Review Summary: A Great Compilation for Both Fans and Newcomers.
Rob Zombie has undoubtedly been a large piece of controversy amongst big time metalheads, seeing as he started out fronting a rather well liked industrial/groove metal band, and then moved on to create a more concept/story based hard rock solo project, which took on a much milder and wackier tone after "Hillbilly Deluxe" was released. Now that being said, there have been some brief shining moments during said solo project that deserve the recognition they are given, and some shining moments in the White Zombie days that stand out among the rest as well. Several of those shining moments are found on this compilation, and I can honestly say that despite lacking a few gems I would have thrown on here myself, this is the best Zombie album you can get your hands on for the amount of quality content it offers.
Being a "best of" compilation CD, there's always a debate as to whether or not the material on the album really is the artist's best, or if it's just their most popular material, i.e. the "radio-friendly" ***. While this is mostly the case on the album, there are a few tracks that feel much more like genuine "best of" picks, as opposed to just the most played picks. Even those "most popular" picks managed to be actually good and artist defining picks. Among those truly "best of" tracks are "Super Charger Heaven", "Feed the Gods" (my personal favorite White Zombie track), and "The Great American Nightmare". Two of those didn't even appear on a full length album or EP, and will be a treat to anyone who has actually listened to Zombie's full discography. Among the "most popular" included "Dragula", "More Human Than Human", "Black Sunshine" and "Living Dead Girl". Let's face it, if you've listened to a rock/metal radio station, you've heard one of those four tracks, and you've enjoyed it.
Now onto the DVD portion... It's a collection of remastered music videos from both the White and Rob Zombie days, thrown together on one disc. For a big Zombie fan such as myself, it was a huge bonus to purchasing the hard copy of the album.
If you're new to Zombie, I highly recommend starting here. It has a wide range of the differing sounds of Zombie's works, and the music videos help with getting to know what Zombie is all about. If you're already a fan, this is the best compilation you can find as far as plenty of the good material goes, without buying all the albums separately. As I said earlier, it would have been nice if some other greatly overlooked gems made it on (one in particular being "Electric Head Pt. 1"), but as a whole it's a very solid collection for fans and newcomers to Zombie alike.
