I figured that if you are a rabid Garbage fan (if you're not I doubt you'd be reading this), you probably have gotten your claws on the two full-length albums somehow. For now, therefore, I've only reviewed B-sides.

#1 Crush
Yes, I know we've all heard that Nellee Hooper version (you know, the one that start "ooh...ahh...") but I'm talking about the other, original version which came as a B-side on the Subhuman single before the first album was ever released. I, as the true Garbage fan that I am ( :P ) of course prefer the original version. It's much plainer, has more unpleasant noises and makes you think of death and obsession more than the other version, which makes you think of, well, sex. The "panting" (a Madonna sample) on the Nellee Hooper mix makes that version so very blatantly sexual while this version does not necessarily point the listener in that direction. This one's very dark and raw and I think it kicks arse. If you haven't heard it yet, keep hunting ;)

Afterglow
With its faux-scratchy-vinyl sound quality, an intro which could double as the soundtrack in a haunted house and a slow-burning trip hop beat, you might think you've grabbed a Portishead CD by mistake. That is, until Shirley starts singing - there's no mistaking her voice. Just like Portishead, Afterglow creates a dream-like atmosphere, you know the candles-cobwebs-and-a-Billy-Corgan-in-the-Ava-Adore-video-like-creature-playing-the-organ kind of atmosphere. This is not a song that grabs you and smacks you in the face as soon as you hit play, though; you really have to sit down in a dark room and listen attentively in order to get it. Kinda like "Sleep".

Alien Sex Fiend
I rarely see this one at the top of any Garbage fan's 'Favorite Garbage Songs' list! But I actually quite like it. If you haven't heard it, the lyrics go: "You're an alien sex fiend (repeated a lot of times) and you go la la la...(repeated a lot of times)". They must have been drunk...but then again, aren't they always? Although hardly album material, I think it does make for a rather interesting B-side. It's very different from any other Garbage stuff, which I think is cool.

Butterfly Collector
This is my favourite Garbage cover. It's raw and down-to-earth (don't ask me to explain that one, it's just a phrase that keeps coming to mind when I listen to this song... maybe I shouldn't be writing these things at 3 in the morning). And the coarseness of Shirley's voice is startlingly effective. It's harsher and dryer than I've ever heard it and it kind of "cuts me to the bone", if you get what I mean. Along with those vibrating echoes, sinister guitars and insistently disturbing buzzing noises, this song gains its strength from sounding a bit vulnerable and messy. If this song was a person, it would definitely be mentally unstable.

Can't Seem To Make You Mine
I LOVE this live. It sounded wonderful, powerful and all the rest of it. Recorded, however, it's a little static. I would personally have preferred it if they hadn't added that echo-y/vibrating effect to the vocals, I just want to hear Shirley's voice a bit more forcefully than it comes out this way. I think I might have been more impressed by it had I not heard it live first, before it was released as a B-side. Obviously all songs are gonna sound more intense when you hear them standing crushed against the fence, the band 4 feet away playing their hearts out, but at least with all the other songs, I had been knocked out by their recorded counterparts first. So here it was the other way around; once I had heard it live, hearing the recorded version was a bit disappointing since I knew how intense, how good, how LOUD it really could sound. Still, it's nice, enjoyable and chilled-out. The original of this song is by the Seeds and Shirley said in Manchester that it's one of Duke's very favourite songs. She also said they recorded it during a one-day session in the studio to release all the pent-up horniness that they had all apparently accumulated during their American tour...

Deadwood
Judging from early track lists of Version 2.0, this song was about to make it onto the album. In my opinion, it should have. It starts out real low-key with Shirley talk-whispering indistinguishable words over a dry electronic backbone. Then Steve's and/or Duke's surprisingly non-threatening and un-Garbagesque guitars come in and Shirley starts singing. All you can do is sit back and enjoy. It's the kind of song that gets stuck in your head all day but you still want to keep listening to it. The lyrics are far from sentimental and sensitive: "I don't need you anymore / I can't use you anymore" but the music really makes you feel something (sorry, how wanky did that sound??). Many of Garbage's song leave me feeling colder but here it's the opposite. In this case it doesn't matter what Shirley is singing; it's her voice, matched by really melancholy guitars, which will blow you away.

Driving Lesson
Not one of my favourites, I have to admit (although Shirley recently answered a fan question on garbage.com saying this was her favourite b-side ... so it's up to you who you're gonna believe ... must be a difficult decision...). The lyrics are rather inspirational, though, and Shirley once again steals the show, even managing to make hissing "Car" over and over sound meaningful. Strip away the vocals from this song and you truly have the perfect soundtrack to one of those motor-racing games!

Get busy with the fizzy
It's a bit Tornado-ish, a bit Blondie's Rapture and a bit Madonna (listen to the way Shirley sings the chorus!). Basically, it's more fun, tapping a similar vein as Tornado did 4 months ago, except this time with a bit more words. I think it's cool that Garbage do different and weird stuff on their B-sides and the result has been continually great. But the Garbage I love the most is still the more serious and intense stuff, like Girl Don't Come, My Lover's Box and Sleep Together. So hopefully, the recent outflow of rather light-hearted and playful B-sides is not too indicative of the new direction the band is taking...

Girl Don't Come
This is not just one of my favorite B-sides, it's one of my favorite Garbage songs, overall. It's a more straight-forward rock song than most of Garbage's stuff. It's short but the intensity of the song makes this inconsequential. It's fast, loud and out of control with guitars that sound like they want to kill you and Shirley's voice soaring straight through all the noise. Although Shirley herself has said that screaming vocals do not usually convey intensity, the chorus on this song is pretty darn near screaming and the emotion behind it stands out more than ever. If you didn't quite get the message yet: This is a killer song. It should've been a single, not a B-side! Except probably nobody would have bought it because it's just too cool for all the losers out there who just don't understand :P

Kick My Ass
This is the much-talked about Vic Chestnut cover featured on Sweet Relief II. My mother likes this song. It's nice. It's down-beat. It's a bit - dare I say it - boring. I DO, however, really like the chorus. And live it exudes a lot more energy. I have a tape of Reading '96 where Shirley sings "I'm so sorry, I had to kick my ass", which does crack me up at times. But maybe that says more about me than anything else...

Lick The Pavement
I was a bit disappointed by this song when I first heard it. Apart from the fact that I thought it was a little *cough* off-key, it was just kind of there one second and gone the next without making any great impression on me. The lyrics seemed a bit one-dimensional, kind of like "You two-timing bastard, now look who's the loser" (popularly referred to as girl-power...). Also the fact that the vocals are buried underneath layers of sound made it all come across as a little distant. But once I listened to it more, I came to my senses and realized this was Garbage! The lyrics aren't at all as one-dimensional as I took them to be. You have the line "I like you best when you're on your knees", which goes along with the above mentioned theme, but then you also have "Won't you come over / I swear I'll be nice" and "I know you're lonely because you're just like me". So there's some stuff there to ponder over and a nice little melody to go with it (it was me that was off!). Maybe I was just a little harsh on it because I was still recovering from my head exploding and my body aching after hearing Push It for the first time.

Sleep
There's a very trip-hoppy quality to this song. It's piano (or keyboard-sounding-like-a-piano) driven as opposed to guitar driven and it has a delightfully calming/soothing effect. Garbage's lyrics have been described as ambiguous I don't know how many times in I don't know how many articles and in this case, this is certainly true, to say the least. The lyrics are confusing ("looking like a little ghost"? huh?) but maybe they are a reflection of the confusion in Shirley's head and maybe that's why all she wants to do is sleep. Hmmm, it DID make sense in my head... It's a short but captivating number and it actually does make you feel rather sleepy.

Soldier Through This
The mailing lists seem to LOVE this song, so don't take my word on this one (like you have on any of the others!) It's a nice song, yes, with a nice melody and beautiful vocals. But overall, it's a bit (dare i say it?) unoriginal. There's nothing there, apart from Shirley's voice obviously, that really distinguishes it as a Garbage song. There's not really anything there that makes me go, "Wow, that's such a cool idea". Basically, what I'm trying to say is that while there is nothing wrong with this song at all, to me it's a bit bland and unimaginative. Keep in mind though that I'm holding it against very high standards: I'm comparing it to other Garbage songs!

Subhuman
So this is where it all started, huh? Well, it's not difficult to see why! It's loud. It's menacing. It's addictive. It's a bit psychotic. Basically, it personifies (or songifies?) everything I ever liked Garbage for. Although there's lots of stuff in there, it doesn't sound as tinkered with as most of their later stuff. It has a much more unrefined feel to it. It's rawer and more painful (in a good way, that is). Turn it up in your headphones, preferably in the dark, and you'll swear to god everything is closing in on you and the world is coming to an end. And don't be surprised if you find yourself looking forward to it! After all, "you're going down, down, down" so you might as well enjoy it!

Thirteen
This is a cover of a Big Star song. It takes a little getting used to, especially if you're expecting hard-core Garbage. The first time I heard it, I have to say I really didn't like it very much as a song and the "Oooooh" part between each verse came across as rather stupid-sounding. But give this one a little time and a lot of listens; it definitely grew on me. Shirley's vocal performance gives me shivers down my spine; it's more straightforward than on most Garbage tracks. It's not threatening, frightening, mocking, or defiant. The lyrics are pleading ("Won't you let me walk you home from school / Won't you let me meet you at the pool") but Shirley's voice is not. Her singing style is simple but very cool-sounding. It reminds me of Angelfish songs like "You Can Love Her" and I think it's beautiful. I admit to never having heard the original version of this song so I can't comment on how different or creative this version is.

Thirteen x Forever
Well, what can I say?!?!? This is a FANTASTIC song!!! It's very Garbagesque with aggressive guitars and Shirley's amazing lyrics. I love that line - "Don't look back, don't even bother". The lyrics also seem to be a lot more personal to Shirley than most of her other stuff, just because she actually mentions "my mother", "the father", "my sister" and "my lover". Ok, that might not necessarily make it personal since a lot of people have a mother, a father, a sister and a lover but just little things like the fact that she sings of the father: "loves his middle daughter" when she is infact the middle daughter in the family.

Tornado
Fun is probably a good word to describe this song. A case has been made for it on trash-talk as the Alien Sex Fiend of the Version 2.0 era, probably because Shirley only repeats one line over and over ("He's got a something something something that gets me on fire"...). Personally, though, I hear it more along the lines of Driving Lesson, with the whole video game soundtrack idea in mind. Apart from those comparisons though, this song is SO different from any other Garbage material (released, that is - we'll never know WHAT they were actually up to in the studio all that time...). Sounds like they'd been listening to a bit of Fatboy Slim, went into the studio and just had some fun. I mean, its so shockingly happy-sounding to be Garbage! They simply must have had fun while making it. Just weird noises, weird loops and weird additional vocals (by Shannon Fisher) going "C'mon Shirl!". Light-hearted and a bit crazy. So, if you haven't already: Check it out, it's a lot of, um, FUN!

Trip My Wire
An opening guitar riff which sounds frightfully similar to a serial killer starting up his chain saw was enough for me to love this song. This is pure Garbage - those chain saw guitars together with a techno beat, various electronic bleeps and a slightly schizophrenic performance by Shirley. She goes back and forth, beginning with the line "Be careful with me, I'm fragile" and then juxtaposing (wow! i can use a big word in a sentence!) that by threatening "Don't trip my wire" and further on by proclaiming "I'm a bitch, bitch, bitch, but baby I'm on fire". Her voice changes too, from pleading to threatening to crazy and back. Like I said, rather schizophrenic, but let's face it - don't we all have some degree of multiple personality disorder? Don't we all have elements of both fragility and bitchiness within us?? Right. It's a song that appeals to the mad side which lurks within us all. Love it.