There is a lot of music out there to spend your money on. I claim no exception to the eternal pursuit of new music. I love music, and all kinds of music at that. However, I had a really difficult time getting into the latest album from Ministry entitled, Greatest Fits, released on Warner Brothers Records, June 19. Their heavily effected vocal tracks and overall industrial grinding sound is something I just do not enjoy listening to no matter how pissed off I am. For those of you who are Ministry fans this album contains past hits like “The Land of Rape and Honey” from the 1988 album of the same title and “Jesus built my Hotrod” from 1992’s Psalm 69. Included on Greatest Fits is a live version of “So What” from a 1994 show in Perth Australia. The CD’s title track is “What About Us?” from Steven Spielberg’s futuristic, morally drenched Sci-Fi flick “A.I.” The band appears in the movie, performing the song in a trailer-parkish, three-ring circus atmosphere in which droids are being killed by humans in an all-too-familiar display of superiority and violence. The movie scenes were used to create Ministry’s video for “What About Us?” So, if you do not see the movie, you can check all this out on MTV. Has anyone else noticed how soundtrack videos such as these are really like advertisements for the movie the band did the song for? Ie. U2’s “Elevation” video for “Tomb Raider.” Anyway, so now that the band has appeared on two cool, thought-provoking, futuristic, sci-fi soundtracks (“The Matrix” 1999 and this year’s “A.I.”) and has released a best-of CD what could possibly be left in their future? In a recent interview with VH1’s C. Bottomley, Ministry’s Al Jourgensen revealed that the band is already assembling the next album from titles like “Trailer Smell” and “Crucial Bitch.”
For all you Ministry fans out there, I am sure you can hardly wait. But for now you can revisit some past favorites, go see Ministry’s performance skills in “A.I.,” and spend some of your hard earned summer money checking out other cool bands.