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Midlife Crisis

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"Midlife Crisis"
Song

"Midlife Crisis" is a song by the American rock band Faith No More. It was released on May 26, 1992 as the first single from their fourth album, Angel Dust. It became their sole number-one hit on the Modern Rock Tracks chart.

Music and lyrics

"Midlife Crisis" is an alternative metal[1][2] and funk metal[2] song, which incorporates progressive rock and hip hop elements.[1]

Mike Patton has denied that the song is about having a midlife crisis, as he did not know what one would feel like, but says that "it's more about creating false emotion, being emotional, dwelling on your emotions and in a sense inventing them"[3] and that:

The song is based on a lot of observation and a lot of speculation. But in sort of a pointed way it's kind of about Madonna... I think it was a particular time where I was being bombarded with her image on TV and in magazines and her whole shtick kind of speaks to me in that way... like she's going through some sort of problem. It seems she's getting a bit desperate.[3]

Production

During production the song was given the working title of "Madonna"[4] which was later maintained as a setlist name during live performances.[5] The drum track for the song contains a sample of the first bar of the song "Cecilia", as performed by Simon and Garfunkel, repeated throughout.sampleⓘ[6] The bridge features a sample of "Car Thief" by the Beastie Boys.

Music video

The video for this song was directed by Kevin Kerslake, who also directed their shoestring video for the song "Everything's Ruined". The version on the Who Cares a Lot?: Greatest Videos collection features the uncensored version that contains some shots omitted from pre-watershed broadcasts of the video. Most noticeably during the bridge which shows a man being stretched by four horses (alluding to an old French punishment for regicide, known as "quartering") - the censored version features additional shots of choirboys running to a big cross instead. Singer Mike Patton can also be seen dancing around holding a spade.

For the video, the sound mix of this song is slightly different than the album version (on certain promotional releases it is referred to as 'The Scream Mix'). For the DVD re-release of Who Cares a Lot?: Greatest Videos, the album version of the song is used instead, with the accommodating edits made.

Appearances and covers

"Midlife Crisis" has featured on the soundtrack for the videogames Tony Hawk's Underground 2 and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, on the fictional Alternative station Radio X, and has been covered by industrial metal band Bile, on their 2002 cover album; The Copy Machine, and by American rock band Disturbed twice, once earlier in their career that was originally going to be put on a Faith No More tribute album, but was instead released through the internet, the second time as a B-side to their fourth studio album Indestructible; this re-recorded version was released on Covered, A Revolution in Sound and third time on their B-side collection album The Lost Children, remastered edition from the previous cover.[7] It is a master track song on Rock Band 3, with the fade-out ending edited for gameplay reasons.

Personnel

Track list

No.TitleLyricsMusicLength
1."Midlife Crisis" (The Scream Mix)PattonBottum, Bordin, Gould, Patton3:55
2.""Jizzlobber""Martin, PattonMartin6:39
3."Crack Hitler"PattonGould, Bottum, Bordin4:39
4."Midnight Cowboy"InstrumentalBarry4:13
Australian Edition
No.TitleLyricsMusicLength
1."Midlife Crisis"PattonBottum, Bordin, Gould, Patton4:24
2.""Jizzlobber""Martin, PattonMartin6:39
3."As the Worm Turns" (re-recording)MoselyBottum, Gould, Mosely2:38

Charts

Chart Peak
Australian Singles Chart[8] 31
Austrian Singles Chart[9] 9
Irish Singles Chart[10] 13
Polish Singles Chart[11] 49
UK Singles Chart[12] 10
US Mainstream Rock Tracks[13] 32
US Modern Rock Tracks[13] 1

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Grierson, Tim. "Faith No More - 'Angel Dust' Review". About.com. Retrieved December 29, 2014.
  2. ^ a b Terich, Jeff and Adam Blyweiss (October 3, 2012). "10 Essential Alternative Metal Singles". Treblezine. Retrieved November 14, 2015.
  3. ^ a b Q30 on the FAQ on the Faith No More website
  4. ^ The Making of Angel Dust. MTV. Retrieved 2008-02-26.
  5. ^ "Faith No More FAQ, Q32". FNM.com. Retrieved 2016-04-02.
  6. ^ Q40 on the FAQ on the Faith No More website
  7. ^ "BLABBERMOUTH.NET – MASTODON, DISTURBED Featured On 'Covered, A Revolution In Sound'". Roadrunner Records. January 13, 2009. Retrieved August 28, 2015.
  8. ^ Faith No More singles search. australian-charts.com.
  9. ^ Austrian charts page for Angel Dust and singles. austriancharts.at.
  10. ^ Irish charts search engine irishcharts.ie. Retrieved 28 May 2008.
  11. ^ "Polish Singles Chart |".
  12. ^ Archive containing all UK top 40 charts. everyhit.co.uk.
  13. ^ a b Album charts for Faith No More. Billboard.com
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