced by Bootsie Collins and Larry Graham of Sly & the Family Stone, a heavy metal guitarist, a classically-trained pianist turned keyboardist, and a lead singer who is a cross between Anthony Kedis and Run-DMC? Why, you get the best band to emerge in the late-1980's, Faith No More.
I actually "heard" of them before their initial national release. On the cover of Metallica's Garage Days Revisited EP, I think it was James Hetfield is wearing a Faith No More t-shirt. When I saw their video for "Epic" - the one with the flopping fish - on MTV, I realized why Hetfield liked them enough to publicize them that way. Their first major-label release, The Real Thing, is probably the single best LP the majors released up to 1990, with Jane's Addiction's first album tying or a close second. One problem I think the general public had with them was their refusal to have a coalescent sound - at times their songs sounded more like jams rather than well-rehearsed compromises among their various members - which is why their later recordings kind of fell below the radar. Before there was Nirvana, however, I would submit the real "alternative music" thing began with them.
My friend Jim told me once that he thought Metallica's "Master of Puppets" was the best song about cocaine addiction because it neither preached nor celebrated, it just described. I think the the title song, "The Real Thing", does for heroin what "Master" did for cocaine. In its explicitness - it doesn't hide behind metaphor and innuendo the way, say The Red Hot Chili Peppers "Under the Bridge" does - it slaps you in the face. To me, the bass glissando, mimicking the needle insertion and injection, is just about the most awesome musical moment from a decade bereft of them. Here it is:
