Absolute Garbage (Music Videos/DVD Collection)

 

Picture: C+     Sound: B     Extras: B-     Videos: B

 

 

It is hard to believe Garbage was formed in 1994, but they have aged well, continue to make fine music and finally, their exceptional catalog of Music Videos have been issued on DVD.  Absolute Garbage (2007) collects 15 clips spanning their amazing career and by the last Video, they are far from finished.  They began at Mushroom Records, the label of the great New Zealand band Split Enz and promptly became the most creative act there since. 

 

Lead singer Shirley Manson, Duke Erikson, Steve Marker and Butch Vig, their producer, are the band and have not changed their line-up ever.  This new DVD may not offer ever singe Video they ever made, which would be the case since they continue to be an active band, but here are the lists of what is here and what is not as of this posting.  First, the DVD has the following, including two Videos making their U.S. debut as marked by * and directors are also added:

 

1)     Vow (a)

2)     Queer (c)

3)     Only Happens When It Rains (a)

4)     Stupid Girl (a)

5)     Milk (c)

6)     Push It (Andrea Giacobbe)

7)     I Think I’m Paranoid (the underrated Mathew Rolston)

8)     Special (the formidable Dawn Shadforth)

9)     When I Grow Up (b)

10)  You Look So Fine* (c)

11)  The World Is Not Enough (title song from the James Bond film, Philipp Stolzl)

12)  Cherry Lips (Go Baby Go) (Joseph Kahn, the worst director here)

13)  Shut Your Mouth* (Eliott Chaffer)

14)  Why Do You Love Me? (b)

15)  Bleed Like Me (b & Shirley Manson)

 

(a)   directed by Samuel Bayer

(b)   directed by Sophie Muller

(c)   directed by Stéphane Sednaoui, who has his own DVD collection you can read more about at the following link, with a clearer copy of Queer at:

 

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/2737/Work+Of+Stephane+Sednaoui

 

 

Videos missing include Androgyny (Don Cameron), Breaking Up The Girl (Frances Lawrence), Kick My Ass, Milk (alternate version), Run Baby, Run (Muller), Sex Is Not The Enemy (Muller), an animated version of Shut Your Mouth (Henry Moore Selder), Sleep, Tell Me Where It Hurts (Muller) and The Trick Is To Keep Breathing (Muller).  However, they can always surface on a follow-up disc and Hurts is from the CD version of this release.

 

So what about the music?owever,

 

  The great thing about the band from the outset is that the songs were designed to challenge the limits of pop music, whose standards had been declining since the mid-1980s.  If anything, the band seems like the kind of band that is on time and ahead of its time instead of instead of regressive, dull and mindless.  That music actually has become worse since their debut is sad, but they have been amazingly consistent in the material they have created to date.

 

Right off the bat, Only Happens When It Rains and Stupid Girl were standouts, dealing with oppression, depression and the real world in the timespan of a pop record, but with much more impact.  The work from the first album has not aged a bit and each release after held more surprises, making Garbage one of the only bands whose new albums are waited for with any expectation.

 

You do to have to see Miss Manson to know she has one of the best voices in the business.  The one misstep was voicing the theme song to the 1999 moneymaking James Bond feature film disaster The World Is Not Enough.  Don Black wrote it and they showed up to sing it, but a sense of selling out befell the band as it was far from his best work for the series.  They hoped for a Diamonds Are Forever, but got a song more droning and less energetic than The Man With The Golden Gun.  Followed by working with hack director Joseph Kahn on Cherry Lips, it was a wrong turn, though the song is terrific and the Video actually turned out well despite Kahn.

 

Best of all, they continued to make great music and happened to make memorable Videos (which we are seeing less and less of) proving that their days as one of the greatest bands around is far from over.  This will more than hold fans until they get a new studio album out and know a CD version is also available.

 

The various aspect ratios are with a 1.33 X 1 image, with the widescreen pieces letterboxed from 1.78 to 2.35 X 1, but all look pretty good for a compilation disc.  The PCM 16/48 2.0 Stereo is also nice throughout, sounding better than the original CD versions, though we bet these would be amazing in multi-channel sound.  Audiophile fans were hoping for Super Audio CDs of the albums, but they sadly never materialized.  However, this is nice 2-channel playback.  Extras include the two bonus discs noted above and a highly enjoyable retrospective documentary with interviews called Thanks For Your Uhh, Support.  Everyone from fans to newcomers will enjoy it and I wish more Video collections had such programs.  I just wish they had audio commentary tracks on the Videos, but this is still one of the best Video compilations we have seen to date.  Absolute Garbage is a must for serious music fans or those who love the visual arts.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo