Who would have guessed that a gang of pinup girls, burlesque dancers and other makers of soft-core pornographic entertainment would make such great DJs?
Following...
Who would have guessed that a gang of pinup girls, burlesque dancers and other makers of soft-core pornographic entertainment would make such great DJs?
Following the nudie site’s summer burlesque tour and an R-rated DVD documenting it and it the Suicide Girls site, the Girls get busy merchandising their name with Black Heart Retrospective, a 15-track collection of Goth rock’s best bump’n’grind club numbers that, were it not for a few missteps, would rival the sort of all-encompassing compilation we usually see coming from Rhino Records.
The first Suicide Girls-related spinoff to rely on something other than skin as its central premise, Black Heart Retrospective is as close to a Black Sunday at your favorite dance-cum-Goth dance spot. Equal parts romanticism, melancholy, sexuality (of course) and industrial clank-and-boom, this collection steps around the usual suspects (“The Funeral Party,” “Love Will Tear Us Apart”) to dig deeper into the world of early ’80s post-punk to mid-’90s industrial grooves for a collection that’s less about initiating the Marilyn Manson T-shirt wearing high school kid into the world of real Gothic tunes, than providing the soundtrack for your next party of black-clad hipsters.
Black Heart Procession covers nearly all the bases. It collects non-signature cuts from Goth’s A-list, with staples by The Cure (“100 Years”), Siouxsie and the Banshees (“Cities in Dust”), Bauhaus (“She’s in Parties”) and Joy Division (“She’s Lost Control) holding down the fort. It has all the melancholy, romanticized new wave favorites from Gene Loves Jezebel (“Desire”), Echo and the Bunnymen (“With a Hip”) and Love and Rockets (“It Could be Sunshine”) giving it depth. Industrial dance numbers, such as the club favorite (and band loathed) “Every Day is Halloween” by Ministry, full-bore industrial grinders like Nitzter Ebb (“Murderous”) and Skinny Puppy (“VX Gas Attack”) adding a pair of stick-on fangs to the set. With touchstones like that, Black Heart Retrospective might as well have come packaged with a 12-inch stick of jet black eyeliner.
The Suicide Girls’ collection isn’t without its shortcomings, though. The most obvious of these is the outright omission of The Sisters of Mercy; throwing The Alkaline Trio’s cover of “Lucretia My Reflection” only serves to rub salt in that wound. The inclusion of The Cult’s “She Sells Sanctuary” is confusing, though forgivable; an unreleased track by Epitaph hip-hoppers Atmosphere isn’t as easy to overlook. Fortunately, it’s back-loaded onto the end of the record so vigilant listeners can smash the stomp button to keep the black dance party vibe going before this collection takes it into realms of white college-kid rap.
Black Heart Retrospective isn’t a genre-defining collection, nor does it exhaust the style’s potential for wicked dance cuts. It makes steps toward reclaiming Goth songs from the Manson wannabes, the computer-geek weirdoes and other various asexual, overweight dorks you usually see running around in the middle of the summer wearing a long, black trench coat. With the Suicide Girls in charge, Goth’s mysterious as it was in its glory days and as sexy as the pinups who curate this record.
www.aversion.com
Ever wished you had a CD packed with 80’s and 90’s Gothic Club hits? Honestly, the thought had never crossed my mind, but The Suicide Girls and Epitaph...
Ever wished you had a CD packed with 80’s and 90’s Gothic Club hits? Honestly, the thought had never crossed my mind, but The Suicide Girls and Epitaph Records have managed to put some tracks together to satisfy your every classic Goth music desire. The compilation, Black Heart Retrospective, features classic songs by Ministry, The Cure, The Cult, NIN, Nitzer Ebb and more. They even added the unreleased tracks “Lucretia My Reflection,” by Alkaline Trio, and Atmosphere’s “Don’t Know How Much.” How these songs made it onto a Goth CD, I’m not quite sure, but they add yet another element of greatness to the CD.
Black Heart Retrospective is perfect party music. While I was expecting it to be a little on the cheezy side, the Suicide Girls impressed me with this one. They did however, forget to throw in a free Suicide Girls DVD for those of you who might have liked to see the tattooed beauties do their thing. But don’t worry, they did at least remember to throw in a free poster of them to pin up on your wall even if you aren’t a Goth club music fan.
www.shakefire.com
Fatally Yours..HA
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