A curious release, this CD collects various b-sides, remixes, and other ephemera from Black Box Recorder, the British trio comprising Luke Haines, Sarah Nixey, and John Moore. It's curious because several of the tracks have already seen release on Jetset's US editions of the first two Black Box Recorder albums, England Made Me and The Facts of Life. The songs are generally up to the band's high standards, but it's puzzling that Jetset put the extra tracks on the original CDs in the first place, since the albums' mood and flow were somewhat distorted by their presence. The two remixes are fairly interesting: "The Facts of Life" is tackled by the Chocolate Layers (Jarvis Cocker and Steve Mackey of Pulp), while "Uptown Top Ranking" receives a deconstruction by the band itself. Perhaps the main interest for some fans is the presence on this CD of four Black Box Recorder videos which, since they do not feature Britney Spears helping Bob Dole save money by eliminating the need for his Viagra prescription, were never broadcast on MTV. They're not the most brilliant videos ever, though: "Child Psychology" features Sarah Nixey lounging about in a garden bathtub (sorry, pervs, nothing really to see there), while "England Made Me" features a parade of folks lip-syncing the lyrics and suddenly morphing Nixey's features atop their own. The video director was apparently enamored of the face-morphing bit, since "The Art of Driving" digitally edits Nixey's and Haines's faces onto a pair of crash test dummies. The best of the lot is "The Facts of Life," which alternates Nixey giving a biology lecture, complete with chalkboard and sketches from Gray's Anatomy, and two nervous British teens, a boy and a girl, primping awkwardly in their school bathrooms. It's both cutting and charming, rather like the song's lyrics, and succeeds in developing an idea over the course of the video, rather than filling three minutes with thirty seconds' worth of visual interest. As is usual with such compilations, The Worst... is not the place to start with the band, but fans will find it useful in filling in the gaps in their collection.

Artist
Album Title
Song Title