LogFAQs > #966542232

"A beautiful name for a really hideous drug."

Angel Dust is my favorite band's best album, and it's also influential and successful. The band has described it as five musicians pulling in separate directions and the result is sort of a spiderweb forming. I got this album on release day and played the living crap out of it - of all the albums that came out that year, this ended up sticking out the most for me.

At times, it's not easy to get into. There are a couple of singles, and a couple of album cuts that are easy to listen to, but other songs feel more experimental and schizophrenic. The album can be subversive. Patton's vocal talents are on display but I think almost every other FNM shows off his skills better, but by far his role as a bandmember is done best on this album. There's a give-and-take that was untenable for the band.

I guess for me, when I can sit around and think my thoughts, the vibe is very much the vibe of this album.
Everything's Ruined
At times, I've thought of this as my favorite song. We start off with a bit of trepidation in the keyboard, and then the bass kicks in the rest of the song, a cascade of sound, the song is soaring for a bit. And then we get to the vocals "We were so happy". I think everyone in the band shines. To me, it's a bit about being treated like an asset, about greed, about leverage.

j***lobber
Guilt and fear... a song about being afraid of going to jail. There's also a heavy undertone of sexual frustration. I guess this has always felt like feeling guilty about self-pleasure. The way the song builds to the "I hide the dirty minutes under my dirty mattress..." part has always been awesome for me.

Midlife Crisis - The best thing about this song is how they play it live - at the end of the bridge, when the song builds up to the final choruses, the band will stop. The crowd will sing the chorus. The band will then break into a different song, usually a cover song. Like Pokerface, or some motown hits, whatever. As that song ends they whip right back into the end of Midlife Crisis.

Caffeine
Land of Sunshine - The album opens up with two songs that aren't really based on specific concepts. Just Patton people watching and coming up with some lyrics.

Kindergarten - Man this song had a bit of nostalgia for the time. And now it's crazy - "film is flapping on the side of the projector" when is the last time they did that?

Crack Hitler - Action adventure song

A Small Victory - A soothing catchy single for the most part, but certain ends in a bit of a different fashion. It's like the band had an easy little single that wouldn't get much play and decided to almost sabotage it, which to me makes it better, but, yeah.

Malpractice
RV
Smaller and Smaller - I like the song but I think maybe with Caffeine and Malpractice on the album, it doesn't stand out.
Be Aggressive - The keyboardist (Roddy Bottum) is gay and wrote this song so Patton would have to sing about giving blow jobs. So of course they played this live all the time in front of hostile early 90s metal crowds.

Midnight Cowboy
Such a swaying, melancholy cover to close out the album. I listened to this album so much as a teenager that I often felt if I could pick one song to listen to when I die, it would be this one, because it would really just signify the end of something good.

Easy
A great cover of a great song.