Faith No More

From the looks of it, San Francisco's Faith No More lived to mix it up -- their 1985 contribution to the nascent Alternative Nation, a tangle of metal and white-boy rap called "We Care a Lot," satirized the hunger relief compilations that filled record store bins like a case of dysentery. By 1990, they introduced mainstream to The Real Thing and new singer Mike Patton. Patton's strident singing and in-your-face persona won the band wider acceptance. Subsequent records thwarted fairweather fans as FNM's sound morphed and gravitated away from the rapidly popular sound of commercial alternative radio. Though best known for "Epic," and other hit singles off The Real Thing, FNM also had a significant mad scientist streak. How else to explain their dry remake of the Commodores' "Easy" on their 1993 EP Songs to Make Love To? Their experimentation isn't so much Dr. Demento as it is Dr. Frankenstein. That said, FNM recast the Dead Kennedys' "Let's Lynch the Landlord" in the image of Klezmer-meets-Rockabilly.