As far as I can tell, the official Texas Chainsaw Massacre Soundtrack has very little in common with the recently released movie of the same name. I don’t remember any of these songs from the film itself, and unlike many soundtracks, there are no samples from the movie on the CD. Other than the title and the cover photo, this CD is basically unrelated to the film.

With that disclaimer out of the way, I can now officially recommend this CD guilt-free.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Soundtrack, which might as well have been called “Random Songs by Heavy Bands,” is a nice “sampler disc” featuring some of the harder popular bands of today.

I’ve never been against reviewing “popular music”. My personal theory is that you can lure people in with reviews of mainstream tunes, and then slip some under the radar bands their way on their way out. This CD does the exact same thing; sure, mallrats will come running when they hear band names like Mushroomhead and Static-X are on the disc, but a few tracks later Meshuggah and Morbid Angel are waiting in the midst to abuse their precious ears.

As far as soundtracks go, Texas Chainsaw Massacre Soundtrack gives you a decent bang for your buck. With eighteen different bands performing eighteen different tracks (several of them previously unreleased or remixed), it’s definitely worth owning. The album’s roster of bands speaks for itself — a quick scan of the track listing will tell you if this CD is for you.

If you’re a fan of some of the bands on this CD and aren’t familiar with the others, drop the ten bucks and pick this up. Those post office employees got it all wrong. Crank this CD up, show up to work with a chainsaw, and show those other losers just who’s in charge.

Tracks:
01. Pantera – Immortally Insane (New Remix Not Available In US)
02. Hatebreed Below The Bottom
03. Soil – Pride (New Track)
04. Static-X – Deliver Me (New Track to Be Used As a Future B-Side)
05. Mushroomhead – 43
06. Seether – Pig
07. Nothingface – Down In Flames (Previously Unavailable)
08. 40 Below Summer – Self Medicate
09. Motograter – Suffocate
10. Shadows Fall – Destroyer Of Senses
11. Meshuggah – Rational Gaze
12. Fear Factory – Archetype (Remixed For This Record)
13. Morbid Angel – Enshrined By Grace
14. Index Case – Listen
15. Finger Eleven – Stay In Shadow
16. Lamb Of God – Ruin
17. Sworn Enemy – As Real As It Gets
18. Core-Tez – 5 Months

Train wrecks. The World’s Scariest Police Chases. When Animals Attack. Faces of Death, One through Six, including the best of tape. I have an unquenchable thirst for the sick, the twisted, the morose, for experiencing the horrors of all mankind – which is the only possible explanation I have for wanting to hear this disc.

There’s a fairly narrow target audience for this CD. Listeners would have to like both nu metal bands and old school rap, and I probably sit directly in the center of this demographic bull’s eye. Even though I’m a big metalhead now, I spent many hours cruising around with old school LL Cool J, Beastie Boys, and Ice-T tapes in my car back in the day.

At least two of the tracks on Take A Bite Outta Rhyme have appeared on different albums. The Bloodhound Gang’s rendition of “It’s Tricky” and Dynamite Hack’s acoustic/folk version of “Boyz-N-The-Hood” both made it into MTV rotation, and may have been the inspiration for the rest of the album. What’s left is a hodge podge of hits and misses. To truly appreciate each song, you need to (A) like the performing band, and (B) know the original song. Unless you’re a big fan of both genres, this isn’t going to happen too often.

Rarely do I go through and comment on each song of an album for a review, but since these songs are so different I thought, what the heck, why not?

01 – Bring the Noise – Staind
If you can’t improve on the original, why do it? Staind changes the riff but keeps the lyrics in their version, and adds a heavy ending.

02 – Going Back to Cali – Sevendust
The synthesised trumpet at the beginning is truly, truly weak, but Sevendust ends up pulling out one of the best songs on the disc. Heaviness mixed with a good sense of humor.

03 – Sucker M.C.’s – Lordz of Brooklyn w/ Everlast & Stoned Soul
Un-Forgettable — without the “Un”.

04 – Boyz-N-The-Hood – Dynamite Hack
You’ve probably already seen this yuppieish version of the Eazy-E classic on MTV. More of a novelty song than anything; Dynamite Hack’s album is much better than this single.

05 – Posse on Broadway – Insane Clown Posse
ICP never pass up an opportunity to offend, and their rendition of Posse On Broadway is no exception. The clowns of rap (literally) rework the words of this classic to include a lot more four letter ones. The music sounds just like the original, so it’s more like clown karaoke.

06 – It’s Tricky – Bloodhound Gang
From The Bloodhound Gang’s CD “One Fierce Beer Coaster”. A classic cover version of a classic song.

07 – My Mind Playin’ Tricks on Me – Kottonmouth Kings
Not one of my favorite old school rap songs, but the Kottonmouth Kings do it justice. Pretty faithful to the original, but with real drums.

08 – Microphone Fiend – Fun Lovin’ Criminals
When I read the liner I was like, “oh no. Please do not let the same people who recorded ‘Scooby Snacks’ ruin this rap classic.” Fortunately, FLC does the song justice with a faithful remake of the classic, even down to the cool, breath-heavy lyrics.

09 – New Jack Hustler – Dope
Sounds a little too nu-metal for me. Dope tries, but Ice-T’s little pinky packs more attitude than this whole band.

10 – White Lines (Don’t Do It) – Driver
Uh, who? I’m not familiar with the band OR the original, but the song is semi-enjoyable. The most annoying thing is that DJ scratching on top of the music. A true DJ is PART of the band, not just plopped down on top of the final mix.

11 – Bring the Pain – Mindless Self Indulgence
Dear lord this song is so unlistenable. It’s like they found out how to make audio loops, made 200 of them, and decided to use them all in one song. Sounds like Static-X on crack – and no, that’s not a good thing.

12 – Insane in the Brain – Factory 81
How anything that came out after I graduated high school could be considered “old school” rap is beyond me. Another example of a song that didn’t really need remaking. Cypress Hill’s annoying “screech” samples have been replaced by annoying guitar wah pedal noises. That’s not an improvement.

13 – The Tribute – Nonpoint
Even though I kind of slammed Nonpoint’s CD in their review, this song is pretty heavy. “The Tribute” is a medley of several old rap songs, most of which I didn’t recognize. Props to the guys for throwing in a little Slick Rick “Bedtime Story” in there somewhere.

14 – Curly G (Bamm!) – Jerky Boys
This is just a short skit where the Jerky Boys act like they’re a rapper, call a record store, and harass the poor people working there. In between each sentence he yells out “BAMMMMMMMM!”. I didn’t think it was that funny, but for a week after hearing this CD I went around shouting “BAMMMMMMM!” at people too so maybe it was.

Summary
If you are just a fan of old school rap, avoid this album. If you are just a fan of nu-metal, avoid this album. If, however, you’ve dabbled in both worlds and recognize most of the songs and bands on the disc, you might want to pick it up – from a used bin, perhaps.

The CD reminded me (in spirit) of the old Saturday Morning Cartoon Theme Songs CD that came out a few years ago. Once the novelty of the whole thing wore off, who wanted to drive around listening to Matthew Sweet singing, “Scooby-Doo”, Sublime singing “Hong Kong Phooie,” or Dig doing the “Fat Albert” theme? Sure, it was funny a couple of listenings, but once the novelty wears off, there’s not much left. I felt the same way about Take A Bite Outta Rhyme. The first time you hear Sevendust scream, “I’M GOING BACK TO CALI!!!” you’ll laugh too, but after two or three listenings, where’s the love?

As with most tribute albums, the best thing about this disc is it made me go pull my old cassettes out of the garage and listen to the originals.

At parties, I’m usually known as “the funny guy”. I was voted “best sense of humor” in my high school class. I own every album Weird Al has ever put out, including compilation albums filled with tracks I already own AND his 4 CD box set. This is why I was totally caught off guard and honestly a little offended when a certain band I recently reviewed (whose name I refuse to mention any longer) said I had “no sense of humor”. I know funny when I hear it. They just weren’t funny.

The Sweatpant Boners are funny. Not in a juvenile, 1st grader “poo-poo pee-pee” kind of way, but in a Tenacious D, Bloodhound Gang, Dead Milkmen kind of way.

The opening track, “Save Your Virginity (Til We Get To Your Town)”, sets the pace for the entire album. “It doesn’t matter if you got braces, just don’t smile when the cops are around, save that virginity ’til we come to your town.” That’s comedy. Most of the songs on the album are one joke wonders, but the jokes work and the songs have enough funny lines to keep everything moving along nicely.

“Her Respectable Holes” is about a chick who lets guys fill her “respectable holes” when the world gets mean and cold. Her “respectable holes”, according to the song, are “her mouth, down south, but not in that garbage hole”. Each song has subtle little lines thrown in that made me laugh out loud. The line in this song was, “she … loves me. I … know her name.”

“Number 2” talks about a special little rumbling in the tummy the Sweatpant Boners experienced shortly after eating Chinese food. A more serious family bonding issue is explored in “Pee With Your Father”. “Shower Games” covers the many games most guys play in the shower but few would admit to. (Squeezing your nutsack to make it look like a little brain is just one of the many activities discussed.)

Obviously fans of the genre, the Sweatpant Boners poke fun at music itself in several songs. “Fire! (Acoustic Death Metal)” is a hilarious poke at black metal lyrics (“Wizards, up in castles, casting spooooky spells …”). “Singing Heavy Metal With A Mouth Full Of Cereal” is fairly self-explanitory. More wizardry is discussed in the closing track, “The Label Wanted 11 Tracks”.

The final two songs are hilarious reworkings of classic tunes. The first is “Always A Woman” by Billy Joel — you remember, “… she lies like a thief, but she’s always a woman to me.” Here are the first two verses, as redone by the Sweatpant Boners:

“She’ll call you Enrique when you’re under the covers,
She’ll grab your crotch in front of your mother,
and her red rapid river seems to last for weeks,
Yeah she might be your sister but she’s always a woman to me.”

“She’ll get you real drunk and put fruit up your ass,
She’ll make you go down on her even if it’s not a rash,
She’ll start making out with you in the middle of mass, Christ, Jesus,
Yeah she’s only thirteen but she’s always a woman to me.”

I laughed when I heard it, I laughed when I typed it, and I’m laughing again now.

The other send up on the disc is a reworking of the classic Gloria Gaynor song, “I Will Survive.” I won’t give away the whole song, but one of my favorite lines is, “… And I spent oh so many nights, wacking off to animal porn, I used to wack … but now I’m gonna get you back.”

Musically, the Sweatpant Boners play hard. Ok, I just couldn’t avoid that joke. Seriously though, these guys deliver the package. Hah, get it? Their package? God, I kill me. Anyway, what I’m trying to say here is that these guys back up their funny songs with some decent music. The songs are written poppy with good hooks, and you’ll soon find yourself wandering around the office humming the tune to “Pee With Your Father”. I know I did. Production on the album is surprisingly well done as well. Normally you wouldn’t expect a lot of quality from a band like this, but they did a nice job on the recording. Many of the songs have acoustic guitars in them which sound really clean in the recording. The bass has nice tone, the non-distorted electric guitars are clean, and the distorted ones hit with a good punch. The drums have a bit of direction in the cymbals and just enough “oomph”. All of this comes together in the song “Shower Games”. I can’t believe I’m discussing the quality of the music in a song that contains the line, “I’ll take the shampoo and I’ll lather up my pubes and I’ll pretend it’s snowing in my forest.” Musically, the songs range back and forth between acoustic numbers and rockin’ performances.

The band sounds like they had a good time recording this. (Although not too good of a time, apparently. Since the recording of the disc, the band has kicked out the guitarist … and the bassist, and the drummer.) But, it SOUNDS like they had fun, I had fun listening to it, and you will too. Head over to the band’s website and listen to a couple of sample tracks, then buy this shit. It’s $9 well spent, and a nice break from all the gloom and doom we subject ourselves to around here on a regular basis.

Plus, it’s funny.

01. Save Your Virginity (Til We Get To Your Town)
02. Banana
03. Her Respectable Holes
04. Number 2
05. Pee With Your Father
06. Shower Games
07. Fire! (Acoustical Death Metal)
08. Singing Heavy Metal With A Mouth Full Of Cereal
09. Always A Woman
10. I Will Survive
11. The Label Wanted 11 Tracks

Swarm of the Lotus reminds me of an Army seargent, yelling at his recruits for the first time. Maybe it’s because I accidentally left the stereo in my car turned up too loud, but when I slid White White Becomes Black in for the first time I actually jumped when the first track erupted into my car.

Hailing from Baltimore, Swarm of the Lotus’s debut disc is the definition of “intense”. Metalcore to the bone, tracks like “Committed to Ash”, “Seeng Truth” and “Burn Autumn Burn” explode with pain and anger. I don’t know why I should single those three tracks out; none of the eleven sounds found within could be mistaken for easy-listening ballads.

White White Becomes Black reminds me of Neurosis, without all the build up. Where a Neurosis song might be ten minutes, with eight minutes of build up followed by two minutes of fury, Swarm of the Lotus skips the build up and gets right to the fury. Most of the songs on the album don’t have discernable beginnings or endings (or choruses, for that matter). Tracks like “Cherry Chocolate Salamander” and “Episode Infinity” both begin and end with a bang.

White White Becomes Black is very relentless. Maybe it’s because my son is a member of the “terrible two’s” club, but after a while I just began tuning the disc out due to sensory overload. Much like those first day Army recruits, after being yelled at for half an hour it all began running together.

Violent, aggressive, and very very intense, Swarm of the Lotus’ debut album is the sonic equivalent of an hour long tornado. While it may take you a couple of listenings to make it through the entire disc, the payoff makes it all worth while. White White Becomes Black is bottled up east coast aggression, pure and simple.

After listening to Unlimited, I was glad I’m not the only one who still loves the 80’s. On the Norweigan band’s third album, Susperia has taken a new approach on an old genre — 80’s thrash metal.

Although the first forty-five seconds of the opening track “Chemisty” have a black metal feel to them, once the song kicks in it’s all old school thrash. Many of the songs share that style — black metal intros tacked onto pure power metal tunes. Fans of Testament, Overkill, Exodus and possibly even Pantera will get a kick out of the album’s interesting blend of genres. Traces of black metal can still be heard for sure (mostly in the guitar tones and the super clean production), but the song structures are definitely a tribute to that great, lost era. In fact, there isn’t a hint of black metal in the vocals at all — vocalist Athera’s style completely fits the genre, offering a mix of both clean vocals and throaty howls. Athera even pulls off some Judas Priest’ish screams near the end of “Years of Infinity” that old schoolers are sure to enjoy.

Unlimited’s ten tracks clock in at around 45 minutes. Every track contains that mixture of a little black metal and a whole lotta thrash. Tracks like “Devil May Care”, “Home Sweet Hell” and “Beast by Design” are some of the best, showing that the band may be using an older style, but the ideas contained within are new and fresh.

Unlimited is a fresh take and a new idea, and certainly a great album. There’s just enough black metal parts sprinkled throughout the disc’s ten songs to give fans of the genre a smile, but not enough to scare off non-fans. At the heart of Unlimited lies a solid thrash album. Definitely recommended to fans of all things rock.

“No, I don’t hate Balboa. I pity the fool.” – Clubber Lang, Rocky III.

Has there ever been a better movie bad ass than Rocky III’s Clubber Lang (played my Mr. T)? While Rocky is busy being wined and dined, Clubber Lang trains like a mo-fo. He tells Rocky he’s dead meat. He makes fun of Rocky at his own press conference. When Adrian opens her pie hole he puts her in her place too. He scares Mickey (Burgess Meredith) so bad that he gives him a heart attack and kills him. When asked about his upcoming fight with Rocky Balboa, he says, “My prediction? Pain.” And in the pair’s first meeting his predicion is correct, as he mercilessly kicks Rocky’s ass up and down the ring, dishing out a beating Ike Turner would be jealous of.

But in the film’s climactic rematch between the two boxers, Rocky makes a complete comeback. Despite Clubber Lang’s scary mohawk, Rocky prevails and overcomes his animalistic opponent by knocking out Clubber Lang. Was it Rocky’s training? Was it the death of his mentor and coach? Was it his dedication to the sport?

No. It was Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger”.

BUH. BUH BUH BUH. BUH BUH BUH. BUH BUH BUHHHHHHHHHHH. THE EYE OF THE TIGERRRRRRRRRRRR!

With that song behind him, nothing could stop Rocky. It was like the old Three Stooges short Punch Drunks, where every time Curly hears “Pop Goes the Weasel” he goes crazy and beats everybody up. That’s what Rocky should have had in the first fight — Apollo Creed in his corner with a big boom box blasting out “The Eye of the Tiger”. And in Rocky IV, when the power of “Eye of the Tiger” begins to wane, have no fear — Rocky switches to Survivor’s “Burning Heart” and uses the power of that song to kick a Russian’s ass!

Never underestimate the power of a Survivor song.

On Survivor’s 2004 Ultimate Survivor CD, you get “Eye of the Tiger”, “Burning Heart”, and sixteen other classic Survivor tracks. Use caution when playing this CD, however — you might accidentally kick someone’s ass without even meaning to!

I wouldn’t necessarily call myself a “fan” of Survivor, but I liked them enough back in the 80’s and this CD is a nice throwback to those days. Their greatest hits CD includes some classic power ballads, some out and out ballads (“The Search is Over”), some rockers, and even the obligitory “unreleased” track. “Rockin’ Into The Night”, made famous by 38 Special, was originally a Survivor song. It appears for the first time ever on Ultimate Survivor.

If you’re a Survivor fan, this is a must own disc. All 18 tracks have been digitally remastered and sound awesome. The CD comes with a 16 page booklet that contains interviews with the principal members of Survivor, and tells the complete story of the band from inception to current day. There are also several awesome pictures of the band from their glory days in the 80’s.

Survivor is currently recording an album set to be released later this year. If they harness the power from Eye of the Tiger, it’s sure to be a success.

Sunwheel Psychedelic’s Burning Doves albums is an interesting journey into unique territory.

Sunwheel Psychedelic is the one-man project of G.W. Miner, former guitarist for the Electric Hellfire Club. Don’t let the reference fool you; the two couldn’t be further from each other on the musical map. While EHC is Satanic electronica, Sunwheel Psychedelic’s sound might be described as “adult contemporary rock”, dishing out a vibe nestled somewhere in between the Cult-lite and Dave Navarro.

The more I listen to “Burning Doves”, the less I would even classify it as a rock album. Sure, there are a few rock riffs, and the drums have enough echo on them to make Led Zeppelin jealous, but the majority of the songs here come off as extremely mellow. It’s the kind of concert you go to where everyone ends up just standing around, staring at the stage.

Miner’s guitar work shines on tracks like “Lilies of Vice”, which has one foot planted solid in the blues. It’s obvious throughout the album the guy is really gifted on the six string, so it’s too bad that he doesn’t let us hear more of it. Instead, moments of goodness are sprinkled throughout the entire journey which near the end left me yawning. “Burning Doves” could have really used an upbeat rocker around track 8 or 9. Instead, the album seemed to get more quiet and more acoustic as it went on. Combine this with repetitive riffs, and the album feels about twice as long as it really is. Track 10, “Temple in My Heart”, repeats the same chorus and riff over and over, dragging the album on way too long. The last track of the disc (“Loaded”) tries to push the tempo back up, but its generic (and familiar) rock riff offers too little too late.

Miner is an awesome guitarist, but like many one-man projects, seems to have lost his way a bit on Burning Doves. Most producers would have cut the fat from this disc and pushed Miner back into the studio to crank out more material to match the finer moments of this disc. As it is, Burning Doves is interesting, but not that enjoyable.

The 1970’s brought us punk rock music. Bands like the MC5, the Clash, the Sex Pistols and the Ramones defined what punk rock is — not only the musical style, but the lifestyle itself. Everything from mohawks to safety pins can be traced back to here.

The 90’s brought us pop-punk. Bands like the Offspring, Rancid, and Green Day took the three chord attack made famous by punk rock, dabbled in the “bad boy attitude” and mixed it all with a bit of pop sensibility, and came up with a style of music that seemed dangerous enough to keep kid’s interest, while keeping it all safe enough to swarm MTV’s airwaves.

S.T.U.N., (short for “Scream Toward the Uprising of Non-Conformity”) would love for you to believe that they’re a member of the former group rather than the latter, that they’re punks with an attitude and a penchant for protesting against “the man”. Upon closer inspection, however, the truth begins to emerge.

S.T.U.N. hates the man. While comparing themselves to both the Clash and the Sex Pistols in their bio material, they strut around in their Converse shoes and Ramones shirts, talking about their revolution against the man.

In fact, these guys hate the man so much that they … signed to Geffen and joined the Vans’ Warped Tour. Gone is the hand-drawn, crude DIY punk marketing graphics of old. Along with the band’s debut CD, I also received a DVD of the band performing several of their songs live. If that doesn’t get you to join the revolution, maybe their flash-heavy site will, which is packed with enough java, windows media and real video clips to choke even the fastest internet connection. Gone are the clip art cut and pasted flyers for advertising — they’ve been replaced by links to the band’s MTV.Com A-Z page, notes about their M2 appearances, tour e-cards, and of course the S.T.U.N store which has all the S.T.U.N. merchandise.

Also gone is the old punk tradition of trading underground tapes with friends. S.T.U.N.’s Evolution of Energy is copy protected, meaning you won’t be sharing this punk CD with your punk friends (or listening to it on your punk MP3 player or your punk laptop, which is how I do most of my reviews these days).

So when you get down to the bottom line, the music is … pretty good. While the opening track “Movement” sounds eerily like Rage Against the Machine, the band switches gears pretty quickly and it’s pop-punkville all the way from there. The music does exactly what it’s supposed to do — despite the fact that I don’t really like what this band stands for, I found myself tapping my feet and nodding my head along song after song. And song after song, S.T.U.N. tells you about the revolution, in songs like “Here Comes the Underground”, “We Want You”, “The Future is Now”, and “We Will Come To You”.

S.T.U.N. spends a bit too much energy trying to convince us they’re punk. Their DVD is packed with clips of band members destroying instruments and jumping off tall stacks of speakers (and that damn Ramones shirt, which is featured so often it’s almost like a fifth member of the band).

I don’t know if the corporate music world helped form S.T.U.N. or just hitched their wagon to them and packaged their essence. Either way, the glossy coat sprayed over the whole project ruins it for me. It’s like getting money from the tooth fairy after you already found out she was really your parents but didn’t tell anybody — while you feel a little dirty for keeping the dollar, a buck’s a buck. The irony of this band recording a bunch of songs about being original is amusing.

Those of you who put safety pins in your clothes as a fashion statement will probably love Evolution of Energy. Those who have used safety pins to hold your clothes together probably won’t listen long enough to even snicker.

It always fascinates me when a unique song or album launches a genre. Apocalyptica’s 1996 release Plays Metallica by Four Cellos introduced to the world the “guys covering heavy metal on classical stringed instruments” genre, whether we thought we needed one or not. Before long, cello-playing dudes everywhere were churning out orchestral versions of Tool, Iron Maiden, and Led Zeppelin. Vitamin Records has made an entire career out of it, releasing close to 1,000 string tributes to every popular rock and metal band you can think of. One of their most recent releases is The Evil You Dread, a tribute to the mighty Slayer.

The Evil You Dread contains ten tracks — nine cover tunes and one original (“Midless Death”) — performed via violin, viola and cello. The versions presented here are often slower in tempo (especially the earlier tracks), but the spirit of Slayer is still somehow present. I’m not saying that the album will have you headbanging along, but the music does sound somewhat more frentic than the average classical compilation.

The only major annoyance is that the violin is often used to simulate a vocal track. They also used to use violins to simulate bugs and insects talking in old cartoons. The whole time I was listening to “South of Heaven” I couldn’t help but imagining a large mosquito standing at the mic stand, throwing up the devil horns (if a mosquito’s arm/leg can even do that) and rocking out with his two big buggy eyes. It’s probably just me.

If you have ever been in an elevator listening to bad musaz/instrumental versions of songs and thought to yourself, “Boy instead of Billy Joel I wish they were playing string versions of Slayer songs in here, Jesus Christ I would buy that and listen to it for hours at a time!” then Vitamin Records has your fix. And if Slayer’s not your bag, they have string tributes to Nine Inch Nails, Disturbed, Jennifer Lopez, and Limp Bizkit too. Run, don’t walk.

I doubt the guy who carved “SLAYER” into his forearm with a razor blade is spinning this CD, but if you’re looking for a calm version of “Mandatory Suicide” to play at your next tea party, this is for you.

01. Expendable Youth
02. Bloodline
03. Dead Skin Mask
04. Divine Intervention
05. Mandatory Suicide
06. Postmortem
07. Die By The Sword
08. South Of Heaven
09. War Ensemble
10. Mindless Death (Original)

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Parents have begun their Christmas shopping, children have begun dreaming of toy trains and candy canes, and beautiful Christmas music has begun to fill the air.

Ok, who am I kidding. Parents shop on eBay and Amazon these days. Kids could care less about toy trains; their e-mails to Santa ask for things like “bling-bling” and “mo’ toys, fer shizzle”, and the Christmas music we all grew up with has been replaced by an onslaught of greatest hits albums just in time for the holiday season — the latest of which is Stone Temple Pilot’s Thank You.

As is the current rage, Thank You is available either as a stand alone fifteen track audio CD, or packaged with a bonus DVD.

And, as is the current rage, the audio CD pretty much is what it is. The fifteen tracks cover most of Stone Temple Pilot’s singles over the years, starting with “Sex Type Thing” and ending with the recently released “All In The Suit That You Wear”, with the acoustic version of “Plush” from Headbanger’s Ball tacked on to the end. Unlike most of the other greatest hits packages hitting shelves, the songs are not presented chronologically.

Fans of Stone Temple Pilots will be much more impressed with the DVD than with the CD. With over three hours of footage, the DVD is the real “thank you” to their fans. With over 30 tracks of videos, live performances, and bootleg material, this is THE quintessential video collection of STP video material.

If nothing else, Thank You reminded me just how good Stone Temple Pilots actually were, and for that, I thank them as well. The CD is a sugar-coated treat containing most of their hits, but the real treasure here is the comprehensive DVD. Pick it up now before the rush hits when Scott Weiland finally overdoses.

Tracks:

01. Vasoline
02. Down
03. Wicked Garden
04. Big Empty
05. Plush
06. Big Bang Baby
07. Creep
08. Lady Picture Show
09. Trippin On A Hole In A Paper Heart
10. Interstate Love Song
11. All In The Suit That You Wear
12. Sex Type Thing
13. Days Of The Week
14. Sour Girl
15. Plush (Acoustic)