History Music / MrBungle

** ''Disco Volante'': a truly avant-garde set wherin practically every song sounds completely different from the next.

* [[AvantGardeMetal ExperimentalMetal:]] Unquestionably on their first demo and first two full lengths, but elements are present throughout their career.

* [[Avant-GardeMetal ExperimentalMetal:]] Unquestionably on their first demo and first two full lengths, but elements are present throughout their career.

* ExperimentalMetal: Unquestionably on their first demo and first two full lengths, but elements are present throughout their career.

** ''Mr. Bungle'': incorporates an array of different styles, but mostly sticks to ska and thrash metal, and features a decent amount of hooks and choruses.

** ''Mr. Bungle'' : incorporates any array of different styles, but mostly sticks to ska and thrash metal, and features a decent amount of hooks and choruses.
** ''Disco Volante'' : a truly avant-garde set wherin practically every song sounds completely different from the next.
** ''California'' : has much of the same jarring eclecticism as ''Disco Volante'' , but is heavily influenced by pop from the 50's and 60's, and much like their self-titled debut, has plenty of catchier elements.

* GenreRoulette

* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: The title of "Quote Unquote" was originally "Travolta." Warner, afraid of a lawsuit, asked that they change it. The result was them taking out the name and leaving the quotes, which were then spelled out.

* UncommonTime: They have a few examples. "Egg" has a rather prominent section in 7/4.

* ManOfAThousandVoices: Mike Patton. It's perhaps worth noting that his vocal range is [[http://www.vintagevinylnews.com/2014/05/digging-deeper-axl-rose-is-not-singer.html considered to be the highest on record]], being more than half an octave past the singer with the second-highest range (Corey Taylor).

* MohsScaleOfRockAndMetalHardness: Anything from a 1 to an 11, very usually even in the same song, to the point it's impossible to classify them.

* FakeoutFadeout: "Egg" ends with a repetitive heavy outro, the latter featuring two of these. The second is especially unexpected, seemingly adlibbed by the band in-studio, cracking up and stopping halfway through.

* FakeoutFadeout: Like My Ass is on Fire, Egg ends with a repetitive heavy outro ("there's no place like home!") featuring two of these. The second is especially unexpected, seemingly adlibbed by the band in-studio, cracking up and stopping halfway through

* GenreShift: The band was originally a straight up DeathMetal band. By the time they signed and recorded their first album, the death metal background is only heard in small snippets of their GenreRoulette style.

Mr. Bungle frequently incorporated unconventional instruments into their music, including tenor sax, jaw harp, cimbalom, xylophone, glockenspiel, clarinet, ocarina, piano, organ, bongos, and woodblocks. Overlying this were Mike Patton’s vocals, which 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”. Some of the genres they utilized include {{Funk}}, Free {{Jazz}}, SurfRock, PunkRock, HeavyMetal, Klezmer, {{Ska}}, Kecak, Avant-Jazz, FolkMusic, NoiseRock, {{Pop}}, Doo-Wop, FunkMetal, Electronicmusic, Swing, space-age pop and exotica, DeathMetal, {{Rockabilly}}, bossa nova, ProgressiveRock, [[CountryMusic Country and Western]], circus music, and even video game and cartoon music.

Mr. Bungle frequently incorporated unconventional instruments into their music, including tenor sax, jaw harp, cimbalom, xylophone, glockenspiel, clarinet, ocarina, piano, organ, bongos, and woodblocks. Overlying this were Mike Patton’s vocals, which 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”. 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.

[[NamesTheSame Not to be confused with]] the puppet who didn't wash his hands in the ''Beginning Responsibility: Lunchroom Manners'' short parodied by Podcast/RiffTrax [[note]]Though that ''is'' where they got their name, and a clip of the short appears as SpokenWordInMusic at the end of "Love Is A Fist"[[/note]].

* CarefulWithThatAxe - "The Bends" ends with this, as does "Goodbye Sober Day".
* CoincidenceMagnet / WeirdnessMagnet: While mixing their debut album, a friend gave Trevor Dunn a copy of the porn starring a character named "Mr. Bungle," bizarrely containing the same name as their band's and the short that inspired it. Further, they HAD a song about porn on the album ("Girls of Porn"), and a sample of the short already elsewhere on the album. A sample from the porn was immediately decided to be put on the beginning of Girls.
* CreditsGag: The inside liner notes to ''Disco Volante'' credit Danny Heifetz and Theo Lengyel with writing "Nothing", which is a track title that doesn't appear anywhere else on the packaging. Some fans assumed this meant that the noisy jamming at the end of "Merry Go Bye Bye" [[note]]see ThrowItIn[[/note]] was officially titled "Nothing"; However, the credit was just intended as a joke about the fact that neither Heifetz or Lengyel contributed to the songwriting on that particular album.
* ADateWithRosiePalms - "The Girls Of Porn."
* FakeBand: Zigzagged. Although always a real band, they initially tried to present themselves as such, with fake names listed on the album for the band members and they initally played all their shows in costume.

* GenreShift: The band was originally a straight up death metal band. By the time they signed and recorded their first album, the death metal background is only heard in small snippets of their {{Genre Roulette}} style.
* HiddenTrack: The appropriately-titled "Secret Song" is unlisted on ''Disco Volante'', appearing on the same track as "Carry Stress In The Jaw". The LP version actually has "Secret Song" on a double groove with "Carry Stress In The Jaw", meaning you have to place the needle on the record a certain way to hear it. Also notable for Trevor Dunn [[StepUpToTheMicrophone stepping up to the microphone]] to sing [[BreakingTheFourthWall fourth-wall-breaking lyrics]] about how the rest of the band kept the song a secret from ''him'' and didn't let him play on it. [[note]] Which is actually true; he added his vocals after stumbling upon the recording[[/note]].
* LastNoteNightmare - Again, "The Bends," "Goodbye Sober Day," and "My Ass Is On Fire."

* LyricalDissonance - Two big standouts in...
** Stubb (A Dub): Crazed circus mambo metal with lyrics about a dying dog.
** The Girls Of Porn: Upbeat funk metal with ''ridiculously'' explicit lyrics. ESPECIALLY the bridge.

* RefugeInAudacity: Both musically and lyrically.

* SequelSong: "Sleep (Part II): Carry Stress in the Jaw" and "Sleep (Part III): Phlegmatics" are meant to be part of a ThematicSeries that they started with "Slowly Growing Deaf" - basically they all have lyrics which play physical ailments for BodyHorror. The reason "Slowly Growing Deaf" isn't explicitly labeled "Sleep (Part I)" is that Trevor Dunn, who wrote the lyrics for the three songs, didn't initially set out to have a trilogy when he wrote it.
* SingingSimlish - Happens from time to time, but the shining example is "Ma Meeshka Mow Skwoz"
** "Chemical Marriage" is another example from the same album.

* SurprisinglyGentleSong - The first half of "Retrovertigo", which could ''almost'' be called a PowerBallad.
** Some more arguable examples from ''California'' are "Sweet Charity", "Vanity Fair", and "Pink Cigarette" - all three have moments that could be described as vaguely "sinister", but have nowhere near the amount of heaviness or bizarre left-turns you'd otherwise expect from the band.
** Another track, "The Holy Filament", could possibly be the most gentle song they've ever done. While it's middle section has some ominous sounds thrown in, the track on a whole is pretty pleasant to listen to.

Mr. Bungle was an experimental band from Northern California. The band was formed in 1985 while the members were still in high school and was named after a children's educational film regarding bad habits which was featured in a Pee Wee Herman HBO special in the early '80s. Mr. Bungle released four demo tapes in the mid- to late 1980s before being signed to Creator/WarnerBrosRecords and releasing three full-length studio albums between 1991 and 1999. The band toured in 2000 to support their last album, but in 2004 they disbanded. Although Mr. Bungle went through several line-up changes early in their career, the longest-serving members were vocalist MikePatton, guitarist Trey Spruance, bassist Trevor Dunn, saxophonist Clinton "Bär" [=McKinnon=] and drummer Danny Heifetz.