Garbage Week, Extended: Should You Buy Absolute Garbage?
Garbage week got a bit rained on last week. It was going to be such a great idea and it really never got off the ground — not completely, anyway – which is why we’re going to extend it into this week. Garbage Week… Continued.
Let’s pick up where we left off last week with the Absolute Garbage compilation. For my money, they pretty much got this one right. It’s chronologically ordered, has most of their singles, both major soundtrack contributions, and one new song. It clocks in at 18 songs – all digitally remastered — which even on a hits compilation is a bit long unless you really had a lot of major hits. The deluxe edition is reasonably priced and comes with a bonus disc of remixes. Some people will probably find those interesting, I didn’t. All in all, it’s a good value package.
The album plays well chronologically, but Garbage is cursed by early success. Their first two records were their best and also their most popular. They recorded good songs after those first two records but not all of them were singles. Absolute emphasizes the singles, meaning some of the songs representing Beautiful Garbage and Bleed Like Me weren’t the best songs from those albums. AG paints a good, if incomplete, portrait of the band’s career because nearly every song on the set is good and some of them are great.
As is often the case, the album is of limited interest to the band’s most devoted fans. Most fans will have the band’s four albums, many will have the Romeo + Juliet soundtrack with “#1 Crush.” The two songs that might not be in every collection are the new song (obviously) and “The World is Not Enough,” their James Bond soundtrack contribution. The remixes on the bonus disc were mostly all b-sides, so some diehards will already have these.
A Garbage b-sides collection remains the Holy Grail for Garbage fans. Oasis is still the Gold Standard when it comes to b-sides, but Garbage released some interesting ones. I only have a handful of the band’s early import singles and there were some great songs that never made it to record. Butch Vig has discussed releasing such a set on multiple occasions, so even the band realizes how much U.S. fans want one of these. Now, while the band is on hiatus, would seem a good time to release one. Record company B.S. is probably the reason we don’t have one now and won’t get one any time soon.
Filed under: Citzen Dick, Garbage
