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Album Details

• Artist: Rob Zombie
• Album: American Made Music To Strip By
• Label: Geffen
• Year of Release: 1999
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: solitaryman on 2013-04-30

After White Zombie vocalist Rob Zombie veered off into his solo career with the widely successful Hellbilly Deluxe, he took a cue from his old band's habits and cued up a remix album featuring a variety of similar musical minds. From Rammstein to former NIN members Charlie Clouser and Chris Vrenna, American Made Music To Strip By features almost every Hellbilly track (a couple of 'em twice over) reimagined to varying degrees. Some of these are solid, and others are merely duds.


Amongst the former category are Clouser's intensifying work on "Dragula (Si Non Oscillas, Noli Tintinnare)" and "Superbeast (Girl On A Motorcycle). Charlie manages to emphasize the aggression and accessability of the originals with satisfying results. His best work, however, is on "Living Dead Girl (Subliminal Seduction)", as he expertly crafts a haunting soundtrack behind the already-creepy and catchy original. Rammstein's version of "Spookshow Baby (Black Leather Cat Suit") is more Rammstein than Zombie, with their trademark razor sharp riffs simmering beneath pulsing synths.


This, sadly, is where the praise stops and the confusion begins. None of the other tracks are terrible, or terribly constructed insomuch that they don't stray too far from the spirit of the original tracks...but they do tend to stick too close, usually just adding a variety of bass and blips that doesn't exactly meet the "remix" definition to me. It's also hard for me, not having heard of most of these other remix artists, to get a grasp of how, if at all, they were able to translate their sound into Zombie's work.


Overall, American Made Music To Strip By was a purchase I regretted soon after taking it home and spinning it a few times. I've always been a fan of the industrial-meets-electronica elements of Rob Zombie's musical repetoire, but when it's both the focus and the force behind an entire album, it goes from an enjoyable spice to an overbearing one. To this day, I've never been able to get past the handful of standout tracks to fully enjoy the disc. Oh well, at least the extended booklet is chock full of excellent photography and devilish art that fits the Zombie mystique like a glove. 

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