Search - Savage Garden :: Truly Madly Completely: the Best of Savage Garden

Truly Madly Not-So-Completely...where's the rare material??

Veggiechiliqueen | 11/26/2005

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Savage Garden came roaring onto the scene in 1996 with the catchy anthem "I Want You," the cryptic "To The Moon And Back" and the beautiful ballad "Truly, Madly, Deeply." Their rapid ascent came crashing back to earth rather abruptly after the band split in 2001, only having released two albums, Savage Garden (1997) and Affirmation (1999).



Truly Madly Completely is basically a repackaging of the Japanese import Truly Madly Deeply, with several songs from Affirmation added. It has the same B-sides (I Don't Care, I'll Bet He Was Cool, Love Can Move You, Fire Inside The Man, This Side Of Me), and the two "new" tracks are a single-handed effort by Darren Hayes, not a collaboration with Daniel Jones as originally planned. Of course, it's great to have this on one CD, but if you already own all of Savage Garden's CDs and imports, there's not much new.



Darren's songs "So Beautiful" and "California Home" sound like they could fit on the Affirmation album from 1999. I have mixed feelings on the inclusion of two Darren-only tracks that Sony is deceptively marketing as "Savage Garden" songs.



The revamped Savage Garden official website features rare early road movies of Darren, rare photos, and more, but it would have been nice to come out with a box set/booklet format to showcase some of the photos and notes. Darren's solo material is covered on the timeline and discography, but no mention of Daniel's label Meridienmusik or band Aneiki. Also, the included DVD material is PAL and you need a region-free/PAL-enabled DVD player to view it. In all, a familiar treat in a shiny new wrapper, but I could have done with some *new * previously unreleased material in lieu of Darren's tracks. Don't get me wrong, I love Darren's work and have all of his solo material, but the whole point of Savage Garden was the collaboration of Darren and Daniel."