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Fantomas in General
by failme
Fantomas is a "supergroup" (heck, it beats Audioslave or Velvet Revolver, to pieces) made up of endlessly talented singer Mike Patton (Faith No More, Mr. Bungle, etc. etc.), sludgy guitarist Buzz Osbourne (Melvins), possibly the finest drummer in the world Dave Lombardo (Slayer, Grip Inc., Testament, Apocalyptica) and little ... gurning baby Trevor Dunn (Mr. Bungle, solo stuff) on bass.
Fantomas was formed when Mike Patton took it upon himself to create an antithesis of all the feeble "nu metal" that was around at the time - well, that's my interpretation of it anyway. A lot of Fantomas sounds like it's taking the piss out of metal. He created a demo (playing all the instruments himself) of the songs that appeared on the first self-titled album and distributed them amongst his musician friends and created a whole new record label (www.ipecac.com) to release their first album.
I first found this band through hearing some Melvins, and getting into Mike Patton's work through them. In fact I bought their second album "Director's Cut" on a whim without ever hearing Fantomas before. I'm ever so glad I did...
"Director's Cut" is their most conventional (okay, relative to their other works; it's hardly Nickelback) album to date, an album of distorted covers of film scores such as "The Omen" and "Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer". It's like a heavy metal opera, and, as with all Fantomas, will probably alienate anyone you happen to play it to.
The self-titled first album ("Fantomas") is utterly bizarre, probably some attempt by Mike Patton to alienate the huge audiences he gathered as frontman of his previous band Faith No More. But saying that it really is a piece of work. The "songs" sound like they should be No.1 hits, at least in an alternate universe. Some say it sounds like the band Naked City, but Naked City could never play this well and could never write like this. In my opinion it's very different to Naked City, and unlike anything I've ever heard.
The third studio album "Delirium Cordia" is another heavy metal (there really isn't that much metal in this one) opera (of sorts), with one track but a bundle of differing segments. It takes some of the more ambient aspects of "Director's Cut", and bundles it with Mr. Bungle's "The Bends", some Hawaiian music, samples, chanting, and Lombardo tipping his drumkit over. I had it playing on a long, lonely, dark, wet and cold car journey late at night and it seemed perfect for that. Utterly creepy and captivating background music.
Also Fantomas has released a live album with the Melvins called "Millenium Monsterwork 2000", which isn't their best (due to bad sound quality) but it's fun to hear Patton destroying Melvins songs...
Their fourth studio album, "Suspended Animation" (apparently an album of cartoon songs, should be fun...) is scheduled to be released in March 2005, but judging by the debacle with the release date of "Delirium Cordia" it could come out when Nelson finds his lost eye for all I really know.
Fantomas is a fantastic band; innovative, talented, and best of all, it scares all your neighbours and friends. What more could you ask for?
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Gary Numan in General
by mo79
Yes. Gary Numan is eclectic to a certain extent. The poor man's David Bowie fused glamorous art with sci-fi leanings and brought us the supermarket Kraftwerk at the rollover of post-punk, flattening down the ground for the nouveau romantics, with this probable one-finger keyboard stylee. But, the born Gary Webb isn't ... such a stormtrooper in drag after all. He's no one hit wonder, but bar his early (not ultra early) works, there's not too much to salivate over. Unless you perhaps count the recent (yes, he's still alive - numan.co.uk) output, part-inspired by artists whom he helped to inspire. But I've not heard those.
If this aged compilation (I believe there's a more concise new one out, or soon) is definitive, it proves why the average Numan knowee doesn't know much more than the classic singles - that there isn't much else that is that's worth knowing. Yes, 'Cars' is still very lovely, 'Are 'Friends' Electric' is brilliant, as is the lesser 'Down In The Park'; but everything else is quite good or laughable in retrospect. Remember, Gary was part of what was both good and bad of the Thatcher decade.
There are early punk songs collected here, which have about as much bite as a toothless dog. The fact that Gary's brittle and monotone, sometimes inaudible drone is anodyne is only in reverential place when placed amidst dry and jarring synthesizers. So, skip past the likes of songs like 'Bomber' then.
More noteworthy selections include the grand-pop of 'I Die: You Die', 'We Are Glass', to some extent 'She's Got Claws', and another less-publicised brilliant one 'Complex'. Also the co-written 'Love Needs No Disguise' is another gem.
Around these are dottings of crapified funk pop, which should be best left to artists like Prince who carried that off more excitingly in the latter half of the decade. It's
satisfying then that it ends with 'Cars' again, albeit a remix from 1987 which seems more appealing in parts to the then-American pop market. The inlay book features photos and a bio.
So, Mr Numan's career is patchy. But without him, who would've goaded Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor (the near enough household name in Industrial music) to buy his first keyboard? Who would've opened the flood gates for other British electro-pop acts in America? Who's patchy presence would actually matter to artists for a couple of generations to come, and to a fan who would marry him?...You get the gist.
But the thing is, you want to hear good music don't you? Well, if you can find the singles that's the best option. Or like me, if you can, fish this 18 tracker out of a bargain bin; now that's worth it! I don't know what Mr Numan's doing right now but enough people care enough for him to continue. I'm probably not one of them.
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Peter Gabriel in general
by cccclark
Have you ever noticed how all of the really good soundtracks almost always have something to do with Peter Gabriel? There's something surreal about the way he writes. There can be a song you hear a couple of chords to, and it'll stick with you for days on end and you don't know what it is, who it's by or where ... it's from. And then somehow, you'll find out it was Peter Gabriel's song from that film 'Blaaahh'.
'Magnolia', 'Vanilla Sky' and 'Say Anything', to name just a few. Oh, and 'City of Angels'. And we all know the Genesis songs, although that's beside my soundtrack point.
Gabriel has influenced SO many bands and artists who are around today, happily stamping their mark on the music industry; VAST, Goo Goo Dolls - pretty much anyone you care to mention, really. On first hearing, if you know who he is, you'll go, 'oh, that guy from Genesis', and then write him off automatically. However, if you DON'T know who wrote that song, you'll want to know and you'll go to the ends of the earth to find out (well, I went on-line a couple of times, and then straight into HMV to buy the most expensive import in the world...EVER)(will I get in trouble for copyrite issues? Eeek!).
Peter Gabriel is a fantastic songwriter in the subtle sense. I don't think he's ever done fantastically well in the charts, as such, but he is an extremely well-respected man within both the music and movie industries.
His music is, I repeat, haunting, and lyrics aren't especially obvious - my other music-based opinions rant on about lyrics ad nauseum, but in this case I like to switch off and just enjoy the music!
I think that this man is sometimes under-rated, and people don't really take in who he is or what he has done. Maybe one day?! Well, I like him, anyway!
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