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everything's ruined

everything's ruined

This has also been posted at blogcritics, a site you should all be reading religiously.

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trib·ute
n.
A gift, payment, declaration, or other acknowledgment of gratitude, respect, or admiration.

It would stand to reason then that a tribute album would be one where bands would show their respect and admiration for the band they are paying tribute to.

Someone forgot to tell that to the 30 bands that got together for the double cd set, Faith No More: Tribute of the Year.

Most of the bands on this cd are obscure metal/punk/undefinable genre groups that will most likely never be heard from again. A few, like Bile and Hate Dept., have had minimal success in the metal field. None of them should have ever attempted to recreate the sounds of the greatest band ever. No, I am not biased at all.

There should also be some kind of ground rules to follow when making a tribute album. Like, don't have three different bands cover the same song. Voudoo, Victims in Ecstacy and Germ Theory all render "Stripsearch" into something undistinguishable from the original tune.

Bile, best known as the aging head bangers who had a minor metal hit with "In League," cover "Midlife Crisis," one of FNM's best songs. In Bile's hands, the tune becomes something that sounds Orgy channeling Angus Young.

Imbue inteprets the angry, bitter "Gentle Art of Making Enemies" as gothic depression. SMP plays "Another Body Murdered," which FNM did with Boo-Ya Tribe for the Judgment Night soundtrack, like a kid who just got a Casio keyboard for Christmas.

Germ Theory covers my favorite FNM song, "A Small Victory" (from which my own website's name comes). They try to pull off a Mr. Bungle experimental noise turn on it, but it just comes out like Danny Elfman tunes played backwards.

This album will go down as a travesty for Faith No More fans. There was rumored to be another FNM tribute album in the works featuring Papa Roach and P.O.D. and I can only hope that it never comes to fruition. I can only take so much of this dreg disguised as adulation.

Comments

Ug! As a FNM fan myself, I'm cringing at the thought of absolutly good songs being hacked at by those with the sick idea that it's a "tribute". Particularly theirs. Please tell me they left RV alone. Please? How about Be Agressive?

Be Aggressive was covered by the Sump Pumps. Thankfully, they left RV alone.

If you want to torture yourself, you can listen to samples here

Just reading this puts me in physical pain -- I can't imagine actually listening to it now!

That sucks. FNM is one of the bands that should just be left alone.

On the other hand, here is a good tribute.

GASP!!!!! I am shocked and apalled!

since no one seems to care anyway i will put my 2 cents in. we are devout FNM fans. we DID see this as a "tribute" to one of the greatest bands ever. period. if we didn't, our bass player wouldn't have spent days disecting billy gould's tremendous bass line. i wouldn't have spent hours with an ebow trying to even come close to reproducing the guitar sounds in the sweeping melodic solo. it would have be a lot easier to sample lines or hell just make new ones, but we didn't. we felt we needed to do it as much justice as we could.

it appears, that to all of you...we(voodou) failed. but are you really suprised that no-one could duplicate FNM greatness, let alone out do them on their own material. that is simply impossible. and before anyone begins to point fingers and criticize, it is a lot easier to "pay ommage" by leaving post on a message board saying, "FNM rocks"(...takes what 5 minutes?) than to spend hours & hours listening, learning, figuring and disecting one song to ensure we included every possible subtlety FNM had to offer.

you want to know a real definition of tribute? how about a month of you life dedicated to ONE faith no more song. the owner of this site knows this...how many days/weeks/months do you think he spent on this site? so all you other "fans" should think about the true meaning of a "tribute". besides what have you done? left a post...?(hardcore!!!)

as for the duplications of songs...yea that sucks. they asked us what we wanted to do and we picked "stripsearch". we had no idea that there would be 2 other versions, (at least we got the words right...we should get credit for that) and being a huge fan, i too was bothered by certain versions of songs. but there are a few that i like and think were done well. hate dept's "edge of the world" was really good. it's perhaps the best vocals on the entire tribute. he obviously listened to the original repeatedly, thus, time consuming and worthy of a listen.

it is however, obvious, that many bands apparently only listened to FNM only once and that was to figure out some words. because of that, i will not say "hey give it a chance...blah,blah,blah" it is what it is. good, bad or ugly.

there will never be a band as great as FNM. we at least tried and for that i am proud.