Iu: Well Mike... I've read your critic to the Garbage's last album and... I disagree... I disagree in lots of points... but maybe the one I disagree the most is the way you listen to it... the way you listen to music...

Review Comment: Version 2.0 is one of the most mundane reconstituted bunch of sounds your likely to hear - this year.

Iu: Mundane?? So what?... aren't we mundane?... what are you expecting from music... Are you trying to say that the message of the songs is too straight forward?... Or that the way things are said are not nice? Define mundane please.

Mike: What I mean by mundane is that, it hasn't explained or opened up any emotion that hasn't been chartered by thousands of other bands over the past twenty years. A great band is one that either creates or taps into an emotion never previously defined by a band before. Garbage are mundane because what they do, that is copy other people's work and put an extra gloss on it has been done again and again.

Review Comment: OK, so the sounds are OK, but that's about as far as it goes.

Iu: In my opinion a good and beautiful sound is half of what I ask for in an album. What are you asking for?

Mike: What I am looking for in an album is one of two things - if you get both then you have a real exception - those things that I am looking for are a) A set of excellent sounds which take unexpected turns and take you into new emotions b) lyrics which do the same - either abstract lyrics that work on a fairly subjective and personal level or those which have something to say about the world - preachin'. For me Garbage's Version 2.0 had neither. As I said the sounds were OK, but they've been done before.

Review Comment: The album lacks little direction or purpose.

Iu: So you reckon the whole album should have a consistence?... I mean ... you expect all the songs to follow the same thread?, to have something in common?...

Mike: For me, consistence in an album is quite important. Version 2.0 is a bunch of eighties sounds all thrown together and given that sickeningly disinfected eighties gloss. It is an album that has all the personality, principles and character of a New Labout spokesman. I don't like it because I think Garbage are desperately scratching around in the dirt for something of note

Iu: I listen to each song separately, ...

Review Comment: The emotion is confused, it's nonsensical, there's no message or if there is it's too cryptic.

Iu: One thing I expect from "art" is not to say things stright forward... sometimes just to let me have my own interpretation of it... if I see, listen to, etc... a piece of art, as I am a subjective individual, I don't expect to understand what other people does, not even to see what the creator wanted to say, but to fit my feelings into it... to find a way express them... and to think about them and to try to understand them...

Mike: OK, maybe I didnt mean cryptic. Maybe I just meant that it's a load of brushed up nonsense microwaved for the consumption of a mindless passive braindead couch potato generation of vacants. And for that reason I dont think it has too much to offer. And are you arguing that I shouldnt give my subjective interpretation? Because if so, then what are you doing reading it in the first place?

Review Comment: The pop soundbites are slapped together in a 'sounds good but means nothing' way.

Iu: Again,... sounds good is fundamental... to me a music that does not sound good cannot make me enjoy it... to me is a "sine qua non" condition to like a music. About the "means nothing"... well... maybe it does not fit with the feelings you are experiencing now... so you don't have your own interpretation of it... so then I understand you don't like it.... but you should understand other people liking it... In my opinion there's no such thing as "good" or "bad" music (or art), it always depends on who you are, when, where and how do you listen to it,... You can talk about a more elaborated art or less elaborated... and if you know who did it you might know if there was a thought behind... but do you really care who, when, where and why this someone did it?

Mike: In my opinion, and that is all this music review is, 'bad' music constitutes that which I dont like, I'm not interested in , that which I do not wish to engage myself with. You cannot criticise me for saying something is bad and then claim that one can objectively say that something is elaborate. All music is viewpoint, the point is, is that sometimes viewpoint concurs, in which case music reviews can be used as a time saving way for someone to find out whether they would like an album or not. Alternatively, one may wish to read a review, in order to challenge it and persuade another that this review is not an accurate representation of the album (which is what you are doing).

Review Comment: We'll market this bastard if it kills us. For example Special sounds just like the River City People, The Trick is To Keep Breathing just like Depeche Mode.

Iu: Well, ... I haven't listened to those songs, but if they are copies... well.. that I think is not a very good thing about the album... but it has nothing to do with the quality of the music...

Mike: Yes, it is something to do with the quality of the music. An essential element of all good quality music is its newness - that is not how long it has been released for - but its ability to open up emotions previously undefined. Garbage, by parading what has already done before, are guilty of opening up no new emotions - of reading the same story - and therefore can be accused of producing an album which is spiritually and empathetically poor.

Review Comment: Sleep Together and Wicked Ways. dole, drizzle and drab.

Iu: I think it depends on your mood when you listened to them...

Mike: I agree

Review Comment: But maybe you're the kind of the person who went to watch Jurassic Park because they like special effects. Forget the movie eh?

Iu: But there's a big difference to me... in a film the most important thing is the story, in Jurassic Park the story is obvious and empty, there's no feeling there... just one single and simple message, nature is not that easy to control, they don't leave you the opportunity to get your own interpretation of the film....

Mike: There is of course the claim that all this talk is a complete load of pretentious bullcrap about a bunch of audio waves. Well that is true, but sometimes complete pretentious bullcrap is quite fun to talk about (and read about judging from the attention you are paying to this!).

Iu's final comments… I just wanna talk about what you said concerning the novelty of the music, the lyrics and the music itself I mean... In both cases I reckon that as far as I know no band has done something completely new...you said that they just add "an extra gloss" to the previous music... I think that's what it's all about... in my opinion the point is to add the proper gloss... the one that makes the music better... the one that improves the transmission, and perception of the meaning of each song. Obviously it's important to do something new, or to show something different... but that's done bit by bit... and Version 2.0 in my opinion adds this extra bit. A little extra comment... to me a song might be perfect with nothing new at all... for example when you have a certain feeling or part of your life connected to it... in that case that music is great for you even if it is not to anyone else... By the way, I read your music review for two reasons: the first one was because you were the writer, and since I know you I like to see your point of view about life, and I thought that in something as subjective as a music review you would show a bit more of how you think. The second reason was that I like the album, and you had told me that you slagged it in your review... so I wanted to see what the hell you disliked from it... Cheers for the discussion.... I really enjoyed it...Fins aviat Iu

So there you go, what's your view?