ECW – Anarchy Rocks

ECW, or Extreme Championship Wrestling, is the “third” major wrestling organization, nestled pretty far behind the big two, WWF and WCW. What Extreme Wrestling lacks in ratings it makes up for in intensity. The pictures on their web site have people being body slammed through tables covered in thumb tacks and being thrown head first into a flaming pile of barbed-wire. Indeeeeeeed.

Wrestling this intense needs it’s own soundtrack, and the new ECW Anarchy Rocks CD is probably exactly what you think it would be – 12 hard rockin’ tracks from various artists that you can expect to hear on the show, on their commercials, and in their video games.

First of all, this CD is just about perfect from a marketing standpoint. Take well known bands (Static-X, Coal Chamber, Rob Zombie, Linkin Park, Cold, and Powerman 5000 to name a few) and put their hit songs on a compilation CD.

The 6 page booklet continues the cross-marketing madness that ECW is known for. Each song has a picture of a wrestler, a quote from that wrestler explaining why he or she picked that song, and then the lyrics to the song. The flip side of the booklet contains: 4 pages of ads for ECW shirt, the ECW video game, and ECW home videos, 1 page for credits and 1 page of the cover.

But enough with all the marketing – how’s the MUSIC???

First of all, ECW must be pulling in a hell of a lot more money than I thought they were to have this kind of talent list. As I mentioned above, Static-X, Coal Chamber, Rob Zombie, Linkin Park, Cold, and Powerman 5000 all make appearances. The songs … well, let’s just say there’s no ballads on this collection.

The CD is fairly evenly split between three categories: Songs you know from bands you know, songs you don’t know by bands you know, and songs you don’t know by bands you don’t know.

The first category, songs you know from bands you know, consists of Linkin Park’s One Step Closer, Powerman 5000’s Neckbone, Disturbed’s Welcome Burden, and the one song that is doomed to appear on every “hard” compilation from now until doomsday, Rob Zombie’s Superbeast.

The second category has some less popular songs, like Cold’s Just Got Wicked and Coal Chamber’s El Cu Cuy.

The rest of the disc is filled out with a couple of cover tunes, including Chimaira’s version of Balls To The Wall, and Jesse James Dupree’s version of Highway To Hell. Both are recognizable, but changed enough to be interesting. U.P.O., One Minute Silence, and F.M. Racket round out the roster.

One extra thing I discovered when I tossed this disc in my PC is an ECW video for Balls To The Wall. The video is little more than ECW wrestling bits, with a few shots of the wrestlers in the music studio singing along. If you’ve never seen ECW, this will show you why it’s called Extreme. Nothing on the front or back of the jewel case mentions anything about this, and inside there’s only a small blurb noting that this is an enhanced CD.

Overall, it’s a pretty catchy collection. If you close your eyes you can easily see wrestlers beating the crap out of each other with every one of these songs playing in the background. Each one of these tunes are the type to get you pumped up and ready for action. Unfortunately, it’s working a little too well – I almost got pulled over speeding on the way to work this morning because I had this CD cranked and had the pedal to the metal. Of course, it *IS* a Geo Tracker, which means it doesn’t have a whole lot of either to offer (pedal, or metal.)

The worst part about the whole situation is that ECW is tetering on the edge of existance. Having been dropped from TNN, their last pay per view is being advertised as “possibly the LAST ppv”, and with half of their roster moving to the WWF, the whole franchise might be going up in smoke very shortly. This just might be the last official ECW product to be released.

If you’re looking for a testosterone-filled disc that won’t make you think too hard but will get your foot tapping, check out this collection.

01. Chimaira – Balls To The Wall
02. Static-X – Head
03. Coal Chamber – El Cu Cuy
04. Rob Zombie – Superbeast (Remix)
05. Linkin Park – One Step Closer
06. Powerman 5000 – Neckbone
07. Cold – Just Got Wicked
08. UPO – Now You Want Me
09. Disturbed – Welcome Burden
10. One Minute Silence – Holy Man
11. Jesse James Dupree – Highway to Hell

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