Rob Zombie

[TinDefacto]

This is my first full listen of a Rob Zombie album (I know, I know), and I really really like it. While I'm not drawn to the aesthetic, I appreciate that this is a dude who's having a lot of fun with what he loves, and the music is damn good (which, of course, is thanks to the other band members as well). "Crow Killer Blues" is a fantastic album closer.

[Erneuert]

This is my first full listen of a Rob Zombie album (I know, I know), and I really really like it. While I'm not drawn to the aesthetic, I appreciate that this is a dude who's having a lot of fun with what he loves, and the music is damn good (which, of course, is thanks to the other band members as well). "Crow Killer Blues" is a fantastic album closer.

FIRST? Wtf?

You got some major discography listening to do!

I’ll throw in a few of my favourites:




(Yes, as in Michael Myers) -

[TinDefacto]

Just listened to Hellbilly Deluxe, and why didn't I do this earlier?? Especially since I knew how much I loved Living Dead Girl...

Also, I guess I may as well mention this here: listening to "Perversion 99" for the first time, I'm 99% sure it samples the Cibo Matto song "The Candy Man":





So that was fun to discover!!

[Erneuert]

one, two, three, who should I kill?
every motherfucker running up the hill
one, two, three, what should I do?
get fucked up and fuck up you

[GulDukat]

LA RATS

New supergroup with Rob Zombie, John 5 and Nikki Sixx.

[allegate]

I was torn between this thread and the Nickelback thread.

[october_midnight]

Woooooooooof.

[Mutilated]

I was torn between this thread and the Nickelback thread.

Nickelback thread.

[GulDukat]

I was torn between this thread and the Nickelback thread.

I thought it was pretty good.

[Erneuert]

As an Aussie I can really appreciate that.

[voidnz]

It makes me glad Tommy Clefetos left Zombie. Ginger Fish sounds so much better.

Track is boring as hell.

[bobbie solo]

holy shit that fucking SUCKS

[Erneuert]

enjoy it for what it is sons of bichez

[Space Suicide]

enjoy it for what it is sons of bichez

if it wasn't labeled as a new side project supergroup band I wouldn't know the difference of it being a cover b-side from one of Rob's last few albums. Sounds like a carbon copy. Aside Sixx nothing is new here, it literally just sounds like RZ band (which why wouldn't it as all of these guys were in his band at one point). I like Sixx but his bass playing is nothing special so it doesn't show up in that song.

Weak.

[Erneuert]

[Shadaloo]

Lengthy spontaneous rambling ahead:

Out of nowhere, but I'm on a Zombie kick. I finally gave the last RZ album a shot - because yet again I heard the seemingly obligatory "I got WZ vibes from this song" statement tossed around.

So I sat and listened to it and, uncharacteristically of me these days, wanted to really sit and hash out the differences between RZ and WZ, more for myself than anyone else I guess, and kind of pin down why looking for "That White Zombie feel" in Rob's solo work is a fool's errand.

I've largely checked out of RZ's solo albums post-Hellbilly Deluxe 2, and it's for a few reasons. Primarily is I keep hearing that, and every time it's plain and simply not true, and I wind up being disappointed. It front-loads disappointment into trying to listen to Rob's efforts. I don't do that anymore and it helps me to appreciate what I do like a lot more. But another is that, yes, I think he's locked himself into a routine where every album now more or less has the same feel to it. I cannot from memory tell you if an album is called "The Satanic Acid Regeneration Vendor" or "The Koolaid Witch Rat Orgy Conspiracy", and I'm only half kidding. I often need to go look it up because I'm never sure what "The Creepy Adjective Liquid Energy Spooky Verb Noun" even fucking is. That maybe speaks to all the music blending together as well as the album titles.

It's a disservice to both WZ and RZ's discographies to even compare them at this point, save that you could hear Rob shift away from the harder, more metal-tinged WZ songcraft into Helbilly Deluxe - WZ sometimes flirted with that hard rock formula, especially on their singles, but at their heart, they were a metal band. Starting from Sinister Urge on the two have virtually nothing in common - Rob Zombie is a rock and roll act, and WZ did proggy rock to blistering metal more often than not. When they weren't melting your face off with thrashy groovy numbers they were blowing your mind with guitar compositions like the intro to, and solo in, I Am Legend. Jay's guitar playing really brought that band to the next level.

Rob's always been the chief of the act, responsible for much of the sound, look and feel, just like Corgan or Brian Warner. But like I once said in the SP thread, what comes out of a band is always going to depend on who's in it, how much songwriting is shared. Common sense. And WZ was from the outset co-founded by him and Sean Yseault. I really think the fact that you had a bassist co-writing their songs also speaks to a lot of how groovy they became over time, once they left the noise act behind. These days WZ and RZ are lumped together constantly as a matter of documenting Rob's career, and I've never thought that was very fair - WZ is not just part of "The Rob Zombie experience".

So beside the obvious fact that his bandmates were completely different, and that alone is going to lend a huge difference in musical output, what else?

WZ's sound could be very...I suppose the best word for it is 'dirty'. Maybe 'In-your-face'. I Am Hell' and 'The One' both assault your ears with loud, aggressive shredding, for example. It's fundamentally fuckin' raw, from the chugga chuggs to the discordant wah pedals.

Rob's solo work left much of that behind, largely - he's doesn't have shredding, blistering riffs like that on his albums, hasn't for ages. He's kept the big rock and roll call and response choruses that WZ dabbled in tbough. He's got catchy rock and roll riffs, and they're clean and produced to a slick veneer. Of course, Astro-Creep 2000 was produced incredibly well, it's a polished album - but it's a very complex sort of polished threat, layers of guitars and samples orchestrated to make this really groovy monster that shreds you to pieces a million different ways. The samples themselves are often even arranged to serve the music, not just, as is often the case, to provide an intro. "I'm already dead. I'm already dead. I'm already dead..."

That's not to say Rob's albums are always basic snoozefests to me or anything. He does still experiment with new or different sounds and I give him tons of credit for that. I really love "The Man Who Laughs" - he's really good at putting together these big epic numbers that kick your ass, that have this cinematic feel. Or sleazy strippable numbers for dark decrepit catwalks.

And speaking of feels, Educated Horses is peak RZ to me - in part because it often felt like it owed little to anything that came before, at all - there were great atmospheric numbers on there like Death of It All and "Let It All Bleed Out". It was and still is a refreshing change of pace. And I think that's because it feels a bit less indebted to all the big shlocky monster imagery Rob loves so much. It felt a bit more like the songs were songs first and foremost without always needing to be 'spooky'. A song mostly just about Bonnie and Clyde felt really different in a good way.

That brings me to the last points - Rob's lyrical craft and his vocal delivery have evolved into something completely different from his WZ days. WZ sees him shout-singing, raspy, yelling and screaming when he's not muttering veiled creepy murderous threats under his breath. He started singing, really singing, the more he went on. His vocals are up front and center. He's not afraid to croon, to vocalize. He's crystal clear. He definitely wasn't anywhere near as much in the WZ days - there's some Beavis & Butthead vocal tracks on the I Am Hell promo CD and Beavis goes "Hey Butthead, what was he saying?" And Butthead replies "I dunno, but it was cool". And his lyrics...Rob's lyrics always had intent, but he used to be really obscure - they were usually like this train of thought/stream of consciousness pastiche of movie references, vague blasphemy, references to guns, fast cars, burning stuff. All I can tell you is that Real Solution #9 seems to have been about the Manson murders. Probably.

I tend to think Rob sings *about* stuff more directly now, it often seems more straightforward. Sure, the lyrics can still be pretty oblique at times, but the subject matter, be it lords of Salem or Nazi werewolf women or Howard Stern, tends to be pretty identifiable as such. Not saying WZ lyrics were about nothing - I Am Legend was pretty obviously about the book and its adaptation The Omega Man - but I do think he painted pictures as opposed to telling stories more often than not. Rob always was and remains a really great lyricist in my book- I tend not to look at it as an evolution or de-evolution in ability - just conscious difference.

Anyway, I've rambled enough. All of this is to say I appreciate the fuck out of White Zombie and Rob Zombie both, but it's just a mistake to try and convince oneself today there's anything of one to be found in the other. The most I can say is that after listening to the recent album today, that little guitar number in the middle, "The Much Talked Of Metamorphosis" - that put a smile on me purely because it was nice to hear this isolated guitar melody amidst Rob's usual stompy arena rock chaos. Made me flash back to I Am Legend's guitar intro...but even then, the two serve different purposes and are fundamentally of completely separate worlds. The similarities are superficial at best.

Rob's said stuff to the effect that WZ broke up because they peaked, they had their time, the band didn't work anymore, personal conflicts (not hard to figure out what when the band is split by a broken romantic relationship), and that the people who saw them then who were 15 when they were 23 - it wouldn't do to have them come to reunited WZ shows with him and his audience so much older, he thinks it'd suck.

I kind of see his point - I haven't heard the Astro Creep 2000 live album he put out - I kinda don't want to hear any other band than the original play those songs, and it honestly is weird to even think of what WZ would be like reunited, when it was such a tour de force that I tend to think is something that belonged to a specific place and time. I don't know if they could ever match the ferocity they had if they got back together, and I don't think a new album would be possible even if they did.

Like everyone else, I'll always squint at Hellbilly Deluxe and wonder how it would have sounded though...

[Erneuert]

@Shadaloo , do you prefer the original The Man Who Laughs with the long drum solo? Or the alternate version from the re-release of HB Deluxe 2 with the more synthy part?

[wizfan]

@Shadaloo, do you prefer the original The Man Who Laughs with the long drum solo? Or the alternate version from the re-release of HB Deluxe 2 with the more synthy part?

I prefer the first one because it gave me sweet In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida vibes. Like, it's obviously a nod to that song, it's just that I liked what Clufetos did with that concept. I don't remember synths in the re-release version; wasn't it just six minutes of John 5 guitar noodling?

[Erneuert]

I prefer the first one because it gave me sweet In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida vibes. Like, it's obviously a nod to that song, it's just that I liked what Clufetos did with that concept. I don't remember synths in the re-release version; wasn't it just six minutes of John 5 guitar noodling?

Yeah, something like that. I haven’t listened to it in a while.

[wizfan]

Yeah, something like that. I haven’t listened to it in a while.

Still, the removal of Clufetos' drum solo remains one of the biggest dick moves Rob's ever done. Anyway, I agree with @Shadaloo 's post 110%. Still haven't listened to the new album but I'm surprised by the positive reception it's been getting, so I will give it a shot.

[fillow]

Thanks to this bump, I've got earworm'd by More Human Than Human, and I ain't even mad.

Also: this Superbeast intro always cracks me up. That's how I first seen the video, hundreds of years ago (before youtube)

[Erneuert]

Still, the removal of Clufetos' drum solo remains one of the biggest dick moves Rob's ever done. Anyway, I agree with @Shadaloo 's post 110%. Still haven't listened to the new album but I'm surprised by the positive reception it's been getting, so I will give it a shot.

Yeah the new one is actually really good.

[Shadaloo]

@Shadaloo , do you prefer the original The Man Who Laughs with the long drum solo? Or the alternate version from the re-release of HB Deluxe 2 with the more synthy part?

True story, I hadn't heard the re-release at all. Just checked it out...I like the second version's string section quite a bit, flows better, but at the same time that drum solo had balls and I'd never skip it when I had that album on rotation. Would need more time to compare them.

[Erneuert]

True story, I hadn't heard the re-release at all. Just checked it out...I like the second version's string section quite a bit, flows better, but at the same time that drum solo had balls and I'd never skip it when I had that album on rotation. Would need more time to compare them.

Did you check out Michael, Everything Is Boring and Devil’s Hole Girls And The Big Revolution?

[Shadaloo]

Did you check out Michael, Everything Is Boring and Devil’s Hole Girls And The Big Revolution?

I did, and only Revolution made any kind of impact on me. I don't know why he felt the need to add more songs.

I could probably never get into Michael. I'm not as hard on his filmography as many tend to be, but he botched those Halloween movies hard IMO. The 2nd is one of only 2 films I've walked out on (First was Halle Berry's Catwoman)

[poinoup]

Time to revisit the WZ albums, it's been too long.

And the Halloween movies were awful. I think I got in about 10-15 minutes and every second word being "fuck" just made me not care.

[Erneuert]

I did, and only Revolution made any kind of impact on me. I don't know why he felt the need to add more songs.

I could probably never get into Michael. I'm not as hard on his filmography as many tend to be, but he botched those Halloween movies hard IMO. The 2nd is one of only 2 films I've walked out on (First was Halle Berry's Catwoman)

I found it odd that be put DHG as the new album opener in front of Jesus Frankenstein. It’s not often you see the opener relegated to second place, right?

[wizfan]

Did you check out Michael, Everything Is Boring and Devil’s Hole Girls And The Big Revolution?

Michael was annoying, Everything Is Boring was fun, I can't even remember Devil’s Hole Girls.

[Erneuert]

Michael was annoying, Everything Is Boring was fun, I can't even remember Devil’s Hole Girls.

Did you like the decision to split Mars Needs Women into Theme For An Angry Red Planet / Mars Needs Women? Or prefer it all as one track?

[thelastdisciple]

Haha anyone remember Stick Death? i think this was the first time i had ever heard any Rob Zombie music aside from Dragula being featured in The Matrix (which i didn't see until a couple years later).

I was 10 years old!