2.0 garbage version two point poll 2.0

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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."

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

― Tim F, Wednesday, February 6, 2013 9:55 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark

hah was thinking that the breathed vocals in 'push it' put me in the same headspace as some of karin's vocals

i think i first heard "push it" after catching the video on mtv and the ramping pre-chorus made me absolutely CRAVE it, to the point where i watched mtv for hours on end waiting to see the video again. only did this with a few songs (en vogue's "free your mind" is the other one i remember immediately)

Voted "when I grow up" but the album is solid start to finish

Reading this I seriously need to revisit

the thing i like about "push it" is when she says THIS IS THE NOISE THAT KEEPS ME AWAKE there's a weird whirring noise that until that point has not appeared in the song

it's like that fever ray song w the boomerang but not as on-the-nose

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".

― Tim F, Thursday, 7 February 2013 02:56 (11 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

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

― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 7 February 2013 03:09 (11 hours ago) Bookmark

http://www.monsterthinking.com/wp-content/uploads/pencil-snap.jpg

bend me break me any way you need me

not really seeing an adequate response to tim's entirely valid "yes but she is not supremely annoying when indulged" point, like pray tell how is 'when i grow up' anything other than dire

then again perhaps i shouldnt be surprised at alf's myopia towards overconceited twaddle

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