2.0 garbage version two point poll 2.0

someone made a point in one of the garbage threads that this record is mostly interested in throwing a bunch of sounds at you that you've never heard before, or at least presenting sounds in this shiny, unfamiliar, precise way. every song is shrinkwrapped

The Parallel Lines of the nineties. The supporting tour was marvelous; Manson stretched her vocal chords on a shattering version of "You Look So Fine."

it makes absolutely no sense to me that garbage's 90s music holds up as well in 2013 as it does

Vig understood her strengths. Note how gorgeous those ah-ah-ah harmonies at the end of "Special."

"You Look So Fine" and "Push It" are my favourites. But everything here is great.

She could have so easily made a fool with herself on the breathy monologue in "Hammering in My Head."

exactly and yet it is just the right degree of manic

of course everything about "wicked ways" could be embarrassing but it totally works

It occurs to me that based on the second album it's not Curve who should be up in arms but Ruby - if "Tiny Meat" appeared in the middle of this I wouldn't blink.

1. dumb
2. push it

best garbage song ever is "#1 crush" though

First or second version?

All of Ruby's tricks came from Sugarsmack. xp

I'm voting for "Special".

i didn't know there were two versions! the one on the r+j ost.

xp

I know we're talking about the second album, but I'm not sure they ever created a better song than "Vow". iirc that was their very first single?

i've only ever heard this one retrospectively but surely no one claims the first album doesn't slay it totally?

i think they're about equal

the monolithic production on version 2.0 feels like the apotheosis of a particular style in the way the more varied first one doesn't, and at its peak is more of a powerful (in the sense of pummeling) experience, but tbh the songs on the first album are just better for the most part

Yeah I'd agree with that summary

Hmm....we disagree. Singles aside, Manson sounds tentative on the debut, as if she realized how thin the ice was. What made V 2.0 such a triumph was hearing her equal the force of the band.

i would buy that she's more ~as one~ with the production on 2.0 but i hear no "tentativeness" at all on the debut

'I Think I'm Paranoid'.

I don't like this band and never have.

"You Look So Fine" is maybe their finest song but not necessarily their finest single song, if that distinction makes sense.

The "#1 Crush" on the r&j soundtrack is actually a remix of the original which iirc was a b-side to "Vow".

i had no idea!

i've had to redownload "#1 crush" several times over the years and i've always ended up with the same one, lol

What she's singing on those album tracks -- those vocal melodies -- aren't that compelling (bias: with exceptions, simmering melodramatic Garbage a la "#1 Crush" doesn't hold my attention)? It helps that she contributed far more to the songwriting on the second album.

the first album is "Plug in a female singer, any singer, the hungrier the better"

I need to listen to both of these again to make a proper evaluation.

first album poll is here Garbage - Garbage

think alf is correct in saying that v2 is more like shirley and the garbages but personally the provocative juxtaposition with grunge formalism is exactly what i like about the first (although that's possibly something i treasure more in formative sentiment than i would do now)

but the songs are better too as lex says

"Only Happy When It Rains" is a helluva karaoke track, as some of you may know

hard to believe this is fixing to turn 15. Somewhere else on ilm I wrote a longish post detailing what a big deal this album was to myself at 15.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2IRcAWbm1c

it's funny, i can vividly recall watching exactly this and thinking "phwoar who is THAT" but now i see it's probably the worst karaoke rendition of all time, curse u youtube

Voted "Temptation Waits" but I'd like to also remind everybody that "You Look So Fine" - and, "Milk" - are Lana Del Rey's whole career so far bettered in two songs.

excellent poll

A guy at my work is the biggest fan of a single band that I know, and that band is Garbage. He uses all his holiday to follow them around Europe on tour, runs a blog about Garbage collectible stuff. Also loves Placebo, Skunk Anansie and Suede. It's like he's in a perpetual 1998 timewarp.

"Special" is cool

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

the EMPTINESS
the CRAZINESS
satisfy this LONELINESS

the trick is to keep voting, guys

a fffffffflasssssssssssssssssssh in the poll

When they opened for U2 in 2001 they already sounded wan, but then they took off when Larry Mullen, Jr. took over on drums for "Only Happy When It Rains."

the EMPTINESS
the CRAZINESS
satisfy this LONELINESS

― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 7 February 2013 12:07 AM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is a great song btw.

Was thinking more about the discussion upthread re Shirley on the debut vs the sequel.

I think Alf is right that Shirley owns the material on the second album more but I don't think this is always a force for good - like, you see more of her personality but that personality is often pretty shallow or perhaps rather (what's worse for some reason, although it shouldn't be) callow - thinking of stuff like "on a cruise to freak you out" in "When I Grow Up", or the "Somebody Told Me"-style random-one-liners-strung-together of "I Think I'm Paranoid" or basically all of "Medication" (least successful song here?).

Courtney adopted a pretty similar persona on Celebrity Skin but it works much better as a persona; even when she's dealing with very familiar-to-the-point-of-hackneyed tropes, she comes across as if she's lived them.

Whereas ironically Shirley comes across best on the second album when she's embodying a kind of impersonal rush ("Temptation Waits", "Hammering In My Head", "Push It", arguably "Sleep Together" but see below) or desirous siren/observer/narrator/temptress who gazes but remains first and foremost the object of the gaze(the chorus of "The Trick Is To Keep Breathing", all of "You Look So Fine", again arguably "Sleep Together" - hence this may be the secret key song to unlocking the second album's charms).

All of which feels like a continuation and enhancement of the kind of bewitching blankness she offered on the first album - effectively, she's best at selling stuff that isn't necessarily (i.e. doesn't need to be) by or about her.

but then there's the middle eight in "Medication" -- "And still you call me co-dependent" with the synth accents acting as quotation marks around the last word.

btw her shallowness was so obvious that even I -- who voted this my favorite album of 1998 and still think it is -- knew they were done after this record.

That's one of the most irritating lines in the song though!

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if she hadn't previously sung "please don't call me self-defending / you know it cuts me to the bone".

like, you see more of her personality but that personality is often pretty shallow or perhaps rather (what's worse for some reason, although it shouldn't be) callow

and this is the entire problem with the third record

incidentally i listened to the first one the other day and i think i prefer this one now, almost willing to argue that the songs are stronger on this one but maybe i just find the hooks more commanding and machine-perfected

like "hammering in my head" is kind of a driving mess but the chorus is so gorgeous, sucks all the air out of the room, lands these exact syllables

I can never remember which part of "hammering in my head" is actually the chorus without listening to it - and that's a compliment not a criticism.

My favourite bit of the song is "YOU SHOULD BE SLEEPING ALONE / TELL ME WHAT YOU'RE DREAMING OF"

hammering in my head is above choruses

Meritricious vajazzling!

for the tautologous thot

the guitar solo in "supervixen" sounds like my cat

the feline star that you cannot live without

The bass in "Temptation Waits" sounds like my boyfriend a few years ago when we broke up.

I understand at last: the Pumpkins leave me cold because Garbage's plastic gothic overstatement exists.

lol my roommate was just telling me about when she saw garbage open for sp

"shirley manson tended to stick her hands in her armpits a lot"

alfred you can sing "shattered dreams" over "vow"

I tried. So much for your promises.

lol i was only imagining it

*exegesis about how this is the sophistipop evolution of grunge*

wouldn't that be STP

gross

sweat it all out

god, Garbage. this brings back so many warm feelings. I was a huge fan after seeing "Vow" on 120 Minutes one night, got the s/t as a Christmas present. Even emailed the band a few times using an email address I had on this shitty BBS, always disappointed that it was Steve Marker and not Shirley that replied.

recall being uber excited for the sequel and loving "Push It" when it came out, loved that it managed to get more firmly entrenched in pop than its predecessor. still prefer the s/t I think, but choosing a fav on this album is tough.

"Special" was one I always loved, "The Trick is to Keep Breathing", "Temptation"....I haven't listened to this album since probably the 90s and yet the songs are still seared into my head.

'The Trick is to Keep Breathing'

Still holds up well, although I prefer the debut.

(and I speak as someone who thought they sucked in the '90s)

every song is shrinkwrapped

― emo canon in twee major (BradNelson), Monday, February 4, 2013 9:16 AM bookmarkflaglink

only learned about this today, perfect:

https://i.imgur.com/5frr6yY.jpg

is that a shrinkwrapped 3" cd single on a card

that’s what it is

well, in a blister pack.

I love this thread

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

I understand at last: the Pumpkins leave me cold because Garbage's plastic gothic overstatement exists.

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn),

In a few weeks it'll be the 25th anniversary of the one time I saw them live, the first show I saw on my own. Girls Against Boys opened. Between sets I unexpectedly ran into a female classmate who was there with her Mom. Come Monday morning at school, she must have told her friends that I was at the show, because I had girls coming up to my locker the rest of the day asking about it and telling me how cool they felt Shirley was.

"stupid girl" is one of those cases of "obvious sample makes song kind of surprising forever" re: the "train in vain" drums

― emo canon in twee major (BradNelson)

Huh? TIL

it is quite obvious when you know it but never connected the two of them before.

The Parallel Lines of the nineties.

― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, February 4, 2013 2:23 PM (ten years ago)

otm

Supposedly they had to put up some serious $$$ for that Clash sample (they didn't name names in interviews, only alluding to dealing with a 'seminal band' who were surprisingly uncool about clearing samples, and they ultimately had to meet all of that group's demands to secure it).

“… but you didn’t charge Big Audio Dynamite anything!”

Weird that they’d be fixed on using the sample, they could have brought a drummer and copy it and it would’ve been difficult to prove it as a rip-off. It’s a fairly common drum groove.

"the trick is to keep breathing" was my mantra in high school partially thanks to this album.

Apparently there’s also an REM sample but I’m not noticing it.

It’s been a while since I listened to it, I just noticed there’s also some creepy noises that sound like digital pig grunts.

There was a Todd Terry remix of "Stupid Girl" that used the opening of "Orange Crush"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkzKNAySas8-

Supposedly the original one also has the “orange crush” sample at 1:23

I remember Beautiful Garbage was a bit of a letdown after the brilliant first two albums. Might need to give it a second chance because the first two are really good and the singles are some of the best of the decade.

Even non album singles for soundtracks like Crush #1 and the james bond song are the best things on those movies.

It's so badly sequenced.

Version 2.0 is probably the album I listened to the most in ‘98. Just ALL THE TIME.

Me too. I'm pretty sure I wore out the plastic nub in the jewelbox tray by '99.

It’s one of the first 10 albums I bought based on how impressed I was by “push it” when I was 12. It sounded like no other pop song I had heard in my life and it was glorious

Debut album has aged better though.

Debut album I was obsessed with. 2.0 I don't like quite as much but I remember getting excited the first day I heard "Push It" drop on radio.

And it's a great album that I played non stop regardless. Mad consistent.

Used to be the album I would put on at bedtime.

Don't think there's a song on here I love as much as "Vow", my fav Garbage tune, but "Special"'s my high water mark, that chorus.

i want a whole album that sounds like that todd terry remix

"I Think I'm Paranoid" and "Dumb" are here, ready for you to ask'em out.

well i never.
i had never noticed the clash sample before.
the todd terry remix was on the second cd of absolute.

i mean fuck. i seriously can't get enough of some of these songs.

i was so baked listening to i think i'm paranoid in my gf's car at the time and paranoid af tbh