Perfectly average. This crap is so obviously geared towards radio success and nothing more, it kind of pains me to review them alongside all the other actual BANDS of which I'm so very fond, but dammit, every once in a while a fellow's gotta touch base with his generation, no matter how embarrasingly misguided one's generation might be. Garbage is the studio creation of Killdozer catalog and Nevermind producer Butch Vig (I guess he produced some other albums too, but they were probably all as mediocre as this one), who, I must admit, certainly does have that sterile bullshit '90s production down pat - for all I know, he invented it!!!
But Butch's studio savvy ain't the main draw here, of course. No sir, not nary a unit would have sold had he not recruited sex kitten tease dominatrix whatever Shirley Manson to head up the band and give frat guys boners. What does she actually look like? Who knows? MTV can make anyone look young and sexy (that butt-ugly No Doubt girl, for example). How does she actually think? Who knows? Butch wrote all the lyrics for her!! (So the rumor goes, anyway). This is all nonsense. You buy into this crap, you're a fool. All four of the singles, or what I believe to be the singles ("Queer," "Only Happy When It Rains," "Vow," and "Stupid Girl") are really catchy in a dark club dancey kinda way, as is a great fifth song, "As Heaven Is Wide," which grooves along menacingly like old Nitzer Ebb, but the rest of the album sounds like Madonna outtakes. Really drab dull slow lifeless alternative indecencies. You don't need this kind of entertainment. I'll admit that I haven't really kept up with today's hot popular sounds of youth, so let me know if I'm wrong here, but if Garbage is typical of the kind of greed-driven drivel (or "dribble," as many a bright AC/DC fan has referred to my Ballbreaker review as, as) that MTV is shoving down the pancrei of image-hungry kids these days, it's no dang wonder that the music industry is in the toilet.
Oh, I forgot. The lyrics are shit, too. All the sorts of sultry angry young things that Butch would have his non-existent dream girl say ("I came to put you up/I came to knock you down/I came around to tear your little world apart"). Oh, I don't know. I could be way off. It could be from the point of view of an abusive husband for all I know. How much attention do you expect me to pay to this crap anyway? I've got Cows to listen to, thanks!!!! In conclusion, let me just stress once again that I have no need for music that panders shamelessly to an alternative nation of idiot kids so blinded by MTV's laughably prefabricated image of what it means to be "cool" that they'll buy ANYTHING AT ALL if the band looks young and hip and smokes rebellious cigarettes in the video and has a glossy dancey sound designed to pander shamelessly to an... - Hey, I just wrote myself into a circle! Let me apologize. I'm not a very good writer.
But hey! Neither is Butch Vig!!!
OK, the Garbage disc is processed-pat-ready-for-consumption-market-aimed poo, but it's got a good beat and you can dance to it. All right, I admit it: I just like Shirley Manson. Everything else about this band can piss off.
The 2nd one Version 2.0 is a must buy. 10/10 for that one!
That being said, I think that "I Think I'm Paranoid" and especially "Special" are two of the best songs ever written, and I will never get sick of them. But "When I Grow Up"? I appeciate the fact that such a gloomy band tries to be poppy, but why do it on such a gross song? Listen to the Cure's later albums - they were putting out pop hits at the same time as being "gothic", but those songs were all really pleasant - which is to say they don't make me want to vomit.
Oh, just thought I'd let you all know - as much as I enjoy "Special" it is a complete rippoff (or at least an obvious imitation) of one of rock's finest women - Chrissie Hynde! Everything about the song is so blatant - Shirley's vocals, the olde-style melody, even the quote "talk of the town" at the end - and the ahead of beat "looking for love" - and the standard C to Am chord progression - Hell, it's virtually a lost Pretenders song!
And if you doubt me, check out VH1's "100 Greatest Women Of Rock" - Shirley's all over Chrissie! So, it should be obvious that she's just a little posuer - and one who doesn't even look good anymore. Have you seen her lately - with that stupid slick-back ponytail? Ugh!
As for Version 2.0, well, Mark, you really need to have an official review of this one--it came out over a year ago. If you refuse to buy it for yourself, then get someone else to contribute a review instead. Anyway, my own take is that I liked it at first, but I'm liking it less as time goes on. "I Think I'm Paranoid," "Special," and "Wicked Ways" are my favorites, and "When I Grow Up" is catchy as all hell despite being a pretty stupid song. Some of the others are good, but side two drags quite a bit. Overall I'd probably give it a 7.
And Prindle, you're apology saddens me.
No, sickens me.
Leaves me questioning life.
You know, shirley's into that urination thing? wants a guy to "pee in her bellybutton" as she elegantly put it.
Don't go calling bands sell outs, especially on their debut albums kids. Okay, if the band sells out, go ahead, but make sure they have, right? Garbage selling out......
b.t.w.: check out Garbage's great contribution to the "Romeo and Juliet" soundtrack, "#1 crush"
Uh.. and all those early Beatles records you praise weren't? While you're only making an assumption, The Beatles openly admit that those songs were meaningless attempts at hit singles. If you think the songs are crap, fine, but this is a tad hypocritical. However, if what you say is in fact true, then I think it's pretty creative for music that's intended for a mainstream teeny-bopper audience. There's some pretty nifty noises going on there. And the fact that they're still together making another album after poor sales & little backing from their label (from what I've heard), makes me believe they may be an "actual band" after all. Or maybe they're just fulfilling contractual obligations. Whatever... I hated the next two anyway, so I won't defend them too much. But I like this one pretty well.
DOWN WITH WAR! AND SUV'S! AND FLORIDA! AND OHIO! AND EVERYTHING ELSE REMOTELY CONNECTED TO THE STATUS QUO!!! YEAAAH! (Howard Dean intonation)
This album isn't a classic, but it's dang good. The last three or so tracks kinda suck, but the other nine are gravy, and I mean that in a good way. In fact, they're so good, I couldn't tell which were the singles! Fancy that. Which are the singles, by the way?
Come ON, Mark. The '80's were a FAR worse decade than the '90's. You KNOW this.
Good to dance to in a club but don't want to hear any of it outside of one.
For the record, I completely agree with my assessment of Garbage's debut album, so a review by me of their second album would probably be roughly equivalent to what I would say were I to pick up a copy for myself.
Anyway, this album is a bit of the exact same quality as the debut album, except that the band's pretty much abandoned all of their attempts at dancey alt-rock fuzz and have now jumped on the non-existent "dance-pop bandwagon." This is especially evident in songs like "When I Grow Up" (which is apparently featured in the classic Adam Sandler cinematic wonder Big Daddy), the hit "Special" (which supposedly blatantly lifts lines from Pretenders songs, though I'm told it's deliberate) and the opener "Temptation Waits" (a decent tune and one of my four favorites from the album), all of which sound absolutely like they were pulled straight from the debut but with more of a dance beat added. Ha, I bet you forgot I wasn't wearing any pants there underneath all of those blood-sucking leeches! That's called 'passing out drunk in Madagascar'.
Anyway, the album is generally no more consistent than the debut, with the first single "Push It" sporting a terrible "dark" melody and a shitty take-off on a Beach Boys chorus and the closer "You Look So Fine" being a pretty, gentle pop song, but kind of predictable, but other than "Temptation Waits," "I Think I'm Paranoid," "Medication" and "The Trick Is To Keep Breathing," there really isn't much good on here. "Hammering In My Head" is just a horrible, directionless "tough grrl" song, "Medication" and "The Trick Is To Keep Breathing" are special ballads that I just mentioned because they're so good, and "Wicked Ways" tries to set forth a sort of novelty-esque bouncy swingin' feel with westerny guitar swoops, but the hook itself is pretty crappy. "I Think I'm Paranoid," another hit I mentioned earlier because I like it a lot, is actually very decent, but it's kind of just GOOD aside from the awesome "Bend me break me" chorus.
In conclusion, I took Rich Bunnell's review of this album (directly below this one) and simply changed a few words here and there to express my feelings about the album. Unfortunately, I have more to say, so this whole next section will not be repeated below.
This album features tons of neat guitar sounds, synth tones and up-to-the-minute studio production tricks and Shirley DOES have a very pretty voice, but too many of the songs feature one great, unpredictable set of chord changes followed by a couple others that you've heard a jillion times, including in previous Garbage songs. These tracks are mostly DARK dancey songs, with just a few moments of glee and sadness to break up Shirley's bitchy "on the rag of menstruation" mood. The dark negativity sounds a little too Nine Inch Nailsy for me, so I'm much more drawn to the lighter or more sorrowful numbers. Who needs anger in today's England? Look at Margaret Thatcher - can you believe that cunt? Maggie, you fucking cunt! Also, just to let you know where MY head's at, Mr. Person -- "When I Grow Up" makes me want to listen to the Vandals' similar-but-better "An Idea For A Movie," and "Special" features a bass line stolen either from The Beatles' "Taxman" or from one of the 14 songs by The Jam that previously stole that bass line. But believe me -- this isn't the FIRST time I've wanted to hear The Jam thrown in the GARBAGE! Hehe hhehe ehehehee that didn't work.
Garbage? More like RECYCLING, if you ask me! HAHEHAHHEheehehheehe.
CHRIST! What is this ear-SHIT? Somebody take out the GARBAGE!!!! HEHEHEHE heheheh!!! HEHAHHAOIOOHOHOHOHOHUHUHUHUHHYTHYHY!!!
Come on, give me some more Garbage jokes. I've been waiting by the phone for half an hour.
My overall point - in summation - is that Version 2.0 is a very technologically up-to-date and occasionally enjoyable album, but the band's songwriting remains really hit-your-miss. As a music fan who's heard over a dozen albums in my life, I would say I honestly REALLY LIKE four of these songs, enjoy PARTS of four others and actively fucking DESPISE the remaining four. But the whole world likes a good joke, so let me end with this: What is the best time of day to go to the dentist?
2:30!!!! HAHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH~~~~
Oh wait, I didn't explain why it was funny. If you say "2:30" out loud, it sounds like you're saying "Tooth Hurty." HAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!! AHAHHHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!
I told that joke to my family dentist and he laughed so hard he nearly bit my dick in half!
Anyway, this album is a bit of an improvement over the debut album, in that the band's pretty much abandoned all of their attempts at dancey alt-rock fuzz and now jump on the dance-pop bandwagon. This is especially evident in songs like "When I Grow Up"(featured in the Sandler-by-numbers Big Daddy), the hit "Special"(which rather blatantly lifts lines from Pretenders songs, though it's deliberate) and the opener "Temptation Waits"(an incredibly well-produced tune and my favorite from the album), all of which sound absolutely nothing like anything from the debut. Ha, I bet you forgot there was a sentence there underneath all of those parenthetical thingies! That's called bad writing.
Anyway, the album is generally more consistent than the debut, with the first single "Push It" sporting a superb arrangement and a lifted Beach Boys chorus and the closer "You Look So Fine" being equally well-written, but other than those two songs and the three I mentioned earlier, there really isn't much good on here. "Hammering In My Head" is just a horrible, directionless mess of a song, "Medication" and "The Trick Is To Keep Breathing" are nothing-special ballads, and "Wicked Ways" tries to set forth a sort of garage-y guitar rock vibe, but it just ends up sounding dull. "I Think I'm Paranoid," another hit, is actually somewhat decent, but it's kind of annoying aside from the "Bend me break me" chorus.
In conclusion, Garbage are still a faceless studio creation and Shirley Manson is not hot.
Version 2.0 on the other hand is an album of well crafted alternative pop/rock music. I bought it after hearing the songs "Push It" and "Special" and it turned out to be one of my favorite albums.
"Temptation Waits" is the first song on the album and it sets the pace, eerie lyrics driven by industrialized rhythms. "I Think I'm Paranoid" is the sound of Shirley Manson screaming at the voices in her head to shut up while "Special" lifts lines from the Pretenders ("I thought you were special" and "We're the talk of the town") for an upbeat pop song. "When I Grow Up" is also poppy but has a hint of uneasiness beneath the surface while "Medication" recalls "Queer" but is waaay better while "Push It" is the best of the Garbage songs that became hits. Other great songs include "Sleep Together", "You Look So Fine" and "The Trick Is To Keep Breathing"
Overall one of the few really great records of 1998 and while I wouldn't quite give it a 10 a definite 9 while suffice.
And I'd like to bang Shirley in the ass!
(various sounds from my Louisville Slugger smashing both CDs)
WHOA YEAH DESTROY! SMASH IT! YEAH YEAH! THROW IT IN THE GARBAGE! YEAH!
Antimatter rules.
Although, at this writing, I have yet to hear Version 2.0 to verify that it's not comparable to Slayer's classic Reign In Blood LP, I still maintain that no other band's name has ever been more appropriate than the Rossington/Collins Band. NO WAIT A FUC
This music is garbage. Expertly-produced state-of-the-art audio with absolutely zero in the way of new musical ideas. Shirley Manson still has a nice singing voice and Butch Vig still knows how to plunder the studio for novelty effects that will make the disc sound dated as hell in three years, but most of the boring songs are pretty much unredeemable, especially with yucky yuckity yuck yucky tracks like "Androgynous" and "Untouchable" stealing tired guitar-sampling effects and irritating effiminate synth bloops from Madonna's last album, Pink's first album, J. Lo and every other weak-kneed urban r'n'b rap artist out there doing nothing new.
What happened to the BALLS of "I'm Only Happy When It Rains?" and "I'm Gonna Tear Your Little World Apart" and whatnot? There is no riot grrrrl attitude to this thing at ALL. Besides the disgusting modern-r'n'b crap, this disc is filled with nothing ballads, laughably bad show-offy electronics effect dance songs and these distorted brapps that pretend to be rock songs before abruptly shifting into the same old fake drum-driven pbbbbbbblll.
The HIGH points: The '60sy Phil Spector sound of "Can't Cry These Tears," the '60s-sounding "Little Black Egg"-style arpeggiated guitar line from the chorus of "'Til The Day That I Die," the sampled double-guitar funk riff of "Silence Is Golden" which certainly seems to be slightly ripped off from Wings' "Let Me Roll It," but you don't hear me complaining - that's the only thing I like about the song!, the pretty acoustic + delayed electric clean romantic sad guitars in "Drive You Home," that wickedass "smacking-the-drum-stick-against-the-strings" intro and catchy chorus to "Parade" and -- THE ONLY SONG ON THE ALBUM THAT I WOULD HONESTLY SAY I LIKE ALL THE WAY THROUGH -- "Breaking Up The Girl." That's a nice little song for my money. Good little melody, pretty guitar/synth wash -- the chorus would even have fit in on their first CD! Otherwise the CD is worthless. You can't even stare longingly at the Shirley Manson photo because she looks about 55 now - BLEARGH! I wish she had better material though, because seriously she's one of the VERY few female vocalists whose voice and singing style I honestly like. Off the top of my head, the only other one I can think of is that ridiculous screaming girl from that band DIRT that was on Crass's label. I love how she would yell like she was angry and then all of a sudden her voice would jump to a really high SQUEAK! to make it clear that the whole thing was just a joke to her. It's too bad that D'Arcy never sang on any of the Smashing Pumpkins albums. Because I mean her wicked bass playing MADE that band.
Does anybody still care about Garbage anyway? Do they still have hits? Are they still able to whitewash Shirley's face in the videos enough to make her seem young and attractive? Come on, you're my only barometer to the modern sounds of radio. I don't LISTEN to the shit! How do you expect me to keep up with today's hits when I'm constantly buying such classics on ebay as the entire Judas Priest catalog and Just Good Old Rock And Roll by The New Improved Electric Prunes?
You know, I kinda liked this one at first, but the more I listen to it the more it sounds like a collection of faceless, manufactured slop. Maybe all you guys were right about them after all. Shirley Manson is in her usual form (vindictive) on the first track, the monolithic "Shut Your Mouth." Second follows the paleolithic "Androgyny," marking the third album in a row that G-bage has batted a major single second in the ol' lineup. Wasn't that confusing because of the dual meaning of the word "single"? Ha! That's called Semiotics.
Okay, actually I don't know what semiotics are. But you should, given the importance of obscure linguistics jargon to today's academic milieu. Who knows where postmodern poststructuralist thought would be without hermeneutics and the ever-important praxis? Somebody fetch me a phoneme.
The breakdown of the 21st-century intellectual agenda is clearly demonstrated by tracks such as "Can't Cry These Tears" and "Til The Day I Die," both of which blithely attempt to revivify mummified sociocontextual metaforms but succeed only in sucking the numerous dingleberries from my rectum. Garbage continues to live down to their name with the morose yet lugubrious "Cup of Coffee" and the charmingly stupid "Silence is Golden." Meanwhile, "Cherry Lips" could use some chapstick. (That is, unless it's about Shirley's vagina, in which case you can count me in.) (And call me Al.)
The album reaches its apotheosis with the twin tracks "Breaking Up the Girl" and "Parade," the latter obviously borrowing its name from the 1920 ballet by French composer Erik Satie. These tracks are vintage Garbage, so to speak. They both feature nice pop melodies and an earnestness that is lacking from the other selections. "Parade," in particular, almost reminds me of early U2 in this respect, as strange as that sounds.
No stranger than a piano eating hay, however, as the remaining tracks eagerly prove. "Untouchable" reaches new levels of non-obscurity and musical stagnation, while "So Like A Rose" makes me so like to apply pimple cream to my posterior. But "Drive You Home" is slightly better, even if it actually isn't, and "Nobody Loves You" was dedicated to your Mom.
And now that I have mentioned all the tracks, the circle is complete, and I am a "record reviewer." Give it five little concentric circles, for the record. In the meantime, I'm off to reify the pluralistic cultural codes ingrained in my pancreas. Call me when it's time for dinner.
And if I ever have to look at Shirley Manson's shitty face again I will retch. She looks like Gary Numan in drag.
Much to my surprise, Beautifulgarbage is even worse than i expected... "Androgyny" is a god awful attempt at a hit single, with that "boys"... "girls" thing in the background being probably the most annoying thing ive heard since any Pumpkins song where the music stops and Billy starts talking fast (Zero, Everlasting Gaze, both otherwise fine songs). The rest of the album is equally lame. Everybody reading this, go buy some Curve albums instead. 3/10 for this and Bleed Like Me.
As Cincinnati's The Hives will be the first to tell you, "Garage" is BACK -- and this time it has a "b" in the middle! (and it doesn't play garage rock). Yes, Shirley Manson has brought her band back to the studio for another fuzzy effects-processed glimpse into the world of big obvious emotion-manipulating chord sequences geared towards teenagers. Her voice holds up as well as always, but the riffs are so obvious, it's almost like Butch Vig doesn't have any talent.
If you thought the Pixies invented songs that have quiet verses and loud choruses, think again because Garbage use that trick all over this long-awaited follow-up to 2001's critically acclaimed, Grammy-award winning Album Not Recorded By Garbage. Not only that, but this uber-nu hot sounds LP eloquently transfuses that classic "Shitty Garbage Sound" with the AIDS-infected musical blood of such disparate subgenres as '70s David Bowie glam rock ("Bad Boyfriend"), early '90s Seattle Grunge explosion ("Why Do You Love Me," a terrible song and the album's first single), Beat Happening/Unrest bubble-sensitive youth pop ("Bleed Like Me"), ELOwsome strings-and-a-dance-beat ("Metal Heart"), soap opera piano balladry ("It's All Over But The Crying"), electro-dance ("Boys Wanna Fight"), deer ticks (the singer's cunny), and the Smashing Pumpkins' "1979" ("Run Baby Run"). With all such responsible influences, how can the album but fail to lose?
Garbage's disposable pop has its place in the world, and that place is in the Garbage Disposal. Which reminds me: If a dog poops on the street and an expensive plastic bag is used as a clean-up device, would you call it a "Bag of Waste" or "Waste of Bag"?
Put more succinctly, how naive would a person have to be to buy this CD expecting it to be good? Can you imagine somebody out there noticing this release in the store and picturing him/herself in twenty years going, "Hmm, let's see. Got my Sgt. Pepper's, got my Blonde On Blonde. London Calling, gotta have that. Bleed Like Me, goes without saying. Led Zeppelin IV, Sticky Fingers..."? And believe me, good fuzzy pop music has its place in the world -- laugh though you may, the wife and I are both still huge fans of Ned's Atomic Dustbin's God Fodder, for example -- but Garbage has NEVER been able to carry an entire album. Why do they still exist? For that matter, why does Weezer still exist? Why does Oasis still exist? Do these bands honestly still sell any albums AT ALL?! They just all strike me as "Spin Doctors II," but without the timeless "jam funk band" influences. I mean, I love Shirley Manson's femme fatale voice as much as the next guy, but can't she find a backup band to whom songwriting means more than simply recycling the same exact "post-Nirvana hitmaking formula" over and over again for 55 years in a row?
However, on a more positive note, wouldn't it be awesome if the title track were actually a cover of the Dead Kennedys' "Bleed For Me," but with the word "like" replacing "for"? And the reunited Dead Kennedys replacing the back-up band?
And the album Plastic Surgery Disasters replacing Bleed Like Me? See, if Garbage would just make a few basic concessions like this, I'd give 'em 9s to bustin'!
On a side note, I caught the video for "Grey Cell Green" by Ned's Atomic Dustbin on VH1 classic once, and while the video itself sure made them look like a bunch of trendy dumbasses, that song is catchy as crap! So maybe I should give a cheap copy of God Fodder a shot one of these days, being up there with Monster and Transmissions From The Satelite Heart in the Albums Most Likely To Be Found For Six Dollars In The Used Bin category and all? Heck, I think the only reason I knew of their existence prior to seeing that video is the fact that they had a silly name and there was always a section full of their stuff in used cd stores everywhere.
And comparing this to Weezer and Oasis simply is way off, Oasis was full of ego and vacant of talent, and Weezer carry some lazy guys who try to write fun songs and hang out with the muppets, Shirley Manson is more than that, she's a woman you could be fan of, 'cause in her entire career what you judged as young things and anger was actually her dealing hardly with life, she never coped with fame in they way those other sell-out bands did and yeah I wish she had a better back up band who could carry more than just 5 hits. She's a total waste of talent and probably and probably the best woman singer in rock 'cause I can't remember any other woman in rock more "real" and "artistically ready" than her in case you don't like Janis Joplin. She didn't even thought she was going to be famous, she just loved to make music. And she had a real appreciation for the people who liked her for example what you may think was just a song to play with teen emotions, "Bleed Like Me" carry references to what she went through in her teenage years, trying to reach out for the young people, she dealt with self-mutilation she was not like some sort of idiot pop artist who thinks they know how it hurts. She was anti-MTV selling out the rock like they did in the whole 00's. (So bad that we have NOT a single mainstream valuable rock band and you can't count Radiohead 'cause they're way out of the industry.)
I know you know what goes on in the industry and Shirley Manson was so not compatible with it that Warner totally rejected her solo album effort, I wish some talented band would take her, but mainstream rock is more than dead and with this album another great real artist is gone, I hope not forever, from the mainstream.
The highlights of this album for me are "Bad Boyfriend", "Why Do You Love Me?", "Bleed Like Me", "Metal Heart" and "Sex Is Not The Enemy". All in wich the music more or less can go along with Shirley's beautiful voice. The best of the album is also the vocal melodies, she through all her career in Garbage could make the song sound different 'cause the melodies didn't sound copied from elsewhere like happens in al the 90's.
Well, even though your reviews were not all in all flattering at least you could acknowledge that Shirley's got a nice voice. And that sort of makes justice.
(Correction: I was way too harsh on the band not giving deserved credit to Butch Vig and the guys that pioneered the solid alternative sound Garbage developed. 'Bleed Like Me' is better than I described.)