For information about blood types, see AB Negative.Founded in 1988 upon the ashes of Face of the Band(and Bassist) Peter Steele's earlier band Carnivore, Type O Negative's Signature Style was an unlikely mixture of Black Sabbath, Goth rock and punk and completely refused to ever take itself seriously. They often used a distinct pop/indie sensibility most visible on the October Rust album. Notable for being one of the pioneers of Goth Metal. They broke up with the passing of Peter Steele in 2010.Discography:
Slow, Deep and Hard (1991)
The Origin of the Feces (1992)*
An album of studio recordings made to sound like a Live Album documenting a terrible show against a hostile crowd.
Bloody Kisses (1993)*
Their last album with their first drummer, Sal Abruscato.
October Rust (1996)*
Despite Abruscato being replaced with Johnny Kelly, this and the next two albums use programmed drums instead.
World Coming Down (1999)
Life Is Killing Me (2003)
Dead Again (2007)*
The only album with Johnny Kelly's actual drum playing.
They provide examples of:
Anti Christmas Song: "Red Water (Christmas Mourning)," which may just be the single most depressing Christmas song ever.
Blatant Lies: Johnny Kelly being credited as drummer on October Rust, World Coming Down and Life Is Killing Me despite the fact that those albums use drum machines.
Lampshaded with The Origin of the Feces, a studio performance edited to sound like a terrible concert, which had a sticker on the front reading "NOT Live at Brighton Beach".
Broken Record: From "Christian Woman": "Jesus Christ looks like me."
In "Black #1," the chorus and "Loving you was like...loving the dead."
Call-and-Response Song: The chorus of "Unsuccessfully Coping With the Natural Beauty of Infidelity".
Contemptible Cover: The original version of Origin of the Feces is a close-up of Peter Steele's anus.
And the cover of Slow, Deep, and Hard is a picture of vaginal insertion, just put through a filter that makes it not noticeable until you are looking for it. And after that, you can't stop seeing it.
Covers Always Lie: Bloody Kisses and Dead Again have no songs about what their covers depict, The Origin of the Feces isn't a live album, and the pseudo-runic font in the October Rust booklet only means the album has not a single song about vikings.
Despair Event Horizon: World Coming Down is the epitome of this. Three of the four interludes are extremely realistic portrayals of death brought upon by cocaine, alcohol, and cigarettes, while all of the actual songs (save for the Beatles medley at the end) deal with depressing subjects.
Even the Guys Want Him: Thanks to posing in Playgirl in 1995, Peter has quite a bit of attention from males (which eventually became the basis for "I Like Goils").
"Machine Screw" combined the sound of a woman having sex with machine noises.
Expospeak Gag: Most of the song titles on Slow, Deep and Hard.
Funetik Aksent: There are some humorous references to the band members' New York accents, such as the title of "I Like Goils" and the backing vocals being credited to "The Bensonhoist*
Greatest Hits Album: Two of them, one compiled by the band themselves, and another put together by their by-then-former record label, both largely covering the same material. In line with the band's occasional use of Self-Deprecation, the former was called The Least Worst of Type O Negative, and started with a completely silent filler track from one of their albums (the implication being that they considered 39 seconds of silence to be among their best work).
Have I Mentioned I Am Heterosexual Today?: "I Like Goils" is this distilled into one song. As mentioned above, it was written after Peter Steele discovered (after posing in Playgirl) that an estimated 50% or more of Playgirl readers and subscribers were men, and that he had unintentionally become a minor gay icon.
I Am the Band: Averted. Though Peter Steele was without question the Face of the Band and main songwriter, many decisions were made by other members (such as using programmed drums on the three albums recorded after Johnny Kelly replaced their previous drummer Sal Abruscato, October Rust, World Coming Down and Life Is Killing Me; only their last album features Johnny Kelly playing actual drums).
Idiosyncratic Album Theming: Several of the band's albums start with sound effect-laden or humorous intros, such as: "Machine Screw" on Bloody Kisses (a combination of machine sounds and a woman having sex), "Bad Ground" and the untitled intro and outro of the band jokingly playing down the album on October Rust, and "Skip It" on World Coming Down, 10 seconds of sounds edited to sound like the CD is skipping followed by Kenny Hickey shouting "Sucker!" (the cassette version replaced that with editing to make it sound like the tape was being eaten).
I Love the Dead: While not as explicit as one would expect from a songwriter with Steele's sense of humour (or decency), some songs (Haunted comes to mind) have shades of this.
In The Style Of: Their cover of "Cinnamon Girl" is probably the best example.
Murder Ballad: "Xero Tolerance," "Prelude to Agony".
Neoclassical Punk Zydeco Rockabilly: Pigeonholed as gothic metal, the genres that they mixed included crossover thrash, gothic rock, industrial, stoner metal, doom metal, 60s protopunk, and no small amount of pop (albeit in a very snide, mocking manner). The results spoke for themselves.
New Sound Album: Bloody Kisses, which was where they found their signature gothic/doom sound while for the most part moving away from the Carnivore-styled thrash of Slow, Deep and Hard.
Post Modernism: Tracks like "Bad Ground" and "Skip It" have no other purpose than to be "meta."
"SUCKER!!!"
Pun-Based Title: The Origin of the Feces, "We Were Electrocute" and "The Profits of Doom".
Rated G for Gangsta: The Bloody Kisses album shamelessly mocks this phenomenon by way of Mood Whiplash, October Rust is a seemingly straighter example, and World Coming Down an inversion. When they apparently tried this genuinely with Life is Killing Me...another Creator Breakdown happened and they made the dark, aggressive Dead Again.
Sensual Slavs: Peter was allegedly 1/4 Polish, 1/4 Russian and 100% sex appeal.
Sliding Scale of Silliness Versus Seriousness: They have songs all over this, from "Christian Woman" at the extreme silly end to "White Slavery" at the far extreme of the serious end.
Soprano and Gravel: Peter Steele's smooth, resonant bass contrasts quite well with guitarist Kenny Hickey's more aggressive style of singing.
Steele himself comes strikingly close to filling both roles on certain tracks. See "Nettie," in which he sings the chorus melody in three different octaves over the course of the song.
Spoken Word In Music: A couple of examples, the most notable probably being the opening of "Christian Woman" and untitled intros and outros of October Rust.
Also tends to show up in the middle of a song and act as a vital part of it, like in Haunted or Blood and Fire.
Squick: Steele didn't exactly steer clear of unsavory subjects.
Stage Names: Peter Steele's real name was Petrus Thomas Ratajczyk.
What The Hell Is That Accent: Peter mostly sings normally, and in the Spoken Word In Music bits shows an obvious Brooklyn accent, but in some songs ("Todd's Ship Gods (Above All Things)"), especially when performing in the ridiculously deep voice, it sounds like he's singing in an accent stuck between "Noo Yawker" and "Vaguely Uberwaldian".
For information about blood types, see AB Negative.Founded in 1988 upon the ashes of Face of the Band (and Bassist) Peter Steele's earlier band Carnivore, Type O Negative's Signature Style was an unlikely mixture of Black Sabbath, Goth rock and punk and completely refused to ever take itself seriously. They often used a distinct pop/indie sensibility most visible on the October Rust album. Notable for being one of the pioneers of Goth Metal. They broke up with the passing of Peter Steele in 2010.Discography:
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