10 Perfect Albums Where Metal Went Alternative

The first waves of alternative metal always seem to trace back to the '90s. The age of MTV already had the light and dark sides of metal duking it out for spots on Headbanger's Ball, and it wasn't until the likes of Nirvana came along that people felt it was okay to mix different styles of metal into the alternative sphere. The rest of the world had finally seen the power of what an alternative metal band could sound like, but they were really just catching up to what Faith No More had already been doing for a decade.

While the band may have had their roots in the same funk rock bands that gave birth to acts like the Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Real Thing was something else entirely, mixing together the sounds of funk, rock and roll, and some of the metallic crunch of thrash into the mix. If you listen to a song like Epic, every single great style of rock is accounted for here, from the Metallica power chords to the Anthony Kiedis style flow in the verses to giving way to a somber piano outro to close out everything.

Going through the rest of the record, the band pretty much do whatever the hell they want as well, from the funky sounds of From Out Of Nowhere to actually trying their hand at some old school Sabbath on their cover of War Pigs. There was a lot of gatekeeping going on both sides of the fence back in the early '90s, and with this one album, Faith No More made it feel okay to just do whatever the hell you wanted.