Title: The Gentle Art of Making Enemies
Artist: Faith No More
Year: 1995
Album: King For a Day, Fool For a Lifetime
Warning: This song has some bad words in it. You've been warned.
I really couldn't say goodbye to 1995 without sharing something from my favorite album of the year, Faith No More's King For a Day, Fool For a Lifetime. Prior to recoding this record, Faith No More fired their original guitarist and replaced him with Mr. Bungle's Trey Spruance. Spruance's creative approach to harmony is a perfect fit for Mike Patton's schizophrenic vocal style and the results are pretty stellar. I was tempted to feature the very accessible funk-pop track "Evidence," but to be honest, I love this album for its very heavy and very sinister rockers.
"The Gentle Art of Making Enemies" has a chord progression and riffs that emphasize the semi-tone (1/2-step) and the tri-tone to achieve this dark quality. After the introduction, Patton sings over a bass line that slithers around F# (F#-------F---F#-G-F#------etc.). The section that follows (featuring the FNM fan-favorite line "Happy Birthday...Fucker") features a riff that also emphasizes the semi-tone (E-F-F#-A-F#-F-E), while the "chorus" gets its punch from descending whole steps (B-A-G) and the tri-tone (E-Bb). Of course, Patton is brilliant throughout, his vocal track more a theatrical presentation than a song. In the final moments, he grabs hold of the line "I never felt this much alive" and shakes it until its neck is broken. I'm jealous every time.
See you tomorrow in 2005.
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