FEATURE:
Vinyl Corner
Garbage - Garbage
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I have been meaning to include Garbage’s eponymous album…
in Vinyl Corner for a while and, as its twenty-fifth anniversary is tomorrow (it came out on 15th August in the U.S., but was not released in the U.K. until 2nd October), I thought it was only right that I take a closer look. Garbage is the debut album from the brilliant band – consisting Shirley Manson, Duke Erikson, Steve Marker and Butch Vig. Although three-quarters of the band are American, their incredible lead, Shirley Manson, is Scottish, and I think that is one of the keys to that success, in terms of her accent and, if you have a Scottish lead, I think you could call Garbage a British band rather than America – it is only right that we claim them! If you have not got Garbage on vinyl, then go grab a copy, as it is one of the best debuts of the 1990s! Whilst some have greeted the album with a mixture of praise and dubiousness – saying some of the songs sound dated and there are filler tracks -, Garbage has been greeted with acclaim for the most part! It got to number-six on the U.K. charts and, in 1995, I think it stands out as one of the most original and innovative albums – in a year where the likes of Radiohead’s The Bends, Björk’s Post, and PJ Harvey’s To Bring You My Love were out there (such an incredible year for music!). When Garbage was released and made an impression, the band embarked on a year-long tour; huge singles like Queer, and Stupid Girl were ubiquitous in 1995/1996 – the latter was released in March 1996.
It is a bit of a long story as to how Shirley Manson came to the attention of Butch Vig – a producer she admired hugely, and with the likes of Nirvana’s Nevermind under his belt, one could see why! She was a member of Edinburgh’s Goodbye Mr Mackenzie, and several members (Manson included) formed the side-band, Angelfish. Vig was shown a video of Angelfish’s Suffocate Me, and he was intrigued. Vig, at the time, was in a band with the two other male members of Garbage, and they were keen for a female lead. Their manager, Shannon O’Shea, tracked Shirley Manson down, and it grew from there. To be fair, considering what I was saying about Butch Vig’s reputation: Manson was not aware at the time Butch Vig produced Nevermind, so she was in for a pleasant surprise! Garbage’s ethos was that they would combine different sounds and not be bound by limitations and barriers. A lot of bands in the mid-1990s were sticking doggedly to Grunge or Rock, but Garbage looked beyond and brought in elements of Hip-Hop and Funk. I love how Garbage is a balanced album that does not load all of its best singles at the top. Opening with Supervixen, Queer, and Only Happy When It Rains, one gets three golden cuts, but they all sound different and have their own identity – rather than having three singles that are identical.
Vow, and Stupid Girl occur in the middle, and Milk ends the album. Aside from the better-known tracks, there are plenty of brilliant numbers – A Stroke of Luck, and Fix Me Now are underrated are exceptional. As of August 2015, Garbage had sold over four-million copies worldwide, and the album is influencing bands and selling healthily after twenty-five years since its release! I think the album will continue to be seen as a classic, as the songs sound so urgent and timeless – I disagree with critics that feel some of the songs have not aged well or are a product of the ‘90s. In their review of 1995, this is what Rolling Stone had to say:
“As Heaven Is Wide” rides cool grooves high in focus and fiber, locomoting toward unknown dance-floor destinations. “Not My Idea,” another querulous high-speed track, patiently explains its depressed circumstances, then bangs its silverware on the plate, insisting that “this is not my idea of a good time” Warm Euro-style balladry shows up with “A Stroke of Luck,” but Manson shivers. “Here comes the cold again,” she sings with regret. On “Vow,” the current single, she’s throwing fits again, threatening to tear somebody’s world apart to the tune of industrialized guitar noise.
Near the end of Garbage, Manson affects a kind of peace with her own ravings. On “Stupid Girl” she marches along to a funky bass, indicting someone – herself? – for not believing in fear, pain or people she can’t control. “All you had,” she sings, seething, “you wasted.” After another tuneful near-metal tantrum called “Dog New Tricks,” she and Garbage crest on “My Lover’s Box.”
On this great piece, arranged with those mangy riffs but reframed with syncopations from the Spinners and outbreaks from Bad Brains, Manson fears she’ll never get to heaven and pleads, “Send me an angel to love.” The album ends on a lovely two-song coda comprising “Fix Me Now,” a wracked appeal for togetherness, and the lush “Milk,” a ballad in which Manson and Garbage go grunge torch, and she explains her previous moments of cruelty in terms of having been “lost.” Oh, was that it? Garbage teems with such disjunctions of tragedy and junk. Like so much fun and important rock & roll, it’s the product of brilliant misunderstandings”.
I have seen some reviews that are a little mixed; those not fully appreciating the incredible band interplay and the sheer force of Shirley Manson’s vocals, but the majority of reviews throw a lot of love towards Garbage. When reviewing the twentieth anniversary edition of Garbage in 2015, Consequence of Sound observed the following:
“Another of the band’s singles, “Queer”, challenged expectations on multiple levels. First and foremost was the lyrical content: Manson’s, tongue-in-cheek, sexual lines had to have elicited some blushing in the Clinton era. But it also pushes past the grunge signifiers and into the other half of the band’s sound, specifically their interest in drum loops and samples. The opening ringing notes and shuffling drum patterns evoke European trip-hop rather than punk rock. Even with all the guitar back-and-forth, the production and arrangements remain lush and hypnotic. It’s a clear indication that Garbage aspired to be more Portishead than Pearl Jam.
Their ambitions are made even more clear on tracks like “A Stroke of Luck” and the haunting closer “Milk”, in which samples are placed front-and-center rather than hidden behind distortion. “My Lover’s Box” draws even more focus on the drum loops, before bursting into another massive chorus. Garbage bridged two very different worlds in an era that often felt separated, drawing different audiences together under their unique banner. Their self-titled debut feels just as instrumental for post-grunge as it does for dance rock and trip-hop.
Not everything about the band’s debut has aged particularly well. “As Heaven Is Wide” gets a bit heavy-handed with the angel imagery, though this does seem to be a common trope for the era (Sunny Day Real Estate, Pearl Jam). The assertive sexuality Manson brings to the lyrics remains fascinating and bold, but still, lines like “You can pull it out if you like it too much” on “Supervixen” have lost some of the shock value they had two decades ago. Even so, opening the record with that song highlights the band’s unwillingness to compromise and throws the listener right into Manson’s world”.
It is amazing to think Garbage’s debut is twenty-five, as I remember the album coming out when I was in high school. Singles like Stupid Girl were all over the place, and I was instantly gripped by this exceptional band! Twenty-five years later, Garbage still manages to move and stun the senses and, for that reason, I could not resist but to…
BOW to its majesty