21. Angel Dust - Faith No More
The latest installment in my ongoing list of Twenty-Five Albums for Twenty-Five Years. To view previous posts, click here: Twenty-Five Albums for Twenty-Five Years.
the last of the tapes
In a previous entry, I mentioned my father's spaceship of a truck-- a white Chevy Silverado with chrome running boards and a big ass cap. I fondly recall packing up for a 'gig' one night. This was in the heyday of Fifth Wheel, a band whose mythology far outweighed its musical ability or fan base. Anyway, the boys all went up to the Circle K convenience store to get sodas. When they got back, I had all of our equipment neatly packed into the space shuttle-- from drum kit to mic stands. Every last piece of equipment (and there was a substantial amount of it) fit into the back of that truck.
But that's not the point, here. The point is that I remember driving the old man's truck out to the mall to buy Angel Dust the day it came out. And because this was 1992, the truck didn't have a CD player-- none of the family fleet had CD players. So I bought the tape.
Good old cassette tape.
If I properly recall, this was the last new tape I bought. Everything after that was CD.
This is not yer father's rock and roll
I was going to start with something like this: Angel Dust's cover art betrays its duality. The front cover is simple and regal, a heron with wings in motion, backed by dark blue water. The title, Angel Dust, is written in a flowing script below the subtle stamp of Faith No More. The only hint at something darker comes from the "Parental Advisory" sticker in the lower right corner.
Flip the album over and you get a cold, frank shot of a butcher shop.
Front and center: a cow's head. Hmm…
Yeah, well, in trying to figure out what kind of bird is on the cover (it's beak seemed to sharply pointed for it to be a swan…), I stumbled onto this line from Mark Reed's Drowned in Sound review of the album: "It’s a thing of both extraordinary beauty and gruesome confrontation, nowhere is this more obvious than the bipolar cover art : on one side - a swan arising from a lake; on the other - a decapitated cows head hanging from a hook in an abattoir."
So much for my insightful diatribary!
Anyway, the thoughts are spot on. The album's artistry lies in its ability to juggle beautiful melody with hard-driving rhythm, guitar and lyrics.
This is by far the hardest album on my list. While I'm no stranger to metal, I've always skewed more toward the melodic-- say, preferring Ozzy Osbourne's Diary of a Madman to Metallica's Ride the Lighting.
But Angel Dust is hard-- and certainly not for the faint of heart.
Wikipedia (gag) notes, "Fans still consider this album to be Faith No More at their finest," but adds that it is "complex and at times hard to approach." What's interesting about these comments is that, despite coming from Wikipedia, they are pretty accurate. Turn to a "best of" Faith No More (Who Cares A Lot? or the newer This Is It) and you won't find more than the small handful of singles represented.
This, despite being a fan favorite?
There in lies the nature of the beast: Some of the absolute best songs in the Faith No More catalog are represented on this album. "Midlife Crisis," "A Small Victory," and "Everything's Ruined" are songs that even an old fuddy-duddy might enjoy. And a music lover can't help but find these songs' hooks catchy. Mike Patton's lyrics tend to run along the lines of what is now being dubbed (in cinema) as "torture-porn," but "Everything's Ruined" is a beautifully crafted ballad that extends a simple metaphor (human being as money) into a biting capitalist parable.
But "Malpractice," "Crack Hitler," and "Jizzlobber"?! Again: Not for the faint of heart.
And yet, sonically, this is another one of those complete albums. Once you adjust to the darkness and intensity, the album opens up-- from the immediate crunch of album pace-setter, "Land of Sunshine," to the sad but sweet instrumental melody of "Midnight Cowboy." It would be easy for the initiate to simply pick and choose the lighter fair, download those songs and ignore the rest, but that would be like, well, watching the television edit of Animal House.
I'll be upfront: I have no idea what the title of the album means. I grew up in the 80's, so I know what angel dust is, but as a marker for this set of songs? Not so much.
However, if we work backwards from the last song ("Midnight Cowboy" is the last track on the original release), we can find some clues as to the general theme of the album: It aptly explores the shocking (but often accurate) realities of the American Dream.
"Land of Sunshine" matches fortune cookie wisdom with the refrain of "Does life seem worthwhile to you?" Over the song's driving guitar (underscored by a Billy Gould's melodic bass slap), these lyrics certainly don't lead one to feel uplifted. The answer to the question, then, is not a resounding "Yes!"
Things only get worse (thematically). While the lyrics to "Caffeine" spiral into what might be better analyzed as abuse, the title is simple enough to explain: one only needs to marry America's favorite legal drug with the overall tone of the album. From there, we roll into the first "single" of the album, "Midlife Crisis." Here, we are faced with an early 1990's portrait of masculinity-- or, at least, the portrait of the American Male that culminates with the brilliant, impotent rage of Fight Club.
"RV" is a ballad of white trash entitlement (I can't help but liken the feel of this song to Tobacco Road). "Smaller and Smaller" opens with the telling line, "Drought makes the workers dream," and descends into the slow beating down of working class life. Up from the working class, we get "Everything's Ruined," about the meteoric rise of wealth and ambition-- that bursts like the dot com boom. After that, we get "Malpractice," and "Kindergarten," "Be Aggressive" and "A Small Victory." The album climaxes (and reaches its harshest, bone-breaking melodies) with "Crack Hitler" and "Jizzlobber," two songs that explore sex, drugs, and neuroses. We are ultimately left to ponder the makings of the American psychopath. I might argue that Faith No More succeeded where Bret Easton Ellis only mocked.
And, finally, we are back where I started: "Midnight Cowboy." The theme song to a movie that effectively broke my heart and reduced me to a shambles the way Of Mice and Men did.
Huh.
Not sure I realized until this moment just how depressing this album is.
Wait a minute. No. Here again, Angel Dust is a great, dense album that handles its material effectively. Despite its downward spiral, I love this album. The dismantling of the American Dream was the furthest thing from my mind when I first unwrapped that cassette back in the summer of 1992.
What was on my mind:
This album rocks.
The Be Aggressive Controversy
I'd heard the buzz before. "Be Aggressive" was written by Roddy Bottum, Faith No More's keyboardist. Bottum is gay. The song is about oral sex. Gross!
Wikipedia, ever the fount of truth and wisdom, lists this bit of trivia: "'Be Aggressive,' written by Roddy Bottum, is about gay oral sex. Roddy later stated 'It was a pretty fun thing to write, knowing that Mike was going to have to put himself on the line and go up onstage and sing these vocals."
So yeah, this great song that aptly integrates the cheerleader refrain, "Be Aggressive! B-E Aggressive. B-E A-G-G-R-E-S-S-I-V-E! Go Fight! Win!", is about giving head.
I am prepared, however, to defend the song. By defend, I mean to breakdown that hetero (and by further extension, male homophobia) association of "gross" with "gay." Interestingly enough, this morning I read Lisa Schwarzbaum's Entertainment Weekly review of I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, where she chastises the film: For all its promotion of diversity, the film can't get passed the fact that two guys kissing is gross. And so, let's first turn away from the "oral sex" reading of the song and focus on a different interpretation.
First, we need to divorce the song from its author and its author's comments. What we are left with is a song that begins: "I started this / It's all for me / What's yours is mine and mine is mine / That's plain to see / So give it up / I've got to have / I swallow, I swallow, I swallow." Given the general theme of the album, these lyrics conjure associative images of that wonderful human trait: greed. We might also employ the context of the album title and suggest that "swallow" is a drug reference.
In the next verse (I'll leave out a line for now), we get this: "What someone else /Would leave behind… I claim is mine." If we follow the idea from the first verse (greed), then we might come to the conclusion that the "aggression" touted in the title of the song involves taking control-- of everything, good and bad. It's a stretch, but in the rise (and flood) of the "ME" generation, ownership and control are inalienable rights. I may be the king of nothing, but at least I can say I'm king.
Now, I carefully excised the line "And spit it out, let go to waste" because it's followed up with the refrain "I swallow, I swallow, I swallow," which doesn't really help my case of decontextualization. But here again, I'd argue that given the broader thematic scope of the album, we can draw conclusions about the physical act of aggression (if not the physical act of sex) in regards to economics: In the world of upward mobility, procurement of wealth through aggressive tactics is divorced of its physicality (much like I've led us down this sex-less path). The aggressive pursuit of capital is often spoken of in terms we associate with physical acts of aggression-- but only in a way that is divorced of any real, physical threat. Much like comedy is shrouded in morbid terminology ("I killed last night!"), the semantics of mergers and acquisitions is replete with violent lingo. I'd also rope in the Donald on this one. If we contrast the comedy of capitalist manners paraded in The Apprentice with the reality of corporate head-hunting, we see how Americans allow themselves to be, well, consumed (swallowed, if you will).
This thin veil, then, is lifted in "Be Aggressive."
Another direction I would take this: The dominant impression that I get from this verse is one of scrounging. I think of a penny-- fallen out of a prosperous man's pocket onto the street-- swept up by a needy soul. I think of animals fighting over table scraps. I think of the lottery. And while I’m not painting a particularly pleasant portrait of have-less Americans, I do think there's a truth to poverty that is over-looked (or consciously excised) by the well-to-do, or even the I-think-I'm-well-to-do (the middle-middle class not cognizant of how really over-extended they are). Poverty, in reality, is harsh. What we the middle-middle class throw away…
This, then, marries the "greed" of the first verse with "gluttony" in the second verse.
Where we really begin to run into trouble is the third verse. "Tall and reckless" might refer to a stereotype of the classic American male. "Ugly seed" might refer to (go ahead laugh) "ugly duckling," which can be co-opted by my earlier assessment as the "have-less." The faces we put forward in our consumer culture are not representative of our population; rather, they are the myth. A majority of the world's population, as the "media" would have it, is ugly.
From there, we go to two contrary actions: "reach down my throat" and "I've got to feed." The speaker (singer) refers to "you," so we have this idea of the "tall and reckless" individual reaching down the speaker's throat. The question that is begged here is whether the speaker is being force fed, or if something is being pulled from the speaker's throat. However, given the progression of verses, we can assume the former and toss away the latter. The use of "filthy bird" (tie this back to "ugly duckling") conjures images of a mother bird feeding her offspring.
Now, where does this leave us in our analysis? Well, I’m inclined to insinuate that what we have here, mixed in with our greed and gluttony, is something else (down boy): a parasitic relationship. I won't go into further explanation of that relationship. I'll only say that it is in keeping with the grand tradition of capital gain. Money parasites…
Anyway. I'm going to overlap here. Let's take this whole bit:
This empty pit
I've got to feed
To prove I'm fit
A healthy man I've got to be
What is the "empty pit"? What's this about proving fit? And let me write that last line again: "A healthy man I've got to be." That resonates, doesn't it? Given what I've already said about the album as a whole-- it's obsessive, neurotic attention to what it means to be an American Man. I may not have actually said that above, but when we combine the pieces (reality of American Dream, 90's self-obsession, "midlife crisis," and, finally, the connotations of "midnight cowboy") what we get is this: American masculinity is most manifest in aggressive capitalism. In order to be "a healthy man," one must "be aggressive" in his pursuit of capital. The "empty pit" must be filled in order "to prove" one is "fit." This is the extreme expression of self. This is what we've "got to be."
Greed. Gluttony. Parasitic relationships. Masculinity expressed through aggressive capitalism.
Okay, fine. But what about these lines:
Malnutrition, my submission
You're the master
And I take it on my knees
Ejaculation
Tribulation
We've gotten to the end of the song without any truly overt references to sex. I've dodged around the context and double entendre. But here we are, at the end of the song, faced with a word that-- despite its simple definition-- cannot really be divorced from its double.
However…
We have two "-tion" words here: Malnutrition and tribulation. The linking of these terms-- with the noted exclusion of ejaculation-- combined with the prostrate position reveal a potentially violent act of submission. I'm particularly cognizant of those two words (malnutrition and tribulation) because they help to divorce this "act" of its double-meaning. That is, if this is a reference to a sexual act, it isn't exactly a pleasant one. This leads me to believe that the sexual connotation is less important than the overall summation of the song's parts: We are enslaved by our economic thirsts/pursuits.
Now, here's the kicker. Say we reintroduce that sexual context. Bottum wrote the song, thought it would be funny if the heterosexual Patton had to sing about this act that is counter to his sexual preference. All of my inferences and deflections (defend) amount to what? A song that is a joke? Can we strip this song, this album of all its meaning and say, "Hey, man. Just listen to it. Stop trying to make something out of nothing"?!
Well, I can't do that. While I may have deliberately divorced a necessary context from the song, the analysis holds water. Connotations, meanings doubled, fitting melodies-- from the All-American "ra ra" of the cheerleader backing chorus to the carnival-like organ. All of this is to say that the song does have a meaning. And the ideas I've expressed are, on some level, valid.
But that's the problem: If this is, indeed, or was intended to be only, a song about oral sex, then the final evaluation of the song is not one ringing with positivity. Excuse the bluntness, but this song does not profess "Hey this is great! Let's all do it!" Instead, what it does is illustrate the submission that is necessary for the act. And it calls into question the very nature of that submission. And, furthermore, I would argue (haven't I already been arguing?!) that the metaphor is aggressively put forward to illustrate the primary conceit of capitalism: supply and demand require a certain level of submission that is, by nature, parasitic. Capitalism feeds off of our very need for it. Regardless of what that "it" is (be it oral sex or a Cadillac Escalade), we want it, have to have it, need it, and will take it in any way we can get it.
And so we're left with that. So much for defending the grossness of the song!
Quite the contrary. And maybe that's where I'll leave this installment: This song works because it marries the shocking lyrics (however you choose to interpret them) with a rollicking sing-a-long orchestration. There is no need to defend this song (as I said I would) because it doesn't need defending. It is an excellent expression of the contrariness of human nature: we desire to submit and to dominate.
By extension, the whole album works because of this duality. It is an unholy marriage of sound and concept, beauty and horror, eloquence and shit.
Prompting me to suggest: Maybe Angel Dust is the Great (Postmodern) American Novel.
Plus, it really rocks.
Works Cited
"Angel Dust (album)." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 19 Jul 2007, 10:16 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 23 Jul 2007 <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Angel_Dust_%28album%29&oldid=145640767>.
Reed, Mark. "Faith No More: Angel Dust." Drowned In Sound. <http://www.drownedinsound.com/articles/4632>.
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