REVIEWS

Pigface
17 Ways to Suck

Underground, Inc./Invisible Records

Posted: Tuesday, October 28, 2008
By: JSun Bruner
Musician/Producer

Epic-sized remix releases focusing on one song aren't a complete rarity within the industrial genre. In 1999, Front 242 released four individual EPs (a double CD release here in the US) featuring nothing but remixes of their dance floor classic "Headhunter." Last year, Celldweller released its Take It & Break It series for its songs "One Good Reason," "Frozen," and "Switchback" over eight CDs. Now, Pigface is trying to breathe life back into its classic song "Suck," which was given notoriety back in the early ‘90s with its vocal appearance by Trent Reznor (who also performed a version of the song on the classic Nine Inch Nails EP, Broken) with the new 17-track digital-only release of 17 Ways to Suck.

It seems the best versions of the song on this release are the ones that deviate the most from the original. The album opens with a terrifically inspired cover of the track by Chicago's Ahab Rex, which comes across as if Cake covered the song with a female vocalist. The Cow Pie Surprise mix begins with minimalist acoustic guitar, but suddenly gives way to slapped basses, piano, and horns reminiscent of an old Chicago record. The Henkel remix gives us a compelling arrangement of piano and strings, adding an atmosphere of dignity to the record, while the Sweeter than the Sun mix turns the track into a dance floor piece with arpeggiated bass lines and searing filtered synth leads. Torrent Vaccine's remix features some terrific abrasive lo-fi drum programming along with some granulated synth textures. Pigface also chimes in with a couple original versions of the track: one "acoustic" version with sitar and heavily manipulated vocals (which could perhaps be those of one Ogre from Skinny Puppy) using amusing wordplay ("A thousand Trent Reznors copying me"), and another poorly recorded live version from 1998 which opens with a "medley" of Christmas carols before proceeding into the song, which is sung by Jared Louche and Genesis P-Orridge, among others.

Unfortunately, like most remix albums/EPs, for every good version of the track, there are two or three that run the gamut from stodgy to downright annoying. The Opium Jukebox "cover" of the song is essentially a rehash of the Double Dipped and Plastered mix from Feels Like Heaven, except with samples of Trent screaming and what sounds like porn dialogue in the beginning. The Giorgio Bormida Mix does the same thing, except with overlaying bass and ambient pads over the Gub original, while the cover by The Countdown is, for lack of a better word, painful.

Martin Atkins has given us a lot of material here for an $8.00 download, but the question remains: "Is it worth the money?" For the diehard Pigface/Underground, Inc. fan, yes. You're getting more versions of a classic than imaginable for a pittance in this day and age. However, the more pedestrian listener should exercise a bit of caution; you have to buy the whole pig just to get the prime cuts of pork.