Released August 13, 1991 Label Warner Bros. | Length 73:19 Producer John Zorn, Mr. Bungle | |
Recorded 1991 at Different Fur, San Francisco, California, United States Genre Experimental
avant-garde
funk metal
ska
jazz fusion
free jazz
carnival music
heavy metal | ||
Mr. Bungle is the eponymous debut studio album by American experimental rock 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 cult following.
Contents
Content
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.
The album mixes a variety of musical styles, including ska, circus music, heavy metal, free jazz, and funk. AllMusic called it 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".
Quotes from David Lynch's 1986 film Blue Velvet are strewn throughout the album.
Critical reception and legacy
The album received mixed reviews upon release. Entertainment Weekly gave the album a negative review, writing "Adjectives like 'puerile' and 'unlistenable' take on entirely new dimensions when applied to Mr. Bungle". Trouser Press called it "one of the most ambitiously random, fractious records in recent memory" and "one of the finest records of its kind".
In 2015, Korn guitarist James "Munky" Shaffer praised the album, stating "I loved their last album, California, but their self-titled debut had the biggest impact on me. There’s a song on there called "Love Is a Fist" that’s fucking crushing. That set the tone for us and what we went on to do creatively. They were completely outside the box and just didn’t care – they satisfied only themselves. It wasn’t about record sales, it was just about creating a band."