By 1991, the members of Fishbone had everything going for them: A receptive press, a storied live show, a Spike Lee-directed music video, a tide of attention for the thrash-metal they helped pioneer, and even a spot on Saturday Night Live (where the Los Angeles-based septet delivered off-the-wall alt-rock chaos). Much to the surprise of many, the band’s third album, The Reality of My Surroundings was only a modest success upon its release that year. But Fishbone’s moment in the spotlight coincided with a band at its artistic peak. Cycloning through an unlikely combination of funk, heavy metal, ska, punk, and incisive political rhetoric, Fishbone was the Sly and the Family Stone of the Lollapalooza generation—and no album better showcases their skills than The Reality of My Surroundings. The album’s second single, “Everyday Sunshine,” was influenced by the melodies of Sly Stone himself, starting as a transcendent piece of hard-slamming funk and ending as a double-timed church-style celebration. The album’s biggest hit, “Sunless Saturday,” was like Rush meets Funkadelic, a proggy collision of acoustic guitars, anthemic horns, baroque vocal arrangements, and world-weary lyrics. And “Fight the Youth” is a hard-chugging call to action that spells out Fishbone’s mix of upbeat music and radical politics: “We’re in the positive/But we’re ready for the war.” The rest of The Reality of My Surroundings plays like a genre-crossing concept album. Interludes take on the media, the police state, the military-industrial complex, drugs, oppression, and the KKK, linking songs that go from the serious (the inner-city lament “So Many Millions”) to the silly (the X-rated throwdown “Naz-Tee May’en”). One could point to multiple reasons why The Reality of My Surroundings didn’t get Fishbone the platinum plaques awarded to peers like Red Hot Chili Peppers and Living Colour. Perhaps American radio and retail were underprepared for a band that exploded genres so wildly. Perhaps even a band as gifted as Fishbone couldn’t transcend the racist machinations of the music industry. However, it’s indisputable that this was a band ahead of its time: By the end of the 1990s, fans like No Doubt, Sublime, and 311 would ultimately bring Fishbone’s ska-tinged stew into the mainstream.