Style and Influence
Allmusic's Greg Prato described Mr. Bungle's music as a “unique mix of the experimental, the abstract, and the absurd”, while Patrick Macdonald of The Seattle Times characterized their music as "harsh, grating, unstructured, blasting, squeaky, speedy, slow, eerie and strangely compelling". Distinctive features of the music were the utilization of numerous different instruments, unusual vocals, and the use of unpredictable song formats along with a number of different musical genres. The majority of the music and lyrics were written by Patton, Dunn, and Spruance, with McKinnon and Heifetz occasionally contributing. Greg Prato stated they "may be the most talented rock instrumentalists today, as they skip musical genres effortlessly, while Mike Patton illustrates why many consider him to be the best singer in rock". Not all have agreed with one reviewer calling the band the "most ridiculously terrible piece of festering offal ever scraped off the floor of a slaughterhouse". Journalist Geoffrey Himes criticized the band by stating "the vocals are so deeply buried in the music that the words are virtually indecipherable" and described the music as "aural montages rather than songs, for short sections erupt and suddenly disappear, replaced by another passage with little connection to what preceded it".
Mr. Bungle frequently incorporated unconventional instruments into their music including tenor sax, jaw harp, cimbalom, xylophone, glockenspiel, clarinet, ocarina, piano, organ, bongos, and woodblocks. Journalist John Serba commented that the instrumentation "sounded kind of like drunken jazz punctuated with Italian accordions and the occasional Bavarian march, giant power chord, or feedback noise thrown in". Overlaying this was Mike Patton’s vocals, who often used death metal growls, crooning, rapping, screeching, gurgling, or whispering. The arrangement of their songs was also idiosyncratic, often lacking a structured song format and rotating through different genres ranging from slow melodies to thrash-metal. New York Times journalist Jon Pareles described it as music that “leaps from tempo to tempo, key to key, style to style, all without warning”. Similarly critic Patrick Macdonald commented "In the middle of hard-to-follow, indecipherable noise, a relatively normal, funky jazz organ solo will suddenly drift in". Some of the genres they utilized include funk, free jazz, surf rock, punk, heavy metal, klezmer, ska, kecak, avant-jazz, folk, noise rock, pop, doo-wop, funk metal, electronica, swing, space age pop and exotica, death metal, rockabilly, bossa nova, progressive rock, country and western, circus music and even video game and cartoon music.
Mr. Bungle’s style has influenced many funk rock and metal bands, most notably Korn, whose guitarists utilize what they have dubbed the "Mr. Bungle chord". Brandon Boyd of Incubus, also cited early Mr. Bungle as an influence. Though the band has been far less enthusiastic about being linked to these acts, with frontman Patton stating "I feel no responsibility for that, it's their mothers' fault, not mine."
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