Obsolete (styled as °BSΩLE+e) is the third studio album by American industrial metal band Fear Factory, released on July 28, 1998, through Roadrunner Records.

This came to a sudden halt when Ozzy Osbourne invited Fear Factory to open for the reunited Black Sabbath at two sold-out stadium shows at the Birmingham NEC.

[8] The band intended to return to work on their album in Los Angeles until late January when they would record in Vancouver with producers Rhys Fulber and Greg Reely.

[10] Recording lasted four weeks longer than the band planned, forcing them to cancel an appearance at the Dynamo Festival.

The latter would prove to be a point of contention not only with purist listeners,[14] but within the band itself: According to Herrera, Olde Wolbers's suggestion to include it was initially met by strong resistance from Cazares, as did a number of other experimental ideas.

[16] Rhys Fulber originally intended Sarah McLachlan to provide additional vocals to "Timelessness".

[6] The story was inspired by books including Ira Levin's The Boys from Brazil, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, George Orwell's 1984 and Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Oddysey.

Man has created these machines to make his life easier, but in the long run it made him obsolete.

"[12] The "Conception 5" story is detailed in its entirety in the album's CD booklet, featuring illustrations by artist Dave McKean.

[6] From the description given in the album's booklet, the Smasher/Devourer is a large robot with an "egg-like frame" and "its arms are actually weaponry for protection", whilst in an interview with Mixdown Monthly, Cazares described it as "a clean-up man, [and] almost like a terminator" for the Securitron.

Edgecrusher is constantly watched by the monitors of Securitron so he descends underground, into the shadows below street level where apparently the refuse is, but he knows that he is safe from incident from any enforcer among the trash.

"[6]"Hi-Tech Hate" is Obsolete's "most political song", dealing with the buildup of weapons of mass destruction.

[12] It depicts an anti-war protest of factions of various dissensions in front of the Securitron base, a heavily guarded fortress.

He apparently gains a lot of memories from seeing the statue and extends his arm to touch the face of it.

Bell said that "Timelessness" is themed around loneliness, and that it was inspired by difficulties in his relationship with Tura Satana/My Ruin vocalist Tairrie B.

[6] The opening of the song features audio of Mario Savio giving his famous "Bodies Upon the Gears" speech.

The tour ran into tragedy, however, when a rental truck housing all of the band equipment and merchandise was stolen from a hotel parking lot in Philadelphia.

Regarding the theft, Burton C. Bell told MTV, "January 23 was a very dark day in Fear Factory history.

Such problems on Fear Factory's first headlining tour proved demoralizing; however, Bell described the events as somewhat of a "blessing in disguise" as various one-off major city dates that needed rescheduling were expanded into multiple shows heading into mid April.

[22] In a last-minute change, Fear Factory replaced Judas Priest in the Second Stage headlining slot of Ozzfest '99.

Only after the release of "Cars", exclusive to the limited edition digipack version of Obsolete, did Fear Factory gain significant mainstream exposure.

A gold record of Obsolete was provided to Allbeat.com's charity auction for Death frontman Chuck Schuldiner who was suffering from a brain tumor.

Other items up for auction, including a guitar signed by Papa Roach and articles from Crazy Town and Slipknot, also did not materialize.

[33] It is Fear Factory's best selling album to date and was certified gold in Australia by the ARIA[34] and also in the US by the RIAA.

[36][37] All lyrics are written by Burton C. Bell, except where noted; all music is composed by Dino Cazares, Raymond Herrera and Christian Olde Wolbers, except where noted.A digipak version of Obsolete was released on March 23, 1999, and contains additional tracks: ^ Shipments figures based on certification alone.