A demo version of "The Morning After", under the moniker "New Improved Song", with alternate lyrics written and sung by Chuck Mosley was released on the Sounds·Waves 2 extended play with the Sounds magazine.

A third song, "Sweet Emotion", was later re-recorded with different lyrics as "The Perfect Crime" for the soundtrack to the film that also starred a cameo appearance from guitarist Jim Martin, Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey.

[6][7] Notable artists Faith No More performed with during the touring cycle include Metallica, Billy Idol, Soundgarden, Voivod, Sacred Reich, Forbidden, Primus, Babes in Toyland and Poison.

[12] The band's August, 28 1990 concert at Burgherrenhalle in Kaiserslautern, Germany is notable for featuring the only ever performance of the song "Faster Disco" with Patton on vocals.

"As the Worm Turns" and "Why Do You Bother" were the only songs from the album to be regularly worked into the band's setlists on the tour (aside from the title track, which was re-recorded for their major label debut Introduce Yourself).

"[14] During the tour, they covered parts of the Milli Vanilli songs "Girl I'm Gonna Miss You" and "Baby Don't Forget my Number".

Due to their small catalog at the time, the band eventually grew tired of playing songs from The Real Thing towards the end of the tour.

[19] In between these releases was "Epic" on January 30, 1990, the music video for which received extensive airplay on MTV throughout the year, despite provoking anger from animal rights activists for a slow motion shot of a fish flopping out of water.

had a music video produced for it, directed by bassist Billy Gould, featuring footage shot in Chile during a South American tour in 1991.

Call what they do neo-metal.The genre of The Real Thing has been variously described as having a predominant "funk-metal groove" by Chris Morris for Billboard magazine in 1992[40] and containing "funk, metal, traditional rock, instrumental, and even a little 'easy listening'" by Travis Lowell for Toxic Universe in 2001.

[20] Tom Breihan wrote for Stereogum in 2012 that the album[41] gets a ton of credit and blame for helping to popularize rap-metal, but it was a lot more than that ... veered from quasi-Middle-Eastern orchestral churn ("Woodpecker From Mars") to dementedly creepy lounge-singer irony ("Edge Of The World") to all-out blitzkrieg ("Surprise!

They called it "sublime funk metal" and wrote that "the amount of diversity Faith No More crammed into 1989's The Real Thing seemed to be a middle finger to arena rock".

[43] Stuart Berman for Pitchfork wrote that it had a "reputation as an alt-rock trailblazer" and "connection to a long-past funk-metal zeitgeist" continuing to state that the album track "Epic" "was perfectly timed to satiate the then-burgeoning appetite for rap-rock".

Chris Conaton for PopMatters wrote in 2015 that the album "made a minor splash in the alternative metal community" and featured "a fascinating and entertaining smorgasbord of styles",[44] and Ian Gittins wrote in their book The Periodic Table of Heavy Rock:[45]when Mike Patton replaced [Chuck Mosley] ... FNM had all the standard hard-rock assault weapons of seizure-like rhythms, chugging guitar detonations and seismic drumming in their arsenal, but accessorized them with wildly eclectic influences from hip hop to synth pop and a brutally sarcastic sense of black humour.The album was highly praised by The Dillinger Escape Plan frontman Greg Puciato[46] as well as most members of Korn, including Jonathan Davis,[47] Brian "Head" Welch and James "Munky" Shaffer.