Co-Editors: Jasmine Hazel Shadrack and Samuel Thomas
Background & Rationale: Faith No More are widely regarded as one of the most important and singular bands to make the transition from the 1980s underground to the Billboard Hot 100 and a period of MTV-approved visibility. As idiosyncratic as they are influential, the band are in many respects defined by a series of tensions or contradictions. Faith No More are often framed as the quintessential “alternative metal” act, for example, but can trace their roots back through the San Francisco art rock and postpunk scenes (as recently chronicled by Will York in Who Cares Anyway) and have always demonstrated a strikingly promiscuous approach to genre. Their history stretches from a vibrant debut record released in 1985 (out-of-print for a period of 20 years) to their 90s flourishing and disintegration to a 2015 comeback (perhaps also their swansong) that provides a powerful riposte to the imaginative bankruptcy of so many late-middle-age reunions. They have endured significant line-up changes and much-documented interpersonal fractiousness while at the same time maintaining a remarkably distinctive and consistent musical backbone: the melodies and deftly atmospheric keyboard textures of Roddy Bottum; the groove and throb of Billy Gould’s bass; the thunderous, tom-driven polyrhythms of drummer Mike “Puffy” Bordin. Their albums encompass genuine sonic extremes, often bringing together unlikely combinations of sounds and styles, but also function as coherent and accessible musical statements that blur the lines between the popular and avant-garde. In their commercial heyday, the band shared stages with some of the largest acts in heavy music, most infamously as part of a 1992 arena tour co-headlined by Guns N’ Roses and Metallica, while choosing to collaborate with artists as dissimilar as the Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E. and Sparks. In the same year as that tour, they released a double A-side single that paired “Be Aggressive,” a song about gay oral sex, with a cover of “Easy” by the Commodores. Faith No More’s music is undoubtedly marked by a specific brand of Gen-X irony and subversive humour but is executed with the great sincerity and care, as it were, that comes from deeply committed musicianship and an authentic band dynamic. The two singers that feature on their recorded output — Chuck Mosely and Mike Patton — could not be more different yet both point to compelling new ways of thinking about lyrics, performance/persona, and vocal experimentation in a rock/metal context. Despite first rising to prominence in the US with a platinum record (1989’s The Real Thing), the band’s most dedicated and receptive fanbases developed in South America, Australasia, and the UK.
Given the scope and scale of popular music studies today, not to mention widespread scholarly interest in the (long) 1990s, it is surprising that Faith No More have received such scant academic attention. This collection seeks to address a significant gap in scholarship and the editors therefore invite contributions to a path-finding project. The collection will be the first to critically engage with the musicological and cultural/historical significance of Faith No More — with the origins, evolution, and legacies of a unique, risk-taking, category-befuddling band.
We have identified the following broad areas as a provisional framework for the collection:
Contexts
Music-Making / Making-Music
Reception
Within this framework, we foreground potential topics such as:
- File under “unclassifiable”? Faith No More and the cultural politics of genre (esp. in relation to the norms of rock and metal or the concept of the “alternative”)
- San Francisco localism vs. the band’s special relationships to a variety of global scenes and audiences
- Starting a joke? Irony and humour / sincerity and caring (a lot or not)
- Musicological analysis and the nuances of Faith No More’s songcraft (including instrumentation, production, authorship etc.)
- Significant live performances and tours
- The band’s music videos and presence on MTV
- Faith No More and the music press / music industry
- Consistency, transition, and flux: The 80s, the 90s, and the band’s 21st century reformation
- Faith No More’s multi-faceted influence and role as a “gateway” band to other genres and subgenres
Please submit an abstract of no more than 500 words to both editors by 31st October 2026.