Customer Reviews

Essential Stabbing Westward

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Stabbing Westward is one of my favourite bands of all time. I own all four of their albums and listen to them often. Their dark, industrial rock sound has always been incredible. Lead singer Christopher Hall has one of the most original and awesome voices in the music industry, which is complemented perfectly with his awesome, and frequently beautiful, lyrics; bands like Linkin Park and Limp Bizkit should take notes.

Therefore, it is with some curiosity that I looked over this "essential" Stabbing Westward collection. First let me state that Stabbing Westward simply doesn't have any bad songs, so no danger of that here. That being said, this collection is not ideal for a casual or new fan of this band. Sony Music, in their infinite stupidity, decided to drop Stabbing Westward from their label after "Darkest Days" (their third, and best, album), which makes Stabbing Westward's final album off limits for this collection! If Sony really wanted to reward fans, and give this band the respect they deserve, they should have negotiated with Koch Music to use the fourth album for this collection. Instead, what you get is a great, but not perfect, collection of songs from their first three albums, along with "Dawn" and the remix of "Torn Apart", which weren't on any of the four albums.

Ideally, the essential Stabbing Westward collection would have been as follows (in my opinion):
1. Nothing
2. Lies
3. Violent Mood Swings
4. Shame
5. What Do I Have To Do?
6. Crushing Me
7. Save Yourself
8. Torn Apart (NOT the remix!!)
9. Sometimes it Hurts
10.The Thing I Hate
11.Waking Up Beside You
12.So Far Away
13.Wasted
14.Television
15.Dawn

If you're just getting into this band, you really can't go wrong with this collection, as long as you realize that this is just a sample of the profound musical offerings that Stabbing Westward has to offer.

The idea of a greatest hits cd, besides making money, is to expose a band to a broader audience by 'introducing' them to the band's best music. It also gives someone who can't afford to buy all of a band's cds the chance to buy 1 cd and get a lot of good music. This compilation falls short on all accounts.


While this is not a bad compilation, it surely could have been better. And while you while never get exactly what you want on a 'Best of' CD, some of the omissions are glaring.

From UNGOD, they included:
1. Lost
2. Control
3. Nothing
4. Lies

'Nothing' is probably the worst song un UNGOD. How many times do you need to hear Chris Hall sing "I don't want it, I don't need it" And how could they leave off 'Throw'? Lost and COntrol belong and Lies is good, but not at the expanse of Ungod or Throw.

From Wither, Blister, Burn and Peel they included:
5. What Do I Have to Do?
6. Shame
7. I Don't Believe
8. Sleep
9. Crushing Me

Hello? What about 'Falls Apart' and 'So Wrong'. The only "Essential ' song on this list is Shame, although 'Crushing Me' isn't bad.

And finally off of Darkest Days:
10. Save Yourself
11. Sometimes It Hurts
12. Haunting Me
13.
14. Torn Apart

No way.... What about How Can I Hold On, You Complete Me, When I'm Dead, On Your Way Down, and Waking Up Beside You? I will take any of these songs over anything on the list except for 'Save Yourself' which really does belong.

So out of 14 songs, they got 4 or 5 right. This is definately NOT the definitive SW collection.

So if you are new to SW, DON'T BUY THIS.. Buy one of the first three albums instead (I would recommend Ungod or Darkest Days), then take out a piece of masking tape, write 'Essential' on it and stick it to the CD cover. You will make yourself a lot happier then buying this.

I already own all of Stabbing Westward's albums, but I was still interested in a "Greatest Hits" CD. After reading through the songs included I just couldn't justify purchasing this CD. Too many of my favorites are missing! What's missing is "ACF", "Why", "The Thing I Hate", and "Waking Up Beside You". None of the songs from their 4th album could be included in Essentials because it is on the Koch label, not Sony. Therefore, you would be better off making your own CD and adding "So Far Away", "Wasted", "High", and "Television" from the self-titled release.

P.S. If you're disappointed SW broke up you'll be happy to know that lead singer Chris Hall has started another band called The Dreaming. Check out www.thedreamingonline.com.

I've seen this before. Remember that band called Alice in Chains? That great ill-fated band ended up seeing repackaged greatest hits release after release thanks to their record label; Columbia/Sony. When the one time great industrial band Stabbing Westward committed the cardinal sin of going gold and not platinum with they're "Darkest Days" album, they were subsequently dropped from their label and found a home on Koch Records. Eventually the band broke up after the release of their fourth and final album, and now here is Columbia/Sony looking to milk whatever they can from this once great band. This "essential" collection collects tracks from the band's three albums for the label; "Ungod", "Wither, Blister, Burn, & Peel", and "Darkest Days", and mostly just contains a few fan favorite songs and the ones that radio ate up. Do yourself a favor, if your looking to get into the band check out those three albums and leave this disc as skeet shoot fodder.

I am a confessed Stabbing Westward fanatic, so beware that I may be a little biased in my rating. They are one of the best bands of my generation, and I was heartbroken when I learned of their dissolution.

Biased aside, I would say that this album represents an adequte sampling of SW's music. My main gripe is the wasted space of four tracks from the "Ungod" release, which really wasn't that popular compared to "Wither, Blister, Burn, and Peel" and "Darkest Days". I think the tracks featured from "Ungod" should have been minimal in number to allow for the experienced, more talented side of SW to show through (for example, cutting two "Ungod" tracks to feature an additional track from both "W,B,B,P" and "Darkest Days"). Also, I think SW had more than the 14 "hits" featured here. When buying a greatest-hits-like release, I expect more than the usual 10-15 tracks on the album (see Aerosmith's "O Yeah!" compilation for an example). In addition, due to label conflicts, nothing from the latest, self-title release appears on this album. For such a die-hard fan as myself, this is a disappointment, though I do recognize reasoning behind it. Wouldn't it be great if record labels could just learn to share??

All in all, this album is a great INTRODUCTION to Stabbing Westward's music. Even though I own all of their albums, I still purchased this CD and listen to it frequently. However, I think I would have been more satisfied making my own copy of "Essential Stabbing Westward."

CD rocks... and more new stuff @ The Official website of "the dreaming" The LA based rock band formed by Stabbing
Westward singer Christopher Hall and Econoline Crush drummer Johnny Haro. ... www.thedreamingonline.com/

Im glad they compiled a collection of their best songs which sound great. these guys might have been influenced by NIN but they only took that sound deeper and farther into better melodic bliss. My only complaint on this compilation(thats why I rated this 4 stars)is they chose a(although great instrumental)opening track song that has no lyrical content its just a waste of space when a way better track with Mr.Hall's awesome voice on it from the first album could been used on here but nonetheless this a great representation of what the 90's were all about.

This is the first Stabbing Westward CD I bought, I known of them for a while and always liked them. Then I picked up the "Escape From L.A." Soundtrack from a PawnShop and Fell in love with the first track on it, and it happend to be "Dawn" by Stabbing WestWard, So then I paid a freind to Order Me The Essential Stabbing WestWard and I was a little Dissapointed, because for some reason I was really hoping every single song would sound like "Dawn", but none of them do (Except For "Dawn" of Course), it then took a while for Me to realize The True Greatness of this album, it is absolutly amazing, and is prolly My Favorite Greatest Hits/Essential CD (Also My Rush Greatest Hits!), I love every song on this CD, I'm hoping to get some more soon, So far the only other SW CD I own is "What Do I have To Do?", but it happend to be just a Compilation Disk, But its very good also (Especially for $5), I would recomend this Essential to any Stabbing WestWard fan, but not to the ones who own all or most of their albums, I have heard that its songs off of only 2 albums, but If You have heard SW before, and Can't buy all their CDs (Or The 2 albums these songs are off), then Grab this one, its great...
(Note: They are not NIN rip-offs)

Stabbing Westward is trully a great band and I still wish they never had broken up. They produced 4 albums total and although the 4th album is most often complained about i feel all 4 of the albums were great pieces of work. This is basically a greatest hits album and I agree with most of the selections on here except for the Torn Apart remix.. I feel they should have put Hopeless on there since they put another bside (dawn). but other then that i have no gripes about this CD.

i love stabbing westward and this is a nice collection and all...but it looks like this was an attempt to sucker fans out of money with the words "remastered" (coal chamber anyone?). i don't know they'd have to remaster "darkest days" tracks when they still sound fantastic now.

also, the liner notes are not that great. it's a few quotes and a small backstory of the band which any fan already knows. when i think of liner notes...i'm thinking someting that someone in the band wrote that gave a bit more insight into the songs even though not knowing is it's own answer.

i also question why "torn apart" from the spawn soundtrack was included on this when it's been said that stabbing hated that song when it was released in '97. i'm thinking maybe they could've included some other track, but i am at a lost for what. it is nice that did include "dawn" from the "escape from l.a." soundtrack, but the inclusion of it here might make fans just passover that soundtrack (which is fantastic too by the way) since they already own it here.

i'm just wondering why someone couldn't have put together a b-sides & rarities collection coz god knows stabbing has been on a million and one soundtracks and tracking down those discs (which by any indication of the "clerks" soundtrack might make the buyer wary) might be a problem. also it would've been great to own a better quality version of their "iwo jimma" demos.

but alas...
it may never be...
and that is sad.