On to the content... "Everyday Is Halloween" is an underground dance classic that appealed to outcasts everywhere. It specifically reached out to dressed-up Goths with its mock derision "To me everyday is Halloween, oh you look so absurd, you look so obscene". This is the reason to get this single. "All Day" is also nice. We could live without "Cold Life".

For Ministry historians it's a must. For synth new wave fans, you need it just for "Halloween". For fans of their metal sound who have never heard this, beware - though it is fun to have as a comical artifact.

If you like this then you need to get the full disc 'With Sympathy' that has sveeral other very good dance tracks. I actually prefer "Revenge" to any others from this period of theirs. "Say You're Sorry" and "I Wanted to Tell Her" are solid too.


Gems of the past   August 14, 2006
V. Smith
4 out of 4 found this review helpful

I write this review because so many people are getting it wrong. The founder of the group was raised in Chicago. At that time chicago house music was on fire. I remember going to lots of clubs (i.e. Dome Room and Club Neo)and ministry 12 inch tracks were played a lot. Neo still rocks this scene. Anybody who knows real chicago house will definitely know these tracks. Calling it synth pop is not accurate.


4 Stars for their Wax Trax! Singles, 3 stars for this CD   August 27, 2003
6 out of 8 found this review helpful

This is a great collection of goth synth-pop. They talk about everything depressed people can relate to, yet almost every new wave fan will appreciate at least some of the songs on this CD. Songs like "Everyday Is Halloween", "The Nature of Love", and "All Day" (Remix B) are definitely some of the high points in their Wax Trax! years. However, Ministry did have their flaws as well. The synth-intro on "Halloween Remix" is just too long (it takes 3:30 minutes for the song to kick in) "The Nature of Love (cruelty mix)" just gets repetitive without all the lyrics sung, and "Cold Life Dub" has got to be the worst old era Ministry song ever written! This compilation is also missing 3 other songs that Ministry wrote for Wax Trax! "I'm Falling" (a punk new wave song that sounds kind of like latter era speed metal Ministry, only with the crunchy guitar replaced with a new wave guitar, and the shouting replaced with fake british accent singing), "Nature of Outtakes" (another remix of "The Nature of Love" which again sounds like latter-era Ministry only stripped from all crunchy guitars, but they actually shout and bark this time), and "Primental" (a voxless unfinished version of "I Wanted to Tell Her" from their "With Sympathy" album). But this is still a good buy since you still get some of their best work ever as a synth-pop band. In my humble opinion, a few of their goth synth pop songs are even better then Depeche Mode's best work. So cop this if your a Ministry fan or not and witness some of the best new wave music the top 40 charts have been hiding from you. As well as some underground oddities that will probably grow on you also.

Note to music fans who AREN'T into industrial metal: DON'T BUY ANYTHING AFTER TWITCH!!!!


The Wax Trax Years   June 20, 2002
James V. Shrode (Philly)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

These are the singles that Ministry recorded for Wax Trax before they would become the Super Group that headlined Lollapalooza. This is the sound of Wax Trax! Records back when they were their own label and they had the greatest store in Chicago, before TVT bought them out, before their legendary founder Jim Nash died. The real gems here are "Halloween" which has been a perenial favorite in underground dance clubs since it was released. As a dance track, it still stands up on it's own. Also just as great is "All Day", which a remix of would show up on the CD Twitch. Believe it or not, Minstry (whose stage would one day feature a cow like skeleton on their stage) wrote "The Nature of Love" for an album to raise money against the cruel tretment of albums. Samples include a man saying that he has the right to beat his animal and it is his own God-Damned Buisness. If you are expecting the bombastic, heavy-metalish Ministry here, you should look somewhere else.


A Vision of Things to Come   October 21, 2000
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

12" singles is a harbinger of things to come. The disc is a must have if fans want to understand the development of techno and industrial music. Al Jourgensen is the grandfather of both. "Singles" is a defining step in the development of a band and a musical genre. The first "side" shows the committment to a new and as yet undefined style and the remixes show an evolution to the dark side of early industrial music. "Nature of Love" (Cruelty Mix) was the defining '80s "alternative" club song, "Every Day is Halloween" the defining dance song. "Singles" clearly shows the path Ministry will follow in the future from the all synth "Twitch" to the true industrial sound of "Land of Rape and Honey" to the hard as nails "Psalm 69". It is a strange collection that needs to be appreciated in context. It is the '80s. . . Transition, Cynical, Fearful and Creative.