Customer Reviews

Chopped Screwed Live & Unglued (W/Dvd) (Chop)

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

It's been a big year for Korn, as their most recent album, "See You On The Other Side," put the band back in the limelight. 2006 also saw a successful revamped world tour and the revival of the band's own Family Values Tour. This was arguably the best year the band have had since the turn of the century. So naturally, there have been several Korn releases for us fans to lap up. June saw the release of the band's second full-length live DVD, "Live On The Other Side" and the rather pathetic "Live & Rare," which you can blame their old record label for. "Chopped, Screwed, Live & Unglued," a supplemental three-disc set to "See You On The Other Side" contains all you could want and some stuff you don't want.

Sounds like: A greedy cash-in.

The Good:
- The live tracks on disc two are of superb quality, and I was pleased to find that the recordings of "Somebody Someone" and "Throw Me Away" were actually from the very show I attended in March.
- The DVD has both the "Twisted Transistor" and "Coming Undone" videos, plus a behind-the-scenes section where you can spot most of the back-up band unmasked.
- For what you're getting, it's a fairly inexpensive package.
- Munky's solo! Check it out at the end of the live version of "Liar."
- Both of the acoustic tracks are solid and show a different side of Korn.

The Bad:
- The entire "Chopped & Screwed" disc, "Coming Undone Wit' It" included, is absolute trash.
- The artwork is recycled from "See You On The Other Side"
- The DVD is surprisingly brief.
- "Falling Away From Me" and "Thoughtless" from the AOL Sessions are not included.

Future: Not much of one. This release will fall by the wayside and is meant strictly for the Korn enthusiast.

Personally: The novelty of having songs from a show I was at is enough to win me over, but the average Korn fan might feel left in the cold by this release. I mean, the "Chopped & Screwed" disc is absolutely horrible as it just slows down the songs to an intolerable rate. And could they have fused "Coming Undone" with a worse song/video? I'm all for mash-ups, but mashing up Korn with stale, generic hip-hop about booty, cash and cars is not something I take kindly to.

Best Listened To When: All else fails.

Ehh, I had high hopes about this when I first heard that it was being released. After picking it up and listening to it, here is my review...

Chopped & Screwed:
1. Twisted Transistor
2. Hypocrites
3. Getting Off (Ft. DJ Michael "5000" Watts
4. Getting Off
5. For No One
6. Love Song
7. 10 Or A 2-Way
8. Coming Undone
9. Coming Undone Wit It (Korn Vs. Dem Franchize Boyz)

This cd may not appeal to many Korn fans. The vocals are slowed down to a crawling pace, which makes it feel like the song is dragging on. Track 4 is a remix by DJ Mike Watts, with rap overtop of the chopped "Getting Off". The 2 tracks that stood out for me were "Hypocrites" and "Love Song"

Live & Unglued
1. Hypocrites (Live)
2. Somebody Someone (Live)
3. Throw Me Away (Live)
4. Liar (Live)
5. Love Song (Live)
6. Blind (Live)
7. Coming Undone (Sleazy Days Rock Electro Remix)
8. Coming Undone (Stegnation Remix)
9. Coming Undone (AOL Acoustic Sessions)
10. Twisted Transistor (AOL Acoustic Sessions)

CD 2 is much better in my opinion. The live tracks sound great, plus the second "Coming Undone" remix is good as well. Also, this is the first source that I know of with the acoustic songs on it.

DVD
1. Twisted Transistor (Video)
2. Coming Undone (Video)
3. Twisted Transistor (AOL Acoustic Sessions)
4. Coming Undone (AOL Acoustic Sessions)
5. Liar (Video)
6. Coming Undone Wit It (Video)
7. Live Acoustic Performace / Behind The Scenes Footage

The Twisted Transistor isn't the full 7 minute + video which sucks, but oh well...you can find that on YouTube. "Liar" is an animation video that just flat out rocks! And the Live Acoustic Performance / Behind The Scenes Footage is too short in my opinion. Only about 5 minutes long. But Korn answers a few personal questions, and plays an acoustic set in a contest winners backyard.

All around, I would say get this is you are a die-hard fan. I'm not thrilled with the first disc but the second and third one makes up for that.

When I heard that this was being released, I thought it was the actual "See You On The Other Side" album with some extra tracks. Not investigating, I didn't get too excited, as I already have "SYOTOS", and it's already a 2 disc special edition--so--I didn't consider picking this up.

However, I saw this at the store, and noticed immediately that 100% of the content on this release is completely new, which is fantastic. 3 new discs of Korn goodness? Sign me up.

One thing I'd like to mention is that they went the "conserving space" route and somehow squeezed all 3 discs into a standard single disc case. You get the swinging hinged interior that holds 2 discs,a and the third disc (a DVD) is actually held inside the back tray of the case itself, making the back cover look a little weird, with the outline of a CD. Not too odd, but I've never seen it before, so I thought it would warrant a mention.

The artwork uses the "SYOTOS" theme, taking the original album artwork and chopping (get it?) it up into puzzle pieces. The booklet copies the same "Thank You's" from the band as the album, which I found a little bit weird. The CD art is the same as the album as well.

Disc one is titled "Chopped and Screwed", which means that the remixes are on this one. We get 9 tracks, including the "Coming Undone Wit It" mash up with Dem Franchize Boyz that was done by "SYOTOS" producers The Matrix. This is actually one of the better Korn remix discs released, as I've bought others ("All Mixed Up", "Good God: The French Remixes", and so on) that weren't very good. Keep in mind that these tracks really ARE "chopped and screwed" with, and at times barely resemble the original album tracks. But I guess that's a good thing. But, if you're expecting something to the effect of the dance remix of "Twisted Transistor" that was on the "SYOTOS" 2 disc, don't.

Disc 2 is titled "Live & Unglued", and has its ups and downs. We get live versions of "Hypocrites", "Somebody Someone", "Throw Me Away", "Liar", "Love Song", and "Blind". "Liar" is over seven minutes long, with an extended ending with a (Munky I'm presuming) guitar solo. Did we REALLY need ANOTHER live version of "Blind"? It's one of the weaker performances of the song, as well.

We then get two remixes of "Coming Undone" that were winners in a MTV Europe online contest that involved taking Sony Acid Planet software (the band released all the individual drum, vocal, and guitar takes from the song) and creating an completely original remix of the song. Trent Reznor did it with Nine Inch Nails' songs "The Hand That Feeds" and "Only", and then Korn followed. It was an amazing idea, and I wish other bands would do the same thing. I even downloaded the samples and have been trying (rather poorly) to make a mix of my own. The contest was limited to Holland and France, which is why you probably never heard of it here in America. Each respective country's winner is represented here, and they both are quite good.

We also get 2 acoustic versions of "Coming Undone" and "Twisted Transistor' that were recorded for a special AOL Session in mid 2006. Both are rather better than I expected. They aren't as good Nirvana Unplugged, but good nonetheless. I wouldn't be surprised to see more acoustic tracks released by the band in the future, as they went on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" and did an acoustic set eariler this year.

Disc 3 is a Bonus DVD (running 28:34 according to the case) of the acoustic performances, music videos ("Liar", "Coming Undone", "Coming Undone Wit It" and the short version of "Twisted Transistor") and about 5 minutes of behind the scenes footage that isn't anything special. A nice little diddy to round out the set.

Overall, this collection is worth it for two reasons. One, if you are a die hard Korn fan, and/or two, if you just LOVED the "See You On the Other Side" album, as 85% of this set is geared towards that album. I've seen it being sold for $13.99, with the list price being $24.99. Sorry Korn, but just can't see many people picking up what is basically a remix album for 25 bucks. It IS three discs, however, but none of them are particularly jam packed. Nonetheless, it's a nice release that the band didn't have to put out, and I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn't just some special re-release of the "SYOTOS" album to make a few extra bucks.

Thumbs up, slightly.

First of all let me say that you need to avoid this "fanpack" like you would avoid the plague. This is nothing more than Virgin milking the success of See You on the Other Side and ruining Korn's good name in the process.

DISC 1 - No Korn fan likes this chopped and screwed style of remixing and we especially dont want to hear it done to Korn. Nonetheless, there is most of the album butchered like this. It is just the songs played at half-speed with a wannabee rapper yelling "DJ Michael Watts" over it every couple minutes. That's no lie. No fan wants to hear Korn and Dem Franzhize Boys, yet there is a freakin' mashup with them.

DISC 2 - These live songs aren't mixed at all. They sound as if they are straight off the soundboard and no time was spent on mixing. It is good for a bootleg, but not an official release. The one good thing here is Munky's solo. The FAN-MADE remixes are actually pretty decent in my book, that's why this gets 1 star. The AOL Sessions - Korn and acoustic do not mix and this is even worse than their MTV Unplugged.

DISC 3 - The DVD is complete crap. The audio is poor and even cuts out left or right channels at some points. Nobody even bothered to master the album audio to the music videos. The individual videos are all thrown on 1 title. This DVD seems like it was just slapped together by some amateur.

Overall, this so-called fanpack is poorly produced with no attention paid to any details. Its very obvious this was just all thrown into 3 discs of garbage to make a quick buck. They even lifted the band's thanks right from See You on the Other Side!!! DO NOT BUY THIS. Pirate it.

I purchased this for a friend of mine for Christmas. Upon viewing this dvd and listening to the cd's at his house I was actually embarrased. How could Korn steal peoples money like this? Save your money. THIS IS ABSOLUTE TRASH!!!

Save your money; download the Torrent for free! We steal music because we're tired of being nailed by the music industry - this release is a prime example.

I was actually pretty excited when I first heard that SYOTOS was going to get remixed. But then I got this nice fan-pack, and was sadly dissapointed.

Disc 1 - "Chopped"
The songs are remixed, and this DJ Mike Watts or whoever, just slowed down JD's voice. It's really annoying. It's not all a waste though, he did do a good job of remixing the songs. Just the slowed-down vocals ruined it for me.

Disc 2 - "Screwed"
The second disc is what saved this from being a complete disaster. The live tracks are awesome. And I was thrilled to see that my favorite song from SYOTOS, "Love Song", made it onto the tracklisting.

Disc 3 - "Live & Unglued"
The DVD disc. The animated "Liar" video rocks, plus the videos for "Twisted Transistor" (the full 7 minute version), and "Coming Undone are on here as well.

Disc's 2 and 3 are the reason why I gave this pack 4 stars. I would give it 5, but I can't listen to disc 1, even if I tried to ignore the hideously slow vocals.

First of all, KoRn is my favorite band going today.

This release is garbage.

I can just play the vinyl edition of 'See You On The Other Side', and slow it down, if I want to hear this.

It's not even re-mixes... It's just the songs slowed-down. Who wants to hear that? Not me. This took NO talent to "remix".

KoRn is still awesome though. DJ Michael Watts is not.

What were they thinking?!?! If you want a good live Korn DVD, get the greatest hits cd with the CBGB performance. If you want acoustic, get Unplugged. But what would you need with a slowed-down, "chopped and screwed" version of any of these songs? It does NOTHING for them. What a complete waste of time. See You On The Other Side was hard enough to listen to all the way through, but this is just ridiculous. Don't even bother. I own all of Korn's albums and have been a fan since the beginning, but this will not be in my collection.

First there was the See You on the Other Side album. It was a good album with good music. Then came the Live on the Other Side DVD. It's an obvious cash in on the album, but what the heck? It had good live versions of many good songs plus several behind the scenes goodies.

Now here comes Chopped, Screwed, Live & Unglued. At this point it's obvious the record company's milking us for all they can get with this album. There are some great things making it worth buying. I don't regret getting it. But it does make me feel like a sucker having gotten such an obvious cash in.

Disk 1: DJ Michael Watts treated each song the exact same way. He slowed them down so much it feels like you're trudging through molasses mixed with tar. Add in some assorted sound affects (disk scratching among others) that seem to be thrown in randomly, these remixes are very hard to listen to for too long. The only redeeming part of Disk 1 is Coming Undone Wit It, a mix between Korn and Dem Franchise Boyz. Nice to finally own on CD, but nothing that couldn't be listened to on Korn's MySpace site.

Disk 2: This one's a little better. It has live versions of several songs both old and new. However, if you're a Korn fan, chances are you already have live versions of these songs. There's two more Coming Undone remixes: a dance mix and a more frantic mix. Really nothing special until you get to the AOL Sessions. These are acoustic versions of Coming Undone and Twisted Transistor. They've been slowed down, but not nearly as bad as the molasses that is the DJ Watts mixes. Over all, it's a mediocre cd.

Disk 3: You get the AOL sessions again. Same music as disk 2 only you get to see video with it. You also get videos for Twisted Transistor, Coming Undone and Coming Undone Wit It. The videos are almost worth the ticket price in themselves. They're the main reason I can sleep well after having got this release. However, there was some censoring. On something carrying the Parental Advisory label, I don't get why they'd have to do any censoring, especially the words "gun" and "trigger" given some of the other words they didn't have to censor. But still, very well done videos.

Final words: I like having Coming Undone Wit' It on CD, having already listened to it on the net. I like having the music videos. But that doesn't hide the fact that everything else on this release is mediocre at best. DJ Watt's shouldn't be allowed anywhere near Korn in the future. Live performances lose their appeal when the record company releases so many in such a short space of time. I love Korn, but this is something better left on the shelf.