The Real Thing

Utterly in a genre and class of its own. I think it probably sounded a bit over the top and unfocused when it came out, and certainly didn’t fit and ‘norms’ of the end of peak hair rock. But given its influence over many future bands and genres, the older it gets, the way they uniquely drew together rock, funk and rap just sounds all the more inspiring. No-one can and will sound like Paton, and he makes the difference in the varied and powerful delivery of some epic choruses. In conclusion, this is as they say, epic.

One Epic song a great album does not necessarily make

Faith No More have always been hard to pin down: metal meets jazz, rap, and a medley of smaller influences. That could be brilliant - and it is - in its better moments. And so “The Real Thing” hovers almost constantly on the border between genius and madness. It’s a beautiful album, but it lacks the consistency needed to be truly top-tier.

I remember when Epic came out. I thought wow these guys can be really cool. Not so.

Sounds like an anime opening. Not for a particularly good anime. But like, he has that vocal quality.

I feel neutral-positive on this but wouldn't reach for it in my day-to-day.

Really disliked this one. The vocals are so annoying and off-putting. The instrumentation is not interesting. And don’t even get me started on the “rapping.” This album was a slog to get through.

kind of reminds me of that one song from "teen witch"

I’ve been aware of this album for well over thirty years, yet somehow, until today, I’d never actually listened to it from beginning to end. I was familiar with the two relatively big singles from The Real Thing, but I’d never really ventured any further into Faith No More’s catalog. My relationship with the band had largely been one of passing acknowledgment, recognizing their cult following and appreciating them as what I considered an underrated metal band that never quite received the recognition they deserved. Yes, I realize I just mansplained the meaning of underrated. Let’s move on, shall we? I was immediately invigorated by the energy this album puts out, while simultaneously kicking myself for waiting more than 35 years to finally give it a proper listen. This thing is absolutely incredible. I’ll be revisiting it again very soon, and I fully intend to spend the coming days exploring more of what Faith No More has to offer. Sometimes an album lives up to its reputation, and sometimes it makes you wonder what the hell took you so long to listen to it. The Real Thing managed to do both. Absolute banger!

Ahh... the old days of just wearing down your cassettes until you had to buy another to replace it. This album was in that cassette rotation for me and is just as enjoyable now as it was then. This showcases the wide swath of genres that Faith No More incorporates into their sound. It really keeps you on your toes as they move back and forth from heavy guitars to jazzy instrumental motifs, to a well done Black Sabbath cover. I can't recommend this album enough.

Nunca tinha escutado essa banda, escutei pela primeira vez o melhor álbum deles e não gostei. Vocal terrível. O instrumental é bom, lembra um thrash metal meio “grungeado”, mas o vocal é terrível.

Some great songs here. I was only familiar with Epic going in. good stuff.

First song is a tune. That’s about it.

Really good and fun rock album.

Good album. Wasn't a fan of 'Surprise! You're Dead!' but other than that it was a solid album. Enjoyed The 'War Pigs' cover too

Great album.

Starts out as a decent album, then raises its game in the last half. 4 stars or B+.

This is Faith No More's (FNM) first album with Mike Patton. I'm not totally new to FNM, I've listened to Angel Dust but I forgot a bit how it sounded, other than I remember it being like orchestral-sounding metal. This kind of reminds a bit of what they would do a bit of on Angel Dust. The first half seemed like it had all of the single-ready songs on it, especially that glam metal-esque song of "From Out of Nowhere." The second half is really funky, probably what I imagine Primus sounds like to a person (such as myself) who doesn't listen to them. I found Mike Patton's to be sometimes bordering on power metal levels of belting, which definitely challenged me a little bit, but his vocals were definitely overall superb. The guitar playing is also phenomenal. I didn't realise I liked this one so much, I must give this one and Angel a needed re-listen. Highlight Song/s: "From Out of Nowhere", "Epic", "Falling to Pieces" and "Woodpecker From Mars"

Not my thing, but not absolutely bad..

Vahva kakkonen, mut ei kuiten ihan täysillä lähteny.

Ei ollut mitään muistikuvaa miltä Faith No More kuulostaa, mutta sehän olikin sangen eeppistä 😏 Tiukkaa settiä ja makeet saundit! Vähän ehkä hetkittäin kärsi siitä että Epic niin iso ja tunnistettava että joissain biiseissä saman tyyppiset elementit saa odottamaan saman toisintoa, mitä ei sit ikinä ihan tullu (Tietenkään! Ja hyvä niin, mut vähän jäi silti välistä semmonen odottava fiilis).

Mietin, et annanko kolmosen vai nelosen. Meni jalan alle, mutta laulajan soundi aika-ajoin tökki. Toisaalta nautin tästä varmaan enemmän, kuin monesta levystä, minkä oon reitannut kolmoseksi, ehkä tää on siis 3,5 ja pyöristyy neloseksi. Vaatii lisäkuuntelua, että osaisin sanoa tästä mitään muuta sen enempää kuin että "hyvvää".

Отличный альбом. Очень понравился голос вокалиста. Музыка разнообразная и качественная. обязательно буду переслушивать

There's some great songs on here, but I feel Patton was still finding his sound. Angel Dust would at least be a 4, if not 5 however (don't know if it's on the list).

#139 - Faith No More - The Real Thing ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This album was released in 1989 and came to prominence while I was a freshman in high school. My friend Joe and I went to a weeknight concert where FNM opened for Robert Plant. They were loud and wild. At the time, there wasn’t very much music that was similar to this that was easily accessible. And this album was a HUGE hit. The Real Thing is, indeed, the real thing. It’s a hard rocker that is very unique. Mike Patton is a very creative lead vocalist and lyricist. The music hits hard, the songs are catchy and meaningful, there’s an amazing instrumental and a stellar Black Sabbath cover. Add to that a few big radio anthems, an epic piano solo and an animal cruelty controversy and you have the makings of a truly legendary album. I love it!

They don’t make em like this anymore.

Beige metal. A rather bland offering

You are an angel heading for the land of sunshine, and fortune is smiling upon you

A fantastic album that beautifully fuses different styles of music. It roars into life with the opening two tracks, the second of which is well, Epic! A bit varied in the middle and then the sublime War Pigs cover, too stuff.

3.5

Mostly fine, some not so good.

Ne mogu da vjerujem da je ovo jedini Faith No More na listi!!! Imaju minimalno dva albuma koja to više zaslužuju a realno su sva tri trebala biti tu. Jedan od najboljih bendova na svijetu, meni najdraža muzička uspomena iz djetinjstva, ali Mike Patton je meni apsolutno najutjecajniji i najznačajniji muzičar u historiji muzike i mislim da je još nekih drugih genijalnih stvari trebalo biti na ovoj listi. Nisam ljubitelj nazalizacije s ovog i prvog Mr. Bungle albuma ali čak se i dobro uklapa u sve ostalo i ne smeta ni blizu koliko ima smisla. Meni Epic nije ni blizu top 20 njihovih najboljih pjesama ali kakav glavni hit! I svaki singl je vrhunski. Onda imamo najbolju verziju War Pigs, još par epskih pjesama, nekoliko promjena u dinamici koje su majstorski odrađene, Gouldyev genijalni bas, riffove koji mnogima nedostaju na albumima poslije Angel Dusta ali meni su se snašli i bez toga. Peppersi nikad ne bi mogli. Morala sam i njih uvrijediti usput. Edit: ostavljam link za najjači video ikada https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDgPeUCF0sc

This came From Out of Nowhere.

JL : 3, Woodpecker From Mars

Maybe I'm too critical, but another one that I can pass on.

Un peut mid mais apparament c’est les pionnier du nu métal

Some good tunes but I struggle to listen to more than a couple in a row

Enjoyed the big hitters, good cover of War Pigs

Some great stuff, some alright. A 3.5

The audacity to be this piss-poor of a band and close your album with a 6 minute instrumental followed by a thoughtless cover of War Pigs.

Bloody hell

Power chords, excellent drums. Underdog energy. Favorite track - From Out of Nowhere

Middling. It all sounds the same ish

I’ve always found the last couple of minutes of “Epic” to be so completely mesmerising – redolent of a specific, fictional rain-beaten city street in a liminal midnight, ghostly fluorescent lights captured in puddles that look like portals into a cyberpunk nether world – that the effect has wiped my memory completely clean of the rap verses. Maybe if Mike Patton had been in the band for more than a couple of weeks before they headed in to record The Real Thing he might have made other, less fashionable at the time, choices; maybe even invited a rethink of the solo funky bass choice all together. Probably not, though – the whole record is Mike Patton versus whatever the band throws at him, and he seems to relish the challenge. As with “Epic”, the whole eclectic piece: half inspired, half insipid. For every “Surprise! You’re Dead!” – proto-metalcore that anticipates any number of naughties groups, from Slipknot to deathcore (All Shall Perish even did a cover) – there’s a “Falling to Pieces”, which sounds like Living Colour jamming out the most milquetoast RHCP riffs. That said, I can’t help but love Mike Patton’s lurching from sincere croon to cartoonish warble – and it feels like what it did for vocals in metal is nothing short of revolutionary. There’s vulnerability there, if not always in the delivery itself (though “Zombie Eaters” features some wonderfully gentle delivery, in spite of the oddball, gross out lyrics) then in the actual trying out of some new things. I can draw a short, straight line from FNM to Deftones to Glassjaw, Funeral for a Friend and maybe a hundred other bands I worshipped at high school. My gratitude is sincere. Ironically, given his fidgety skittishness, the quality of Patton’s contribution is about the most consistent thing on The Real Thing. On the title track, we find perhaps the best example of his gift for elevating a song through multiple coexisting vocal personalities. It’s a wonderfully atmospheric, dusky thrash metal track that builds and builds; a marriage in sound that’s utterly remarkable when you consider how little time its component parts had to gel. And so to the question I’ve been asking myself for around 23 years now (the first time I saw the video for “Epic” on Kerang!): do I like Faith No More or just really, really respond to Mike Patton’s idiosyncratic stylings? (What is it?!) Well, it depends on the song. On the balance of it, though, I’d have to say both.

Ah man, Faith No More have produced some amazing music over the years, and this is certainly one of those watershed moment inclusions... as much as I enjoy a lot of the content here, it's still very much a band finding its feet and style in my opinion. I very much prefer Mike's "grown up" voice too and as opposed to the nasal, whiney stuff. Nonetheless, this has it's place for sure.

Wow this is really not for me, I guess fans of Megadeth and System of a Down might like it. I was absolutely begging for it to end for about 45 minutes. It was insane how much he sounded like Anthony Kiedis at some points. One standout line was “Hug me, kiss me, then wipe my butt and piss me”

💧🔥🌋

This one was awesome, I'd never really heard much of Faith No More outside of what would play on the radio, but this was great! I really liked Surprise! You're Dead, and Woodpecker From Mars. 5 stars.

Loved this album from its release. Although I think Angel Dust is better.

3/5 A bit all over the place, but when it does something good, it's good.

An all-time favorite from my teens.

Pretty rockin' stuff. Epic is exactly as the title insinuates. The rest was decent.

That voice…

It’s everything I stand against in this world.

A very good album.

Really not my style of "loud" rock.

Cool funky and creative. The bass play shines through and also the vocals. Favourites: Epic, Falling To Pieces, The Real Thing, War Pigs and From Out of Nowhere.

Teenage me watching surf vids, yes. Middle-aged me walking the dog, no.

It’s, uh, interesting. It had cool stuff I liked maybe 20% of the time, the rest of it was weird

i didn’t hate it as much as i thought i would but he has the most annoying voice

Among its "Funk Metal" peers, it's passable. Among all available music, it's a pass.

This really felt like they took a bunch of music genres I don’t really lean into and blended them. Potentially to compliment each other, potentially to mute their more extreme sounds. I don’t really know. It just seemed like it didn’t know what it wanted to. The end product came out feeling less innovative and more amateur.

Mike Patton is cool.

90s nostalgia for sure, but it pretty much holds up 30 years later.

1989 so it's definitely a precursor to nu metal. Not for me. 2/5.

Better than Red Hot Chili Peppers but a bit too polished for me.

Boring

This takes me back. Epic was my favorite song when I was like five.

Pretty rad.

First Listen Favorites: Woodpecker From Mars Epic Edge of the World Honorable Mentions: Zombie Eaters Underwater Love Falling to Pieces

Pretty pretty pretty sick

boy did this not age well. Even the one actual hit sounds old and tired. This is a completely insignificant album that only exists as a warning to others. Okay it wasnt that bad, but it shows why that attempt at a new genre failed

Ah man, Faith No More have produced some amazing music over the years, and this is certainly one of those watershed moment inclusions... as much as I enjoy a lot of the content here, it's still very much a band finding its feet and style in my opinion. I very much prefer Mike's "grown up" voice too and as opposed to the nasal, whiney stuff. Nonetheless, this has it's place for sure.

Falling To Pieces

Didn’t like this at all bar the war pigs cover

A classic of the genre. I never really listened to this much before, preferring the later Angel Dust. However this has some epic compositions on it. The keyboard is perfectly placed to give that sense of operatic drama that FNM are known for

These guys have always intrigued me ever since I heard "Epic" as a kid. I'm not sure if they were necessarily the first group to experiment with funk/alternative metal, but they were undeniably influential in some regard at least. They just have a signature sound that sort of bleeds throughout their other works. Samey at some points, but works for the rest. Get past Mike Patton's cartoonish vocals, and you've got a bit of a gem here.

in some ways mike patton crawled so fred durst could run, but despite that this is still a damn good album. 4/5.

It’s good, I’ve heard some call this the better versions of RHCP, I disagree. But it’s overall enjoyable.

Good album, some real bangers on it. Vocals are annoying, overall sound is class though.

meh

This seems pretty revolutionary for 1989, but I don't think it aged too well.

Epic alone makes it a great album, but it was a fun listen nontheless!

Best Track - "Epic"

Otra banda clásica y única, con este tocaron el cielo mezclando estilos (metal, funk, lo que sea ) basados en la imponente voz y carisma de Mike Patton. Esto en el 89 era una gozada. Aquí destacan Epic y sobe todo The Real Thing. Con un sonido algo similar a Livin Colour pero con más calidad compositiva, a un nivel superior entonces al de los Red Hot Chili Peppers. Edge of the World es un cruce con música Soul, Falling to Pieces es la mejor del disco. También incluye War Pigs de Black Sabbath NO incluye una versión fabulosa de Easy, de los Commodores que fue inlcuida en si siguiente y excelente disco (Angel Dust)

This is a band I've heard of before, but their albums have kinda been sitting in my library waiting to be played. All this to say, I'm very fond and forgiving of alt and nu metal (despite how try-hard and reiterative these genres can be), and this record is no exception. A pure shot of metal fusion that's packed with heavy hitters! It surprised me just how much I enjoyed this so-called funk metal, so much so that the 5 stars really crept up on me.

Standouts: Epic, Falling to Pieces, Zombie Eaters, War Pigs, and Edge of the World Good when it came out and still worth a listen. 4/5

Whenever I've tried this album in the past, two issues have always been at the forefront of my experience. The first is Mike Patton's vocal style, which markedly changed for the better on later Faith No More albums and in his numerous side projects, but on The Real Thing it frequently occupies that high, nasally register which becomes cumbersome and irritating very quickly for me. The second is the overwhelming length and pacing of the album – by the end of it, I feel like I've had more than enough in my ears despite the constant barrage of cool riffage and generally unhinged nature to the songwriting. Are both of those issues still present for me after this listen? Yes, but I think I might have had a eureka moment where I don't mind it anywhere near as much as I used to, even if it still isn't a favourite of mine. I can appreciate it now for how it blurred the lines between stylings and did things which few, if any bands at the time were doing. Sabbath-esque riffs and rubbery basslines colliding with cinematic synthesisers, plus occasional hints of reggae influences makes for an interesting backdrop for Patton to do his thing.

THE GREATEST.

uglavnom krindž sranje, zadnja pjesma je dosta dobra i pokazuje koliko je album u stvari mogao biti dobar, što u biti uništava čitav dojam jer album nije dobar

I have no complaints. I feel like this is the band red hot chili peppers in the 80s wish they sounded like.

3.5/5

There was plenty to like here - the thrash elements mixed well with a variety of other influences, a fantastic bass sound, and some really enjoyable melodic motifs. While the vocals didn’t do much for me, I can definitely see this growing on me with another listen, going from a tentative 4 to a solid 4.

Not my vibe. Nice voice though

It’s like if the beastie boys and Bon Jovi had a baby, but the child was adopted by 90s era King Crimson

I had heard a cover of epic by Brass Against a while ago and thought it was great and that I must look up the original. I never did that, so I was pleasantly surprised when it came on. I really enjoyed listening to this album, it felt like a combination of some different sounds that were emerging at the time.

Insufferable whiney and nasally vocals, that's a no from me dog. Epic is the only entertaining song to me, and that's because I like to make fun of how ridiculous the vocals are.

It was alright, I've heard a couple of the hits off this one before. Kinda 80s rock/grunge style, it's acceptable but nothing worth revisiting IMO.

An interesting blend of rock with various musical stylings, like metal, funk, and hip-hop. I found the vocals to be grating at times in their pitch, but overall matched the demands of the styles featured by each song. Unfortunately, none of the music appealed to me until the instrumental track Woodpecker From Mars, which exemplified the talent of the musicians in the band and their ability to shine on each of their respective instruments. The War Pigs cover carried this show of talent further as each player was able to add unique flourishes to each of their parts, making this track more enjoyable than most covers. Overall, I feel that Faith No More is generally a band whose musical quality is less than the sum talent of each individual member, and this album is no exception.

War beim Hören lange für mich auf einem Level mit "Angel Dust". Hier steckt schon wahnsinnig viel drin, was man auf späteren Nu Metal-Platten wiederfindet, geht aber stilistisch mit den Funk-Einflüssen sowie den Keyboard-Einsätzen noch so viel weiter. Die großen Hits ballern weiterhin alles weg. Nur gegen Ende verliert die Platte für mich leider mit "The Morning After" und diesem komischen Instrumental ihr Mojo (auf "Angel Dust" gab's zwar auch ein Instrumental, aber das ging nicht so fürchterlich lang). Meine Hoffnung, dass die Platte danach wieder Fahrt aufnimmt, wurden leider durch die Info zerstört, dass das Album danach eigentlich schon vorbei ist. Nach dem uninspirierten "War Pigs"-Cover (weit entfernt von den Qualitäten von "Easy") kann mich immerhin der zweite Bonus-Track noch überzeugen. Aber insgesamt müsste die Platte einfach etwas länger sein, um solche kleinen Ausfälle zu kaschieren. Sie müsste einfach noch mehr wie "Angel Dust" sein.