When Faith No More's fifth album, King For A Day, Fool For A Lifetime, was first released exactly 30 years ago, it was met with disappointment by many of the band's fans. In 1995, after releasing the masterpiece "Angel Dust," the Californian band released a schizophrenic and bizarre album that requires a lot of time and spirit to work its magic on the listener. So, once you get over the initial shock, you can give in and fall in love with it.
Some of us may have the wrong impression of Faith No More. The impression that the band itself never tried to stop or refute it. The impression that they are a rock band. Some claim that their presence and the persona they present harms the legacy of rock. But are they a rock band at all?
It's hard, and perhaps not worth defining. On this album, at least, FNM were a pop band, a big band, bossa nova players, a funk marching band, and on and on and on. And yes, in their traditional moments, they also sounded like an excellent, tight rock-metal band. By the time the album 'King For A Day...' arrived, Faith No More were confident enough to be none of these genres and all of them at the same time.
Individual songs from it, as well as from the band's rich discography in general, will not tell the story. To understand Faith No More, you have to listen to everything. Billy Gold, the band's bassist, once said: "I think Faith No More was never just the singles that got the most exposure. They were our public face, the albums were our private shame."
Indeed, what you can hear on King For A Day is Faith No More's rich and diverse aesthetic. Of self-challenge and shamelessness. It is a brave, unusual and contradictory album that ultimately led the band that created it to a double victory. First, because Faith No More managed to anticipate the expectations of their already daring audience with its sounds, and secondly because they also managed to conquer it. On the three-decade anniversary of its release, Ofri Makov dedicated Special 88 to it.
