31 DAYS OF FAITH NO MORE: “EVERYTHING’S RUINED”
Spurred by a lazy crossword clue in The Onion (36 down, four letters: “Faith No More’s only hit”), MetalSucks contributor Anso DF dedicates every single day in August to celebration and exploration of the San Francisco alt-metal greats. Here we prove that history’s greatest band landed more than one commercial hit (crossword answer: “Epic” natch), we revel in FNM’s embarrassing wealth of winning album tracks (themselves often fit for chart topping), and we dip into the staggering best of the b-sides (ditto). Along the way, we survey the context of FNM’s big break (amid similarly seminal acts Jane’s Addiction, Nine Inch Nails, and Ween) to the post-Nevermind, panic-based music commerce in which the brilliantly versatile, fearless powerhouse band operated until their 1998 demise. It’s a dirty job, but someone’s gotta do it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1JNS3x24kU
Song “Everything’s Ruined”
Written by Patton, Gould (L); Gould, Bottum, Patton (M).
Released 1992
Appears on Angel Dust album
Produced by Matt Wallace
Guitars by Jim Martin
Key lyric “And he made us proud/He made us rich/And how were we to know/He’s counterfeit.”
Single? Yes. Swish!!
The climate “Everything’s Ruined” is one of the awesomest among awesome FNM performances (Puffy’s verse part with the stick noise or rim shots or whatever FTW) but that stuff might not register to the listener cuz the jam’s composition is so diabolically rad. The structure of “Ruined” is like a sundial or an umbrella — familiar and deceptively complex, its utility of itself and of its shadow. Like “Underwater Love,” it sprouts like a sunflower in cement right amid a stretch of hair-raising FNM terror; like Whitesnake’s “In The Still Of The Night” and “Monkey Business” by Skid Row, it features that careworn and lovable F# blues lick; like popular music’s greatest songs, it hose-blasts your face with big dynamics, from that monster opening G-A set, to the lower, worrisome F#m verses/pre-chorus, to the band’s pause so Patton can wind-up for the first stadium-sized chorus, to the chest-swelling, arms-outstretching, super-enstoning* chorus itself. I worship!
Awesome song elevated to supra-awesomeness by its sweet, buttery, politely brief guitar solo (at 3:32). This mini-sequence sonically represents the moment when you’re hanging out with two hot chicks but one slips away to use the bathroom; her friend, who seemed less hot and less chatty, steps up with a clutch piece of laughy conversation and an arm squeeze or pec pat. A second later, the bathroom girl returns and you’re back to full strength. Roddy Bottum’s ace act III piano (at 3:53) is like when their gay pal breezes by with a compliment about your bod and a doob to share. That shit feels great!
Didja know? Via its themes of self-gratifying investment and self-glorifying ownership, “Ruined” could lead the symbolic soundtrack to this current period in American social history. It’s a dead-nuts bullseye sent from 1992.
–ADF
*Enstone: (v: en’stōn) To create the effect of being super stoned; to simulate the effects of weed
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METALSUCKS’ 31 DAYS OF FAITH NO MORE
26 “Everything’s Ruined”
25 “Underwater Love” (read)
24 “Crack Hitler” (read)
23 “Home Sick Home” (read)
22 “The Perfect Crime”!!!! (read)
21 “A Small Victory” (read)
20 “King For A Day” (read)
19 “The World Is Yours” (read)
18 “Absolute Zero” (read)
17 “Collision” (read)
Intermission “Das Schutzenfest” (read)
16 “The Last To Know” (read)
15 “The Real Thing” (read)
14 “Malpractice” (read)
13 ”Ugly In The Morning” (read)
12 “The Cowboy Song” (read)
11 “Helpless” (read)
10 “Smaller And Smaller” (read)
9 “Digging The Grave” (read)
8 “From Out Of Nowhere” (read)
7 “Last Cup Of Sorrow” (read)
6 “The Gentle Art Of Making Enemies” (read)
5 “Caffeine” (read)
4 “Falling To Pieces” (read)
3 “Stripsearch” (read)
2 ”Ricochet” (read)
1 ”Land Of Sunshine” (read)
