Garbage

Beautifulgarbage

To borrow from Pearl Jam: it's evolution, baby.

Review Score:

(10/10)
Beautifulgarbage is a great album. A bit cheesy at times, but overall a strong showing by my second-favorite band. (Sorry, they're just not the Smashing Pumpkins.) I'm not going to give a track-by-track, blow-by-blow account because you can find those in the other reviews. "Shut Your Mouth," "Androgyny," "Til the Day I Die," "Silence is Golden," "Breaking Up the Girl," and "Parade" are my favorites from this album. This is NOT their self-titled debut, and this is NOT "Version 2.0." It's not meant to be. If you want to hear recycled nonsense, go listen to something superpop...Garbage is not the same band they were back in the days of "Stupid Girl" and "Only Happy When It Rains." Let me put it another way: if you thought Radiohead's "Kid A" and "Amnesiac" were weird and stupid, you might be displeased with some of this. Not that Garbage did that much experimentation on this album, but they definitely spread their wings a bit.

What added that fifth star to my rating of this album was the Enhanced CD stuff. This is the first CD I have ever owned, seen, or heard about where those CD-ROM enhancements weren't useless, irritating (...). "Beautifulgarbage" packs a punch. The "Offline Sound Toy" is a bit boring and confusing, and the "Online Multi-Player Sequencer" doesn't have enough online users to be entertaining for more than a couple minutes, unless you and a friend sign on at the same time from different locations, but the "Online Single Player Sequencer" is a treat. Garbage have included a DJ toy that allows you to manipulate samples from four of the best songs on the album. A few more samples (and a way to preview them with a single click) would have been nice, but this is such a pleasant surprise I'm not complaining. ***UPDATE: I'm a dork. Double-click samples to hear them before putting them in the song.*** I'd have bought it just for this remixer, if I'd known.

More Reviews: