Fantastic Planet (album)

Fantastic Planet is the third and final studio album by the American rock band Failure. It was the last album released on Slash Records as distributed by Warner Bros. The album failed to chart on Billboard's Top 200 albums, but did produce a charting single with "Stuck on You", which reached #23 on Billboard's Modern Rock Chart. The album was produced by Failure themselves in a process that took longer than their previous two albums, with one song being recorded and produced soon after being written, and repeating this process. Space-rock themes course through the album's lyrics, as well as various indirect references to drug addiction, drug-related experiences, and prostitution. Seven of the album's songs were also included on Failure's Essentials, a best-of collection from 2006.

In 2009, JustPressPlay named Fantastic Planet the third best album of the 1990s.^[2] They also ranked the song "The Nurse Who Loved Me" at #10 in its list of the Top 100 Songs of the 1990s.^[3]

Track listing

All tracks by Ken Andrews & Greg Edwards

1. "Saturday Saviour" – 4:27
2. "Sergeant Politeness" – 4:05
3. "Segue 1" - 1:56
4. "Smoking Umbrellas" – 3:58
5. "Pillowhead" - 2:11
6. "Blank" – 5:38
7. "Segue 2" - 1:19
8. "Dirty Blue Balloons" – 4:23
9. "Solaris" – 3:43
10. "Pitiful" – 4:45
11. "Leo" – 3:05
12. "Segue 3" - 2:13
13. "The Nurse Who Loved Me" – 4:25
14. "Another Space Song" – 5:10
15. "Stuck on You" – 4:28
16. "Heliotropic" – 6:14
17. "Daylight" – 6:00

Personnel

• Ken Andrews – vocals, guitar, bass
• Greg Edwards – bass guitar, guitar, percussion, piano
• Kellii Scott – drums

Credits

Produced by Failure; engineered by Ken Andrews. Recorded at F.P.S. Studios (Los Angeles CA) and Madhatter Studios Silverlake CA. Mastered by Tom Baker at Future Disc, Hollywood CA.

Miscellany

• A video was produced for the single "Stuck on You" which closely resembles the opening credits of the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me (included on the DVD portion of the 2004 Failure compilation Golden). Other songs, such as "Saturday Saviour" and "Pitiful", were released as radio singles, but no videos were made for them.
• Guitarist Troy Van Leeuwen joined Failure around the time of this album's release.
• "The Nurse Who Loved Me" was covered by A Perfect Circle on their 2003 album Thirteenth Step.
• "Another Space Song" was covered by Statistics, the solo project of Denver Dalley of Desaparecidos, and released on Location is Everything Vol. 2, a Jade Tree Records sampler disc.
• "Stuck on You" was covered by Paramore on their 2006 CD The Summer Tic EP; the title of the CD is taken from the song's lyrics, albeit with "tick" changed to "tic".
• "Smoking Umbrellas" was covered by Phil Ritchie on Rock Star: Supernova.
• "Sergeant Politeness" was played live at solo concerts between 2004 and 2006 by Melissa auf der Maur with her band Auf der Maur. A recording of a rendition was released on her Single "Taste You".

References

External links

• RockNet interview with Kellii Scott about the album (November 1996)