Rob Zombie / The Millennium Collection / CD Review

Geffen Records

Rob Zombie has prepared a tasty little sampling of his musical career thus far for this 20th Century Masters release. The collection works as a decent snapshot for the casual fan, but I would have liked to see more offered from what can be considered a greatest hits collection. Two discs would have been preferable to a little more than 52 minutes.

It does offer a decent play list from his band White Zombie as well as his solo efforts with representative tracks from La Sexorcisto: Devil Music Vol. 1, Astro Creep: 2000, Hell Billy Deluxe, The Sinister Urge, and Educated Horses. Zombie’s electro metal sound and horror laced lyrical imagery has truly become his trademark over the last 14 years. It is very evident how much horror and exploitation have influenced his music from the psychedelic head trip “Thunder Kiss ’65” to the hell on wheels anthem “Dragula.” The necro-sexy track “Living Dead Girl” is also there as well as the hits “Never Gonna Stop” and “Feel So Numb.”

Personally I prefer my Rob Zombie music hard and fast so the inclusion of “House of 1000 Corpses” and “The Devil’s Rejects” weren’t so much my flavor as say “Superbeast” and “More Human Than Human.” Nevertheless the set works for what it is, a likely affordable abridged retrospective of a career that hopefully is just getting started. I think Zombie has the talent and ability to remain on and help define the cutting edge of music and film for us sickos out there.

-Ben Sadler