Garbage
Version 2.0
[Almo Sounds]
Rating: 6.7
Creating a Garbage album is the musical equivalent of building a
Hollywood blockbuster: you make the technical aspects of the production
as impressive as possible, toss a shitload of marketing behind it, get
your star's face on the cover of every magazine that doesn't have Goldie
on it, and voila! The product is consumed en masse. Butch Vig is
Garbage's James Cameron, which is to say that while his commercial
instincts are nonparallel, he still cares about what he's doing and puts
his soul into it. The new album is the appropriately titled Version 2.0.
As in the software industry, this model builds on the previous, making
slight improvements while keeping the overall look and feel, only
occasionally complicating a simple feature from the older edition.
The first thing you'll notice about Version 2.0 is that the electronica
aspect of the sound is more realized than on the debut, which makes
perfect sense. If this album were released in 1978 it would be disco, in
1988, I don't know, probably hair metal. Things being what they are, it's
heavy with loops and synthetic beats. Fortunately, Vig is a drummer and
thus knows the difference between funky and cheesy electronic percussion.
Most of these grooves are on point to the extent that you can close your
eyes and hear the remix possibilities. Don't worry, those will come.
The songs play it close to the vest, duplicating the themes and content
of the first album while adding a bit more raunch for the benefit of
Shirley Manson's horny teenaged fan base. Occasionally, Manson sounds
ridiculous, particularly when she tries to "get in character" like on
"Sleep Together" or "Hammering In My Head." She doesn't have anywhere
near the vocal charisma for whispered or chanted lyrics, and it sounds
forced and silly. Same goes for lines like "Golden showers/ Happy hours;"
Manson wants to cleverly discuss sex, but Liz Phair she ain't.
If anything, she seemed more natural on the debut, although she has her
moments here. "Special" is a solid Chrissie Hynde tribute, with the
familiar vocal inflection, the title, and the outgoing "You're the talk
of the town" refrain. And the slower "Medication" has her working
effectively within her limitations.
What can you say about the sound? It's impossibly huge and perfectly
mixed, and you can safely assume that Version 2.0 will be included
in the syllabus of every recording arts student for the next twenty years.
Dynamic range that spans the limits of the medium, a dense environment
that nonetheless allows one to pick out individual instruments; sonically
it just can't miss. Engineered for radio like no album in recent memory,
Version 2.0 will no doubt make an impact that can only be described
as, well, deep.
-Mark Richard-San