This is the official compilation of Shepard Fairley's OBEY project. If you don't know what that is, you're missing out on one of the most important things in punk rock today. Stop reading this review. Go to http://www.obeygiant.com and read the mission statement. Check it out, support the cause, and you'll be oh-so-very glad you did.
So to loosely paraphrase the concepts behind this CD - it is to support the OBEY cause as stated, and in doing so to give exposure to underground bands of all kinds (mostly, however, those on FIH records or it's affiliates.) There is a good/strange mix of music on this - from BS2000's unique sound to The International Noise Conspiracy to Bouncing Souls to Modest Mouse to the Suicide Machines. It's all over the place, you won't find your standard 4.50 All-Our-Bands-Sound-The-Same crap here.
This CD is special starting at the second you open it. You'll find that the cardboard covering becomes a stencil of Andre's face, and a tiny sticker will fall out. Due to the size of the sticker, that's kind of inconvenient. So.. heads up. The linear notes contain some OBEY Works and the Manifesto.
I'm not going to go track by track - I tried to but on a comp that's not really very efficient, what with your short attention span and my lack of patience. This album has some truly awesome songs on it - and one song I wish I never, ever heard.
There are a few songs on this album that are better then the others - I bought this album originally mostly because of the Big D and the Kids Table song, but with great tunes from bands like Suicide Machines, BS2000 (I really like this song, it rendered me speachless), Drexel, MindLikeWater, Favorite Atomic Hero, and so on... it ALMOST makes up for the Peaches Song.
Peaches' AAXXX Is the worst song I've ever heard in my life. It the most pretentiously annoying peice of hip-hop techno. Listening to it insults me deeply. I hate this song. Hate, Hate, Hate, Hate. It by FAR deserves this paragraph. Put this song on a mix tape for your worst enemy.
This CD Features an Impressive Multimedia display, I don't usually find enhanced CDs all that interesting but this one certainly takes me by suprise, it's well done, it's got a lot of neat stuff for the OBEY cause, and it's very informative.
This comp is essential. Deffinately the best comp I've purchased in a while - and hopefully the appeal of names such as The Hives, The No W.T.O. Combo, and Suicide Machines will result in some needed support for some of the cool bands on this you may have not heard of.
Great, great release.