National album

Garbage, Version 2.0 (Geffen)

Hit machine

Pop pleasures didn't get any guiltier than Garbage this year, especially with Professor Lauryn doling out such a nutritious Miseducation and Courtney sugar-smacking Hollywood right out of its Celebrity Skin. I mean, what the hell was Version 2.0, y'know, about? Nothing more than "ba-ba-ba-ba," as far as I could tell, but then again it didn't pretend to be anything more, either -- exactly as the title advertises, it was just more of the same, only new, improved, condensed. Shirley Manson was practically the anti-Lauryn -- crooning lusciously about how she didn't need no education, she came off less Pink Floyd-dispossessed than simply fluffy and proud of it. You know things are pretty good when an interpolation of the Ronnie Spector-via-Brian Wilson hit "Don't Worry Baby" is only the secondary hook in a song. Such endearing acts of thievery do nothing to dull their confectionery appeal; nor does the fact that the album's been assembled digitally make Butch Vig's machinated, mass-produced hits any less enjoyable than the ones produced in previous eras at humanoid factories like Motown and the Brill Building. Bright, shiny, easily disposable? Yep, and so's "Da-Doo-Ron-Ron." So it wouldn't be the first time that yesterday's garbage was tomorrow's classic.

-- Carly Carioli

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The Official Garbage page
The Garbage Receptacle
A fan page called My Garbage Box

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