2.0 garbage version two point poll 2.0

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

"Temptation Waits" and "Medication" leave me cold but no track falls below the ideal conception of late nineties machine-tooled verse-chorus-verse, complete with charismatic singer.

let me play lex for a moment: it's impossible to imagine a scenario in which Garbage is better than Version 2.0. It ends with that boring ballad with a Beatles mellotron, and before that it's got classic hits-plus-filler.

yeah it's not even remotely close.

supervixen, vow, only happy, stupid girl, done. and then the album of the decade.

on the third one i like "can't cry these tears", "cherry lips", and the Slow Closer v3.0.

like Joan of Arc coming back for MORE

i voted for "hammering in my head" but the chorus of "temptation waits" is >>>>>>>>>>>>>> anything

i did too but it was totally arbitrary really; could have been any one of like five.

i just love that chorus so much. a proper burst upward from the verses, an adrenaline fulfillment, and then that nice melodic shift during the lyric "i'm like an addict coming at you for a little more," like the song twisting away from you slyly

btw 'don't forget your ventolin'

daaaaaaaaaamn

that was what put it over for me

and yeah otm on "a little more"

stuff about shirley being way more important on v2 really borne out by "hammering" which if i'm remembering it right wouldn't even actually exist without her; it'd just be a clatter.

or yknow. a lot closer to one.

as a sufferer of childhood asthma that line destroys me

(xp which doesn't mean anything bad about the rest of them; it is ultracool how the song is designed to just be this whirling mess just barely held together by her gravity. i read an interview or something when i was in high school where they talked about how "hammering" had SOME VERY LARGE NUMBER of tracks, and it was the first time i'd ever read anything about "tracks" but it made perfect sense.)

rhymed w "don't forget i meant to win" no less

Too old to serve as a gateway for me, Version 2.0 no doubt served this purpose. "Hammering in My Head" is Fisher Price Patti Smith, with the primary colors, flashing lights, and cool noises left in. Chrissie Hynde and the Beach Boys we already know.

dangling modifier but whatever: I'm listening to "Dumb" (suckin' your THUUUMB).

oh absolutely. i discovered it cuz the senior girl i had a crush on said she loved it.

btw the radio mix of "Special" -- it drops one of the guitars and isolates the ah-ah-ahs and foregrounds the rhythm loop -- is another dimension of sexy.

(she had purple hair and wore a little bell around her neck. lol.)

on which song is that?

all of em

"Hammering In My Head" is the secret (more successful) blueprint for the new The Knife single.

What is the filler on the first album? Is this commonly agreed upon? Without having listened again yet I instinctively feel the answer is "Dog New Tricks" and "Not My Idea".

"As Heaven is Wide," "Fix Me Now," those two you mentioned, "Milk."

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