TS: Curve's "Horror Head" vs. Garbage's entire discography

I revisit Curve about every year and a half like clockwork and each time I get a little weak in the knees.

Doppelganger was the first compact disc I ever bought just as I was getting ready to go off to college with a brand new cd player.

If it was Toni Halliday's earwax + Dean Garcia's toenail clippings vs Garbage's entire discography, it would still be a landslide victory for Curve.

As I so eloquently stated on the Curve C/D:

God fucking bless Curve and may he take a glistening divine piss on those who suggest that no good music came out of the 1990's.

barry OTM on Gift's worthiness. also search the song 'My Tiled White Floor'.

Just put on Pubic Fruit to hear 'Coast Is Clear'. oh man, the BASS. yum.

Not that I could live without Curve, either, but if you're honestly going to say that "Only Happy When It Rains", "Milk", "I Think I'm Paranoid", "You Look So Fine" or "Cherry Lips" sounds like Curve, you're an idiot. Where, really, is this Garbage-copied-curve meme COMING FROM?

And the last two Curve albums are a bit skimpy (tho still some classics, i.e. "Want More Need Less", "Recovery", etc).

Weirdly Curve's bassline-centricity might be the reason for their lack of commercial success cos it doesn't sound so good on the radio.

Saw Curve play in St. Andrews University in the early 90's (the gig was originally meant to have been played at Fat Sams in Dundee but was was too small to accomodate their sound system apparently) and they were pretty good. I've never seen so many people manage to get up on stage and stagedive into the crowd. One particularly arrogant and unattractive tosser tried to grab Toni Halliday while she was singing - she recoiled angrily but managed to snarl "Fuck Off!" into her mic at the same time. I wished she'd kneeled him in the balls and thrown him off the stage.

From Butch Vig's own mouth.

*weeps* But I forgive you. (Spencer: "I have done nothing to be forgiven for!") ;-)

...but she's no Toni Halliday.

It may have had some truth at the time he said it, but they've long since moved in another direction. True, that direction isn't as enjoyable, but the fact remains that all the songs with shoe-gazey, wall-of-fuzzy guitars are all on the first album, and they're a minority at that - apart from "Subhuman", only "My Lover's Box", "Dog New Tricks" and "As Heaven Is Wide" are even remotely Curve-esque, maybe the vocals on "A Stroke Of Luck" are vaguely a bit like Toni's, or at least sound like that was what was being aimed for. But aside from that....

But it would be more conclusive if someone who had never heard Garbage but HAD heard Curve confused the two. Garbage being the most successful band to use some of those textures means that if you don't know Curve, you'd guess them.

Toni and Shirley even have similar belting registers.

I like Curve a lot more, possibly because when their lyrics ARE stupid I can't understand them. The Garbage song from the Romeo and Juliet soundtrack is outstanding, though.

Toni by contrast doesn't do glammed-up very well, at least not on her albums up to Come Clean (I haven't heard anything after that cos I can never find it, but the attempts at extroversion on that album are its weakest component). The appeal of her vocals for me is how she melts into the aggression of the groove, becoming a part of it and speaking from it rather than standing apart from it as some sort of individual persona.

This fundamental distinction then flows into a difference in the music, especially on Version 2.0 which is Garbage's most interesting statement if not necessarily better than the debut. What's utterly apparent about Version 2.0 is just how much effort was spent on making everything sound so precise and clear - you can hear the interaction of the hundreds of different sounds at work like incredibly intricate clockwork. Shirley's bag of stylistic affectations (The Beach Boys on "Push It" for example) is a part of it - these songs are shiny assemblages, a world away from the dark organicism of Curve's work even though superficially very similar. Even when Curve are incorporating electronics, such attempts work best at their most swamplike or miasmic, a heavy pall wherein the lines between sounds cannot clearly be discerned.

Some of you will read this and think "Yeah, that's part of why Curve roxor Garbage suxor", but I think these two approaches are both very interesting and enticing; and, if anything, Garbage's approach is rarer in rock songs, or at least harder to do well - as evidenced by the singles for the third album, which prevented me from ever buying it (maybe the problem with stuff like "Androgny" and "Cherry Lips" is that they're assemblages that don't really function in any manner, they're more like pieces of mixed media than machines).

Perhaps the key assessment. The 'do well' success rate for Garbage is where we will have to part. ;-) Garbage were sure as hell aiming for what you describe (thus the airplane video -- the band worshipped the idea of an ultimate precision, a wargame 'deploy' attitude) but to my mind, and for all the overdone "IT'S BUTCH VIG THE HYPERPRODUCER OMG WTF HE CAN'T FAIL" rhetoric at the time, which I got sick of *really* quick, where Garbage wasn't Curve they were third album Jesus Jones, an overcooked experiment that tried to be 'the future' but shouted it so loud that I couldn't help but think of the past they couldn't escape. The song that bugged me the most they ever did was the frickin' Big Star cover.

I'd also suggest the live Garbage experience -- which I saw when the band opened for them Smashing Pumpkins -- resulted in far more of a blurring than the studio experience, while at the same time the live Curve experience was more precise than the studio, based on catching them at various points in the early nineties.

Your Jesus Jones comparison is a palpable hit, but Version 2.0's brand of futurism reminds me more of Depeche Mode circa Violator, only going in the opposite direction (the first Garbage perhaps being like Songs of Faith & Devotion). Shirley is very much the female Dave Gahan in a lot of ways.

I so don't blame you. (I actually did know Shirley Manson's work already through Goodbye Mr. Mackenzie AND Angelfish -- said Angelfish album wasn't great but it was attractively dark at points.)

The Depeche comparison's an interesting one, and both singers are trying to be the 'human' voice in the machine in a self-conscious sense. I'd say though that Garbage didn't have a certain, shall we say, strength of conviction -- my annoyance with the Big Star cover, for instance, isn't simply because I don't think it's an inspired version (it isn't but to be fair the original isn't a strong favorite either), but also what it felt like it represented, a declaration of "see, we respect our rockist roots, like us PLEEEEZE!" Pandering, I would call it! Meanwhile, at the time of Violator, Martin Gore was saying -- tongue in cheek, it should be noted! -- that guitars would always have a place in cabaret, and the amount of ill will that generated in some corners was terribly amusing, and telling.

There are definitely fabulous songs on the third album though, "Parade", "Can't Cry These Tears", "Cup Of Coffee" and as far as their attempts to incorporate R&B/pop-stuttering beats, "Untouchable" is dead-on - Missy Elliott was supposed to do a remix of that. And their live show was great despite them not playing ANY of those four songs when I saw them.

I'm not saying Garbage aren't equally rockist - there's a strong sense on occasions that their dance-leanings are the equivalent of a Grand Tour through the Colonies - but that I think in both bands this tendency can exhibit itself rather favourably.

It gets into a question of intent versus end product that would actually be well worth the turning over. Not sure if my brain is up for something detailed right now, but I'd argue these days that Songs' implicit point is the idea that what is 'rockist' is open to reconstruction and replication rather than recreation by 'rote' -- a work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction if there was one. A number of underrated moments on the album -- I'm thinking of "The Mercy in You" in particular -- exhibit as much of the stated 'interaction of the hundreds of different sounds' as you claim for Garbage later, in a very precise and specific way. Garbage in contrast makes me think of a blender rather than a point by point blueprint.

Perhaps a telling point, now that I think about it, might be the fact that the album's "In Your Room" was remixed for single release by Mr. Vig, about a year before Garbage officially surfaced. The original album mix is centered around first keyboards then rhythms -- drum and bass (not THAT drum and bass ;-) ) provide the core. Vig's remix added a new descending guitar melody as well as a piano part that he created. I'm not fond of the remix, that part always feels imperfectly integrated, an overt "HERE'S your rock and roll, dammit" move on the part of Vig. That said, Depeche themselves play the remix version now live exclusively, after only playing the album mix back in 1993 and 1994. ;-)

I know what you mean re "World In My Eyes", but it's a fairly sparse track compared to the stuff on Version 2.0 (not by most other standards). "In Your Room" meanwhile is my favourite track on Songs..., sometimes my favourite Depeche Mode song ever. I suspect though that Vig's head was in a very different place in '98 to where it was in '93, even if we can contribute most of Garbage's creative decisions to him (which I doubt).

Your point is taken, but what to me always amuses/bemuses me about the confessionalism on that album (and that time) is that it's still Martin's songwriting and Dave's singing -- a mediation, not a disruptive one (in fact a perfect one all in all over time) but all the more interesting in that Dave now sees himself as having played out a role there as a 'rock star' in the whole experience but that he wasn't 'himself' -- ripped out on drugs, etc. -- and it wasn't 'his' words he was singing (and Martin himself has said he's rarely if ever written a song specifically about Dave at any point -- "Barrel of a Gun" is one of the exceptions, for instance). Rockism as elaborate staged-self-management? Even the title of the album is both heartfelt and strangely bald. Whereas I've never really sensed anything quite so involved in the dynamics in Garbage.

I know what you mean re "World In My Eyes"

Er? (I had mentioned "The Mercy in You," not "World," fine though that is.)

I suspect though that Vig's head was in a very different place in '98 to where it was in '93

Indeed -- but lord, not appealing to me, not at all. Shifting arena rock reference points -- but perhaps not all that much -- there was a great review of the U2 smugosities of the 92-93 endless tour in mid-93 MM that talked about how while watching the show you could think "wow, modernist overload! the present and future!" but that if you turned around and faced the audience and just heard the music and watched the crowd, it was boring ol' stadium rock. The comparison is not exact (my Jesus Jones point cuts more to the heart of it) but in a similar way Garbage EVEN AT their most 'modern' wasn't interlocking machinery but careful misdirection, hoping son et lumiere (the videos, the 'image') would place them somewhere else from where they were at. Depeche, as I note with Songs, engaged similarly, they put on a song and dance -- but where they were aiming at was a perceived and classic past, only to find they couldn't not be Depeche, in fact were constructing from the ground up in a manner almost more akin to the Young Gods, 'classic' rock reapplied. Now THAT worked for me, but Garbage was a Typical Rock Band that aimed at a bright and shiny future and failed for me, a hyperpop that -- to its credit -- wanted to will itself into existence on its own. Except Max Martin and Timbaland and more then reset the goalposts, and the future became instantly dated. I note Edward O argues for an attempt to redirect on that third album, but I have my doubts.

Plus Version 2.0 better for dancing

I remember one break that seemed all right from the singles. I know you're the dancer, Tim ;-) but in terms of me thinking something actually seemed danceable, I must disagree.

Curve was the more 'rockist' band: see the studio photos in the Cuckoo booklet, where the only gear that seems to be piled up are ragged guitars and effects pedals. Live, they were a conventional rockband, albeit with effects pedals and such.

Not sure of my point, but I thought of the comparison looking at Cuckoo just now. As glam as Shirley got, on most of V.2.0 she sounded like a robot. It was good robot pop, but it was, at the end, robot pop, even the lovely Kate Bush-nicking song.

x-post I agree with Ned re: Songs. there's more going on than simple rockism.

But Tim's not arguing for that being an intrinsically bad or limiting thing! Rather it's a fine thing that can exist on its own like anything else. I'd say that my response isn't that it's 'good robot pop' that unfortunately can't escape being 'robot pop,' rather that it's unsuccessful at being robot pop, and as a result doesn't move me much -- sure would be nice if it did!

This all said, the 'robot' term is making me think there's more to unpack in the later parts of the band's existence in terms of a weird connection to La Brit. That said, I would still much rather listen to Curve. ;-)

I meant "Mercy In You" up there btw.

"Whereas I've never really sensed anything quite so involved in the dynamics in Garbage."

Yeah but I'm not sure Garbage ever really tried to imply they were "authentic" rock in the meaning-it sense - or if they did they were hopelessly unconvincing! If anything it took ages for rock fans to see it as any more than a Butch Vig production plant (which is a nice example of how rockism and tangled and intertwined - are Garbage more or less credible if Butch Vig is considered the "mastermind" of the band rather than Shirley Manson?)

x-post - the Britney connection is interesting. I think I've said before that a lot of Version 2.0 sounds to me like Max Martin rock (although specifically more like his later tougher material eg. "Stronger" rather than either "Backstreet's Back" or the actual Max Martin rock of "It's My Life).

I'd disagree with the idea that Shirley's more robotic than Toni - in fact one of the major points of distinction between Version 2.0 and Come Clean for me is that Toni fails to execute her newfound and perhaps Shirley-inspired capacity to be emotional or aggressive (the best tracks on that album are the ones that sound most old-school Curve eg. "Alligators Getting Up"). Garbage's roboticism is primarily musical, and this extends to the stylistic affectations in Shirley's vocals but not, I think, to her performances as a whole. Her performance on "You Look So Fine", for example, has always struck me as astonishingly affecting (cf. affected), assembling a collection of stock-standard lyrical and thematic tactics into a whole that is surprisingly vivid and allusive. Her delivery of the couplet "You look so fine/I'm like a desert tonight" especially - an amazing intensification of a range of emotions (love/lust/hatred/self-hatred) to create something shadowy and multivalent, full of potential implications.

Whereas whatever the calculation with Shirley's performances, I think she's very successful at inhabiting the persona she's chosen for the song at hand; whatever the intra-group politics she feels like she owns the songs.

Again, blankness vs persona aren't qualitative distinctions, just distinctions.

Ah, but who IS 'us'? We might have to speak in terms of generational divides (now hopefully I'm on the right side ;-)). I think as well you're slightly underselling a point I'm perhaps not making cohesively, or else perhaps I'm missing the intent of what you're saying, but either way -- there is much more going on in Songs that simply a matter of overlay (rock with beats, etc.). It's an endlessly fussed-over album of obsessive placement of EVERYTHING, and my Young Gods comparison -- while not, I think, a specific actual reference point for the band's work -- is trying to hint at the idea that a whole slew of elements from 'classic rock' as such, plus other sources, has been pulverized and reassembled by Alan Wilder and Flood almost without reference to the rest of the band. Tim Simenon is no less obsessive and precise on Ultra, but Songs is more overtly the grand experiment (and this perhaps takes it back to the point you make about Vig's work on 2.0).

Yeah but I'm not sure Garbage ever really tried to imply they were "authentic" rock in the meaning-it sense - or if they did they were hopelessly unconvincing! If anything it took ages for rock fans to see it as any more than a Butch Vig production plant (which is a nice example of how rockism and tangled and intertwined - are Garbage more or less credible if Butch Vig is considered the "mastermind" of the band rather than Shirley Manson?)

They and their company played the game, that's for sure. The lead review of the first album in Rolling Stone was not by accident (and it would be interesting to see what the text/pitch of that review was). To be utterly honest I never *didn't* see them as a rock band, but it might help to think of it as a rock band in an American sense with a VERY American forebear -- specifically, Tom Scholz and Boston. Vig following in that line of descent makes a certain more 'intrinsic' (I use the word incautiously perhaps) sense, around here at least -- a band AND an uberproducer, not simply a 'production plant.'

(And with that I'm out for the moment, I need to get some sleep!)

I really liked V. 2.0 initially, but I got bored of it in a couple years. I'm going to listen to it b/w Come Clean tomorrow, and think about this.

Oh I totally agree with this Ned, and if anything I was saying Under Construction over Deliverance because I think the former is much more immaculately thought out conceptually as well as sonically (in terms of the way in which actual old-skool production and up-to-date Timbaland production are intertwined so carefully) whereas Deliverance is more about an audacious gesture whose success is actually partly based in its novelty. I love a lot of the arrangements on Deliverance but, title track excepted, once you strip off the surface level country-affectations the grooves aren't actually that atypical.

I think Under Construction also holds up as a better point of comparison because it has Missy associating herself with music that is often tied up with authenticity (Jurassic 5-style golden age boosterism) but doing it in such a way that its authenticity and seriousness is brought into question even though it feels very sincere. Which is a lot like what you're claiming for DM's relationship with rock I think.

And yeah, the production on Songs... is really impressive (though I mostly prefer the sheen of Ultra I admit).

But we've wandered off topic a bit!

"Horor Head" is quite wonderful (although it's been at least five years since I've heard it), btw.

Heheh. I admit I just spent a few minutes rereading the whole thing. Mr. Finney ist rad, no contest.

I miss old-ILM. :(

We're around, we're just more contemplative these days.

I like Curve. They are good. I like Garbage. They are good.

All that "rockist" stuff makes my head spin, to be honest.

And when I look up "rockist" on Wikipedia, what do I see -- a quote from Ned!

It's a plot.

What the hell, man? I'd never heard of you before I came to ILM, and now you're everywhere!

A lot of what Tim said about Version 2.0 found an echo in a recent blog post on that Garbage comp...

The original question still strikes me as an interesting one. The significant difference between Garbage and Curve's work is how brief mass popularity made the composite parts of which Garbage's music was composed all the more glaring -- and striking, in THAT context. Insofar as Garbage served a `purpose,' it was, in 1996-98, an invaluable one: injecting a hybrid of the Exotic (shoegaze, goth) and the Feminine when the Pumpkins were in between albums.

Like I said, Jeff, it's a plot!

IT'S FREAKING ME OUT!

JOIN THE HIVE MIND

I'm sort of afraid to ask what Feminine injection the Pumpkins provided when it was their turn at bat...

eyeliner, nail polish, and an album called Adore.

Oh right.

I think Garbage's discography holds up fairly well. First album had some great singles, second album flowed well the whole way through, third album was spotty but had some good songs, fourth album was surprisingly solid, and they had a bunch of good besides. I only have Cuckoo and Gift from Curve, though, so I don't know if I can compare very well.

(b-sides)

Christ, Tim and I *were* on a roll there five years back. Tim can I guest on the TV show sometime?

We've already shot the last episode... unless a bigger tv station decides they want to invest in another season. But otherwise... sure!

Too kind! (Now to get back down there!)

Horror Head x several million, & since we could be talking about either the song itself or the EP, I'd rate all four tracks over Garbage's entire discog, esp. "Mission from God," one of their best non-LP tracks (which is saying A LOT)

Hahah, wait, are you me? That's almost exactly the answer I would give. (In fact I probably already did on this thread.)

Why didn't they play this when I say them in 1992? They were touring for Doppelganger & they didn't play THIS SONG! - not that the show was in any way dud, mind. But still.. wtf?

Love it whenever this thread gets revived.

I'm not likely to forget Curve. I saw them in Nottingham in 1991 (wind machine and all) and got my leg so violently crushed in the melee at the front that I still have reduced sensation in my left thigh to this day. Weeks of physiotherapy, some dubious ultrasound treatment and it still plays up in winter like an old war wound.

But it was worth almost 20 years of nagging pain, right?

I have only recently rediscovered the Aphex Twin Remix.

Now, normally those three words would strike fear into the heart of any music lover, but in this case...

WOW. Two great tastes that go great together.

Looking forward to the Curve reunion tour in a few years...

*crossing fingers*

I have only recently rediscovered the Aphex Twin Remix.

Now, normally those three words would strike fear into the heart of any music lover, but in this case...

WOW. Two great tastes that go great together.

Isn't this supposed to be the remix where Aphex just grabbed a tape of something he'd made and handed it to the record company at the last minute because he'd totally forgotten to actually do a remix?

No, that was the Lemonheads "remix" (never officially released)

The Falling Free remix is actually based around a really beautiful and haunting sample of Toni's voice. Doesn't sound anything like Curve, but it could be a lost track from SAW.

Been listening to 26 Mixes For Cash and his early remixes (of which this is one) he actually seemed to bother quite a lot more making something out of the tracks.

Here it is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9rwitb4sOM

Just wanted to pop in here to defend garbage. I likee Curve a lot, but Garbage has the big, tasty, and immediate hooks that Curve lacked to an extent. Like, "Only Happy When It Rains" lodged itself in my head the first time I heard it, which is more than I can say for anything by Curve. Garbage also had a lot of personality, mostly courtesy of Manson, and I think that's why they probably succeeded commercially where Curve didn't. I'll always love the first two Garbage records.

big, tasty, and immediate hooks that Curve lacked

Does not compute...

I can see what Jeff's saying, there's a (shall we say) radio friendly shine to a lot of Garbage stuff where Curve were about stun-level murk where the hooks sink in more after the first blast.

Yes, but they both have hooks. Radio friendly shine and hooks are by no means found only in tandem.

There's radio shine and then there's polishing a turd.

Give me Curve's gloriously moody and broody murk any day.

Like I said upthread, great bunch of posts over the years.

I've noticed, to my dismay, that there's no mention of Scylla, the band Toni Halliday fronted during Curve's 1994-96 hiatus. The demo's for their album Helen's Face have emerged.

Er, the demos for their album, title unknown, have emerged. Recorded by Flood and Alan Moulder.

I have to wonder, is the antipathy towards Garbage based more on the quality of the band or because you guys heard Curve first and then were (understandably) angry when a band that sounded similar/derivative started showing up everywhere and achieved huge success?

How dare you say that! BTW has anyone noticed that Interpol rips off Joy Division?

I always thought they ripped off the Chameleons iirc (albeit very poorly).

Btw, has anyone noticed that Ned Raggett stole all the lyrics on his π album from the Greek letter π (pi)??

EXPOSED!!!!!!!!

Bastard.

My point exactly. ;-)

Thanks for the link to those Scylla demos. Was always curious.

Coincidentally, THIS just went up yesterday: http://www.chatelainemusic.com/

The new 9-song album is streaming, with two bonus remixes. I think you can download it too.

I eventually deleted those Scylla demos. Nothing particularly grabbed me.

I now quite like Garbage but yeah, as said above, I hated them for most of the 90's for having ripped off "my" band. Also felt like this towards NIN for most of the 90's. Ahhh youth....

I saw Scylla live in '95 - they were pretty good. I was a big Curve fan at the time and I never got to see them live, still haven't.

Looking forward to listening to the Scylla demos! Thx...

They're, erm, *very* mid-90s sounding.

this song turns my eyeballs inside out

:D

"Laugh until we cryyyyyyyyyyyyy"

horror head, great song or greatest song?

Some days, greatest song.

Some all days, greatest song

http://curve.bandcamp.com/

oh well that's awesome

And while yes, Toni Halliday is amazing, Dean Garcia's brilliant production goes virtually unmentioned. Here's his new band, spc eco, with his daughter on vocals. http://spceco.bandcamp.com/

What DJP said.

aaaaand http://roseberlin.bandcamp.com/

Song titles of the goddamn year.

liking this ..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Cv80PqI58Q&feature=youtu.be&noredirect=1

oh, and there is a "90s influenced PigGYfUcK Mix"

Nice but a bit pointless really

love rereading the first part of this thread

Funny how structurally similar the "Garbage are inferior copies of Curve" mantra is to the "Tori Amos is an inferior copy of Kate Bush" orthodoxy.

Perhaps that's why I find hammering at both so irresistible.

Also this thread is 11 and a half years old, what happened to my youth ;_;

Also: the new Garbage single rocks.