Dark Side of the Spoon

Dark Side of the Spoon is the seventh studio album by an American industrial metal band Ministry, released in 1999 through Warner Bros. Records, their final album for the label. "Bad Blood" was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance in 2000.

Background
Dark Side of the Spoon features less aggressive songs than Ministry's previous albums, and frontman Al Jourgensen had intended it to be the case. He wanted to branch out from the "drug-infused" records of The Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Taste and Psalm 69 to a more "unfamiliar territory." As such, Jourgensen ranks Dark Side of the Spoon as his favourite '90s Ministry album.

In his autobiography, Jourgensen confirmed that the title has two meanings: one of which is a play on words referencing Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon and the other is the blackened (or dark side) of a spoon heated to dissolve heroin, as several members of the band suffered from long-term addiction to said substance at the time.

The album's cover, which features a nude, obese woman sitting in front of a black board with "I will be god" written repeatedly on it, gained controversy and was banned from Kmart. The woman and the words on the blackboard were later airbrushed out.

The saxophone part of the song "10/10" is taken from the last 22 seconds of "Group Dancers" on the Charles Mingus album The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady. "Whip and Chain" and "Bad Blood" feature vocals from Ty Coon, Al Jourgensen's girlfriend at the time.

Hidden tracks
After the end of track 9, tracks of silence begin. There are 58 silent tracks on the album, totaling 10:26

Tracks 15 - 67 are all approximately 4 seconds in length.

"Everybody" is track 68 (track 69 on the Japanese edition). Houses of the Molé, another Ministry album, features a hidden track called "Walrus" which is also track 69. According to BMI, track 68 is called "Summertime". Allmusic and the official website of the band refers to this track as "Everybody". ITunes lists this track as "Dialouge".

Ministry

 * Al Jourgensen – vocals, slide guitar, electronics, banjo (6), saxophone, production
 * Paul Barker – bass, electronics, vocals (8), production
 * Rey Washam – drums, electronics
 * Louis Svitek – guitar, electronics

Additional personnel

 * Ty Coon – vocals (2, 3)
 * Yvonne Gage – vocals (4)
 * Zlatko Hukic – guitar, electronics
 * Jason Bacher – engineering
 * Jeff Dehaven – engineering
 * Bryan Kenny – engineering
 * Esther Nevarez – engineering
 * Brad Kopplin – engineering
 * Tom Baker – mastering
 * Paul Elledge – art direction, photography