Fantastic Failing: 10th Anniversary of Failure's Fantastic Planet

Failure - Fantastic Planet

This past Sunday marked the tenth anniversary of the release of one of the best rock albums of the 1990s, and many people don't even know it exists. This is my second attempt at writing why this album is so important today. On my first attempt, I tried to present the argument that I have heard sporadically over the past several years -- that, in fact, Failure was just another band trying to ride the grunge wave, and that their last album, Fantastic Planet was one of those albums that was released when the band didn't know grunge was fading away. That argument is unwarranted though, and that whole Nirvana comparison was a joke ten years ago when Dean Carlson wrote his review of the album on allmusic.com. But the glowing review on the same site for the band's previous album, Magnified, negates anything Carlson said anyway.

Despite how off-base Carlson was with his review ten years ago, one can't help but wonder if he was at least partially right. As the album has aged, a song like "Sergeant Politeness" does sound more and more like typical early to mid-90s rock. This has led me to the question: Does Fantastic Planet deserve the praise it gets, even nine years after the band broke up? The answer: Yes. Perhaps a more learned music aficionado could tell you technically why it's such an important album. From one fan's point of view though, I feel that Failure reached a higher echelon of creativity than most rock bands did in the 1990s. Bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam may have changed the way people looked at rock music in the 90s, but a band like Failure took a similar formula and expanded on it tenfold. They added layers to it. They added a mood to it. They added more of a story to it. The sci-fi drugged out odyssey that is Fantastic Planet was the culmination of all that. They laid the layers and mood on thick. Not since the days of Pink Floyd had something like this been heard. I will admit that the first half of the album is far more straightforward than the second half, but the album is 68 minutes long. There was plenty of time for the band to go in all sorts of directions. Heavy to soft, direct and matter-of-fact to tripped out outerspaceyness (if Stephen Colbert can come up with "truthiness," I think you can allow "outerspaceyness"). Yes, Ken Andrews does have the gravelly vocals that conjure up images of Cobain and Layne Staley, but let's cut the band some slack here. They were indeed around in the 1990s, after all. He still has a good voice, and it's immediately recognizable for those that know it.

And of course, there is the quality of the actual songs. "Sergeant Politeness," however typical one might consider it, is a great rock song. It has an energy that rivals any other popular rock song of its time. "Blank" is the sort of spaced out ballad that you wish more bands would do, but are grateful they don't to retain the song's unrivaled brilliance. And then things really take off with "Solaris," which blasts the album to the farthest reaches of the heavens, and then the band only briefly docks back down to the earth's atmosphere to refuel on "Leo," but then blast off again, never to return. If the entire Fantastic Planet album is a culmination of the band's work, then "Another Space Song" is the culmination of that culmination. While not the best song on the album (although that could be argued, perhaps to the point that there is no single best song on the album), it is the definitive Fantastic Planet and Failure song, taking the science fiction theme of the album to extremes and offering a 90s version of "Space Oddity." The album closes with the best two closing tracks on any album ever with "Heliotropic" and "Daylight." Once "Daylight" is over, you really feel like you've been somewhere other than on Earth.

There is one blemish on the album in "Dirty Blue Balloons." Its drug references can be too much to listen to without wanting to roll your eyes. You might have to give the band and particularly Greg Edwards some credit for being so direct with its lyrical content, but it could have been a more credible listen if the mucky tempo didn't make it the most uninteresting song on the album musically. Still, what is perfection if not an imperfection in some way? It doesn't hurt the rest of the album one bit, and the other songs on the album are so wonderful that they completely overshadow this one song.

In closing, I'd just like to personally say what an important album this is to me since I discovered it in 2000. Yes, the album, if not the band's entire work, has posthumously inspired musicians around the world. But this album opened my eyes and showed me a whole different perspective in rock music. So while some might say it was typical 90s fare, I know that's not the truth because I do not care for typical 90s fare. And without my love of Failure, I don't know if I would've ever found bands like Cave In or Mew or Autolux (which Greg Edwards is a member of now). While not exactly like Failure, bands like those today offer a different take on the layered and melodic rock that Failure mastered ten or more years ago. And that's what can make music so important -- that you care for it so deeply that it inspires you to listen to other music that you probably never would have otherwise. When music does that to you, the possibilities of finding new and exciting music are endless. Happy 10th, Fantastic Planet!

Download "Solaris" here.

Download "Another Space Song" here.

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ATTN: Google and Blogger Quite Unlike Two Peas!

Well, since Blogger is now being gobbled up by Google, there's been this whole debacle with people not being to sign in to the Blogger accounts or their Google accounts not merging with their Blogger accounts. I've been an unfortunate victim in all this. My previous login name no longer exists according to Blogger, but I was able to recreate my account by creating a new account... with my old login name and password, which should've already existed. But it didn't, and yet my old blog still exists. Of course, recreating my old login name and password doesn't mean I'm able to access my old blog, and so... Other People's Music (Reviews) will forever exist with its last entry on June 13th, 2006, never to be accessed again since the account that created it is technically a new account with no previous posts. Got it? Good.

Of course, if Blogger and Google are able to clear up this mess, the two blogs (this one and Other People's Music Reviews) could someday merge into one. But until then, I will probably just provide a link to my old blog until I feel like archiving those old reviews on this one. In the meantime, welcome to Accessibly Inaccessible Music Reviews, or AccInacc, for short. Not only does that pertain to some of my own personal music listening habits, but it also incorporates my initials (3 of them anyway), and it's a wink and nudge to Blogger and Google's own technical stupidity.