Contraband (The Best Of) [Import]

Editorial Reviews
Album Details
Best of Men at Work: Best of the Best Gold CD plus Original Booklet.

Tracks:

Sucker Train Blues
Do It For The Kids
Big Machine
Illegal i Song
Spectacle
Fall To Pieces
Headspace
Superhuman
Set Me Free
You Got No Right
Slither
Dirty Little Thing
Loving The Alien

Amazon.com

Scott Weiland. Slash. Duff McKagen. Matt Sorum. It doesn't seem like a good idea to put these people in a room together, let alone a band. But it was the same exact explosive element of danger and low I.Q. scores that made both of these players' former groups--Stone Temple Pilots and Guns N' Roses--sell billions, so why stand in their way? The music on Contraband sounds appropriately monumental, all window-quivering riffs, and ticker-tape parade choruses. "Do It For the Kids" and "Set Me Free" take direct inspiration from Nirvana, meaning they are brilliantly raw, raucous, and indecent. It's great stuff. The power-ballads like "Fall to Pieces" and "You Got No Right," however, are more heartburn than heartbreak when compared to past achievements like, oh, let's say "Sweet Child O' Mine." --Aidin Vaziri

Album Description

The debut release from VELVET REVOLVER features Guns N' Roses founding members Slash and Duff, as well as Stone Temple Pilots vocalist Scott Weiland. The complete line-up is below...

SCOTT WEILAND - Stone Temple Pilots SLASH - Guns N' Roses, Slash's Snakepit DUFF - Guns N' Roses MATT SORUM - Guns N' Roses, Slash's Snakepit, The Cult DAVE KUSHNER - Infectious Grooves

Customer Reviews:

Super Group Super Great.......2007-07-05

It was predicted that this band would save rock n' roll, and for me that's what they did. The combination of ex-Gunners with former STP frontman Scott Weiland is fantastic to say the least. If you like Rock n' Roll pick this album up immediatly.

Great first effort from the supergroup, now polished this year with a new album.......2007-07-05

I come back to review this album in the wake of VR second album release "liberated". Contraband is the orginal first effort of this group, made up of ex-Guns and roses members Duff, Slash and Matt Sorum (second drummer for guns After Steve), Stone temple pilots frontman Scott Weiland, and Dave Kushner, former guitarist for Wasted youth. Originally known as "the Project" and filmed for a VH1 documentary while rehersing and serching for a frontman, Weiland fell into their laps and they hit it off right away. Set me free was their fisrt song and released on the Hulk soundtrack. Next release was SLither. These first two has the old STP sound to them, with a kick of GNR guitar from slash. Final big release off the album was Fall to pieces, A great ballad and very GNR sounding. Overall, a great mix of sound on the album from both groups. I agree that the mixing was a bit rough, but still good. With their second album out now, the band has really come into their own sound, and comparing it to this album, Contraband was definitly a start, and seems a mix of their root groups sounds, but awesome anyway. Hopefully these guys will keep going and not fall apart like audioslave recently did, another supergoup of this decade. Check this album out. Unfortunately, this edition was a copy protected album, so making taking it to I pod, mp3 is not really possible. Oh well, still worth it.

4- Content 1- Disc.......2007-07-03

Bought this years ago.. When i switched to strictly using my PC for music, i went to rip and cant... Read other reviewers about their issues as well. I dont own an I-Pod but cant use the disc for that either... So i guess i wont be hearing this again until i hook my stereo back up.. Absolutely insane and RCA should be ashamed... I am sure there will be many used editions because of this.
Musically its great. I do like the cd itself. Solid Rock record.

Almost Every Song Is A Hit !!!.......2007-06-28

I love Guns N Roses and when I heard that Slash and Duff were going to make a superband I was hyped about it. It took me a few weeks to pick this up after it came out but when I did I fell in love with it :) Some of the best songs on it are Slither (the single), Big Machine, Headspace, Superhuman, and basically all of the others except for 1.

I'm really looking forward to the sequel to this and it's coming out in less than 7 days - so it's already a must buy for me :)

Still Amazing.......2007-05-20

I first heard about velvet revolver because I love guns n roses (slash in particular). I figured it would be cool to see what former band members were up to now. What I found surprised me - the sound was completely different then that of gnr, but it was amazing in a different way. More metal, less ballads. It all depends on what you're into. While Slash's guitar solos where arguably better in gnr songs, many songs on this album rock harder with loud powerful riffs. Plus scott weiland has the perfect voice for this type of music.

Average customer rating:

One of Australia's best exports
Great CD
Better than I remembered
Good collection, EXTREMELY poor sound
Heady Subject Matter Masqueraded As Satire...Or Not.

Contraband: The Best of Men at Work
Men at Work
Manufacturer: Sony
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music

New Wave | New Wave & Post-Punk | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music

General | Pop | Styles | Music

Pop Rock | Pop | Styles | Music

General | Rock | Styles | Music
Similar Items:

Man at Work
Thompson Twins - Greatest Hits
Business as Usual
The Best of Howard Jones
Greatest

ASIN: B000002ABO
Release Date: 1996-04-02

Tracks:

Who Can It Be Now?
Down Under
It's A Mistake
Hard Luck Story
Still Life
Underground
Upstairs In My House
I Like To (Live)
High Wire
Maria
Be Good Johnny
Dr. Heckyll And Mr. Jive
Overkill
Man With Two Hearts
Snakes And Ladders
Down By The Sea

Customer Reviews:

One of Australia's best exports.......2007-07-11

This compilation is great. Men at Work made some great music and it's collected here. All of the songs are good. In addition to being good, with melodies that catch in the head, the songs make the listener think some too. There's intellectual and emotional impact to them. I liked these guys as a kid and I like this CD a lot now. Great buy, especially for 80s kids.

Great CD.......2007-03-12

Definitely worth having. Great music to move to while doing housework and had to stop a few times and dance around the house. My 9 yr old son thought I was nuts. Oh well....after the 80's....maybe I am.

Better than I remembered.......2007-02-04

I bought this after a friend and I were discussing old bands, films, etc. that we loved growing up. As I played the C.D., the songs were even better than I remembered! Besides bringing back memories, it brought back a unique sound and voice that is similar to absolutely no one. If you've never seen the videos that go with 'Be Good Johnny' or 'Land from Down Under', you'll have to try to get your hands on them. These guys were as good at performing for the screen as they were behind their instruments. 'Overkill' is my husband's theme song (he worries too much over little things). The lyrics have a wide variety of meanings with diverse beats. There's something for everyone on this 'best of' the best band ever!

Chrissy K. McVay - Author

Good collection, EXTREMELY poor sound.......2006-11-14

I'll have to concur with the reviewer "El Marco", who inexplicably is the only reviewer to have noted the poor sound on this CD.

While the collection of songs by a band I like is fine, the mastering of this disc is nothing short of a crime. After hearing "Be Good Johnny" on my iPod for the first time, the horrible distortion of the cymbal crashes mad me figure I'd ripped the CD at the wrong bitrate. Checking my iTunes settings, I saw that it was no different from any other CD I'd ripped, so I pulled the CD back out to see what was what. Listening to the disc directly, the same flaws I noticed on my iPod are there in the original recording (which I'd not listened to critically before I put it on my player). Every track (not just "Be Good Johnny") that I care about sounds bad, either because of distorted cymbal crashes, muddy overall sound, poor bass, or a maddening shifting of the stereo image left and right across the soundstage.

Listening to this CD through headphones, you will be driven to tears by the realization that someone mucked up the transfer BIG TIME. Basically, the CD sounds as though it was produced from a bunch of 96bps MP3 tracks stolen off of Kazaa and then burned to disc. I wish I were exaggerating, but truly, this is easily one of the ten worst-sounding commercially produced CD's in my 1000+ disc collection.

Four stars for the selection of music, minus-3 stars for the sound quality. The quality of this CD is inexcusable.

Heady Subject Matter Masqueraded As Satire...Or Not........2006-07-23

I've always admired Men At Work's brief yet substantive output. Though their reign on the charts lasted just a year or so, Their tunes had an infectiousness about them that endures the ages. Clever lyricism married to largely ebullient and catchy arrangements, Men At Work were for a time masters of the pop/rock game. And each tune covered a topic of note.

Take the winsome #1 hit "Down Under" (nationalism), filled with flutes and a bubbly tempo. The #1 "Who Can It Be Now" (paranoia/neurosis), with its sense of urgency conjoined to a ever repetitive chorus. The top 3 hit "Overkill" (obsessive compulsion/insomnia) with its eerie synths and heavy atmospherics. The top 10 hit "It's A Mistake" (Nuclear War/Cold War Histrionics) summarizing the folly of oversight and rash behaviors which threaten the world at large within the constraints of a pop song. And, the top 30 hit "The Story of Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde"(schizophrenia/delusions) which puts a light hearted spin on a more serious subject.

I realize that the thoughtful style of Men At Work is tongue in cheek (like much of my review descriptions here) and I wouldn't classify it as deep. But to me, their pop appeal is undeniable and they are worthy of their respective place in music history. There are other more obscure tunes on here - some you may have heard on MTV such as "Be Good Johnny" which are equally enticing to the listener. All in all, a good collection of a good band.

Average customer rating:

Contraband Rocks
Only True Rock Band Out There
Great twenty-first century rock 'n' roll.
One of the best modern rock albums out there
It's Not DualDisc's Fault

Contraband
Velvet Revolver
Manufacturer: RCA
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music

General | Rock | Styles | Music

General | Hard Rock & Metal | Styles | Music

Hard Rock | Hard Rock & Metal | Styles | Music

Pop Rock | Pop | Styles | Music
Similar Items:

Back In Black
Libertad
Thank You
Out of Exile
Slither

ASIN: B00076ZZ9S
Release Date: 2005-02-08

Tracks:

Sucker Train Blues
Do It For The Kids
Big Machine
Illegal i Song
Spectacle
Fall To Pieces
Headspace
Superhuman
Set Me Free
You Got No Right
Slither
Dirty Little Thing
Loving The Alien

Album Description

CD AUDIO SIDE: Entire Album

DVD SIDE: * Entire album in enhanced LPCM Stereo * Music Videos for "Slither" and "Fall to Pieces" * Previously unreleased clips from TV Teaser campaign * Photo gallery of exclusive promo pics This disc is intended to play on standard DVD and CD players. May not play on a limited number of models.

Customer Reviews:

Contraband Rocks.......2007-03-23

The best of G'N'R and STP have one of the best debuts in Rock and Roll in a long, long time. Scott Weiland is in fine form, and Slash is the master shredder of hard rock, pealing off killer solo after killer solo, without the the fickle Axl to bring the proceedings to a crawl. Anxiously awaiting chapter 2.

Only True Rock Band Out There.......2005-07-26

This album is simply amazing; it sounds as real rock would sound in the Twentieth Century, and not like the trashy grunts put out by the likes of rocker wannabe bands such as Blink 182, or the sickening wails of Good Charlotte (most appropriately known as Good Grief). The best of the best is here. Get it one way or the other.

Great twenty-first century rock 'n' roll........2005-07-14

A really great CD. Velvet Revolver is an amazing hard-working, hard-rocking band. Rock 'n' roll has been suffering since Nirvana. Velvet Revolver has brought it back. Some other new rock 'n' roll bands you should check out are Silvertide and Jet. Sucker Train Blues and Dirty Little Thing are very similar. That isn't bad though. The more the better! Do It For The Kids is pretty good but not as good as we will hear from the boys. Big Machine and Illegal I Song are better but still not as good as some others that we'll hear such as Spectacle, which is a great romping rock 'n' roll song. Fall To Pieces is a ballad but great as they go. The one-two-three punch of Headspace, Superhuman, and Set Me Free. The latter is my favorite song off the album. Followed by Headspace, then Superhuman so you could imagine how much it means to me that theey are all in a row. You Got No Right is the second best ballad out of the three. Fall To Pieces being the first. Slither is a great rocker and I never tire of it. I already mentioned Dirty Little Thing, and I ain't got all day. Loving the Alien is the third ballad and it's pretty good.

Scott Weiland-Vocals-Stone Temple Pilots
Slash-Guitar-Guns n' Roses
Dave Kushner-Guitar-Lots of bands
Duff-Bass-Guns n' Roses
Matt Sorum-Drums-Guns n' Roses

One of the best modern rock albums out there.......2005-06-01

Contraband (2004.) Velvet Revolver's first album.

In recent years, Stone Temple Pilots disbanded and Guns 'N' Roses has been left in ruins. Fortunately, several of the musicians who had made these bands so great weren't about to stop rocking. In late spring of 2004, Velvet Revolver released their first album, Contraband. This new band featured former Stone Temple Pilots vocalist Scott Weiland, and former Guns 'N' Roses members Slash and Duff McKagan. The two bands that these musicians came from were wildly different, and at this point in time, modern rock and roll was at an all-time low. Does Velvet Revolver's debut prevail? Read on for my review.

When I first heard about this band, I had some serious doubts. Guns 'N' Roses and Stone Temple Pilots are two totally different bands, and I thought that combining members of the bands would be an instant recipe for failure. My doubts were only strengthed by the fact that rock and roll of the era in which this album was released was at an all-time low in terms of quality. My skepticism was shattered as soon as I sat down and actually listened to the album. THIS is the way early twenty-first century rock and roll should sound! Rather than combining the stylings of the bands that the members came from, this album sounds more like a continuation of early-era Stone Temple Pilots, and that's a very good thing. Admittingly, on a few tracks, Weiland's vocals take some serious getting used to, but once you adjust to them, you'll agree that they are excellent. And, as you probably would have suspected, Slash and Duff McKagan are no slouches when it comes to the instrumental duties in the band. Another great strength of this album is the song diversity. There are straight-up hard and heavy rockers, slower, grunge-based rockers, and even a few ballads. The ballads are surprisingly good tracks! From start to finish, Contraband doesn't have a dull moment. Whether it's the big radio hits like Slither, Fall To Pieces, or Dirty Little Thing, or one of the lesser-known cuts, it's all good. Why can't all early twenty-first century rock and roll sound this good?

When you buy this album, make sure that you are buying the uncensored explicit lyrics version and not the edited version (there IS an edited version out there, so beware.) Something else I noticed is that the album comes in a slipcase, and there are many different colored slipcases that the album comes in. Of course, this is strictly cosmetic, so whatever one you buy is a matter of personal preference. I strongly recommend buying the album at Best Buy above all other retailers, because the Best Buy version has an extra disc of bonus tracks. I won't get into the technical issues here; I think the other reviews/reviewers covered that pretty well.

Velvet Revolver's debut album is nothing short of excellent. There were a number of other rock bands from this era who all pretty much sucked, and Velvet Revolver's music blew theirs out of the water, hands down. If you're a fan of the Stone Temple Pilots, this is an album well worth adding to your collection.

It's Not DualDisc's Fault.......2005-05-15

Just a note to anyone who is afraid of buying a DualDisc because they won't be able to rip the songs... With Velvet Revolver's Contraband, it doesn't matter. I bought the album originally when it was released last year. The regular cd's have been encrypted as well. There are ways around it if you really feel the need to rip the songs from the disc, but it's not only the DualDisc format that prevents copying. Just a fair warning. I actually commend artists who are taking these steps to keep their material from being handed out for free online. As for the album, yeah, the DVD side is a bit disappointing, but that doesn't mean that it's not an amazing album. One of the best of 2004 by far. The enhanced sound on the DVD side is fantastic, but if you aren't into that, go with the regular cd version. (But it won't matter for rippers... the cd's actually have a warning label on the front telling the consumer that it cannot be copied... it's pretty easy to see.)