Mr. Bungle (album)
Mr. Bungle is the eponymous debut studio album by American band Mr. Bungle. It was released on August 13, 1991, through Warner Bros. Records. The album contains many genre shifts which are typical of the band, and helped increase the band's popularity, gaining them a reasonable following and fanbase. The fact that Mike Patton was gaining fame from Faith No More may also have been a contributing factor to this. The album cover features artwork by Dan Sweetman, originally published in the story, "A Cotton Candy Autopsy" in the DC Comics/Piranha Press imprint title, Beautiful Stories for Ugly Children.
Background
The first track, "Quote Unquote", was originally titled "Travolta", referring to John Travolta, but had to be changed for legal reasons. However, Travolta's name is still spoken in the song. The first few minutes of the Lunchroom Manners instructional video, where the band got its name, can be heard at the end of "Love is a Fist".
Musical style
AllMusic called the album a "dizzying, disconcerting, schizophrenic tour through just about any rock style the group can think of, hopping from genre to genre without any apparent rhyme or reason, and sometimes doing so several times in the same song." The website described Mike Patton's lyrics as "even more bizarrely humorous than those he used in Faith No More", and "also less self-censored".
Mr. Bungle
Mr. Bungle was an American experimental band from Eureka, California. The band was formed in 1985 while the members were still in high school, and was named after a 1950s children's educational film regarding bad habits which was later featured in a 1981 Pee-wee Herman HBO special. Mr. Bungle released four demo tapes in the mid to late 1980s before being signed to Warner Bros. Records and releasing three full-length studio albums between 1991 and 1999. The band toured in 2000 to support their last album before going on hiatus; ultimately revealing that they had dissolved in 2004. Although Mr. Bungle went through several line-up changes early in their career, the longest-serving members were vocalist Mike Patton, guitarist Trey Spruance, bassist Trevor Dunn, saxophonists' Clinton "Bär" McKinnon and Theo Lengyel, and drummer Danny Heifetz.
Mr. Bungle was known for its distinctive musical traits, often cycling through several musical genres within the course of a single song. Many of its songs had an unconventional structure and utilized a wide array of instruments and samples. Live shows often featured members dressing up and an array of cover songs. An ongoing feud with Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman Anthony Kiedis escalated in the late 1990s, with Kiedis removing Mr. Bungle from a number of large music festivals in Europe and Australasia.
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