15 years of Version 2.0
Fifteen years ago…
The date is Monday May 11, 1998 and I’m up and out of bed really early and super excited, I’ve been waiting around fifteen months for this moment. I jump in my car and drive the fourteen or so miles to my favourite store The Long Player, within an hour the wait will be over, I’ll have their latest masterpiece blasting through my car stereo heading to college. I am of course talking about the album “Version Two Point Oh” by Garbage.
I’m waiting for around half an hour for the store to open the moment it does I pick up the CD, cassette and LP versions, I pay and more or less run out of the store and back to my car. The tape is hastily unwrapped and put in the deck…
“I’ll tell you something…”
It kicks in and before I’ve even left the car park I’m blown away by Temptation Waits. Prior to the release being available in the stores I think I’d only heard 3 or 4 tracks on the radio – there were no leaked tracks online back then, not that I had the internet. Every track I had heard were all incredible. I already knew the album was going to be great.
I Think I’m Paranoid was next which left an even greater mark on me. As the album went on it was more and more obvious that college wasn’t happening that day, even if I went in I wouldn’t be concentrating on anything as I’d be wanting to hear the incredible record which I’d just purchased. I stayed at home and did very little work instead listening to the album over and over and over again. I had a new favourite album and couldn’t wait for the bands London show at Brixton Academy in less than a months time.
You have to remember that this is the only time in my life that I have, or ever will experience anything like this regarding any album. Music is so different now, every Garbage album since I have had either a promotional copy or heard it way before the release date, both beautifulgarbage and Bleed Like Me I had physical copies well over a month before their official releases, so there was no antisipation on the day of release. I’ll never experience a moment like this for any album ever again for the rest of my life as it’s almost impossible thanks to the internet and my involvement with the online Garbage community.
Months went by and I was still playing this album to death, so much so that cassette wore out. Even now I’ll still play it once or twice a month. With the exception of the debut very few albums have gripped me like this.
The release of this album cemented myself as a massive Garbage fan, I already was but this took it to a new level. I saw the band twelve times on that tour in 4 countries across Europe including the full UK tour of 1999. In order to see them I slept on railway platforms in Germany… twice! I also launched my first Garbage site within a month of being online, then in November of that year Garbage Discography, almost 14 years later I have a career in web development and I’m still running it! Why? Because of this album.
Over to you…
If you haven’t done so already then I urge you to pick your copy off the shelve and pop it ob, you will not be disappointed. I’d love to hear your memories of this album, weather its from day one or recently discovered so please leave a comment on this and leave your memories.