The problem is, I know next to nothing about it. I could sit here and discuss any number of arts, but my knowledge of music ends at whatever basics the music teacher at my middle school was able to imbue while I was hoping I wouldn't be chosen for the recorder solo in the middle of class that day. Music was not terribly important to my family when I was a kid, so I mostly heard whatever was playing on the popular country station at the time, which was not exactly the golden age of country music. I would love to be able to discuss rhythmic progressions or the science of songcraft with some authority, but I instead have to fall back on the hackneyed trope of "I know what I like."
One of the things I have liked since "Stupid Girl" licked its way into my ear is Garbage. Even before my wicked crush on Shirley Manson, I had a wicked crush on her voice and her assured sensibility. Most of the women I was around at that time had no idea what they wanted, and here I was presented with a women who most assuredly did know, even if she changed her mind between songs.
When I used to work retail, in the music department, Garbage was always a band I tried to turn other people on to. And I worked with some really knowledgeable people, some musicians themselves, so I had to really up my game. WHY did I like Garbage? There was a dude I worked with who loved any music marketed using the image of an attractive female, and he was roundly derided for his (admittedly terrible) taste. I couldn't simply talk about Shirley. I came up with the idea that Garbage was deconstructed pop. Despite the bells and whistles, the unconventional noises that formed the bedrock of their songs, they were based around catchy pop hooks, twisted and contorted. Instead of sweet bubblegum, Shirley sang about the icky wad on the bottom of your shoe. That nastiness on the bottom of your sole (pun intended) is ultimately far more interesting than telling someone how perfect they are in an attempt to nail them. Relationships can be twisty and unpleasant even as they bring you great joy. Emotions and perspectives are complex and ever-changing. The band's ability to speak to that is why I can and do listen to Garbage's albums in their entirety to this day. Sonically, they brought in elements of industrial, pure rock, and a pulsing vein of goth (all the more appropriate that their new album was released on World Goth Day).
These were pop songs for outsiders.
"Stupid Girl" was great for me, an acknowledgement from a woman that certain types of women should be avoided (and, really, certain types of people. Stupidity is gender-neutral). "Only Happy When It Rains" remains a favorite, one of the all-time great anthems of depressiveness. "Vow" is a spiraling gyre illustrating the hazards of obsession. "Special" is a great kiss-off song, and features one of the great underrated videos of all time. "Medication" is a heartbreaker about mental illness (I particularly love the acoustic version of the song). "The Trick Is To Keep Breathing" is an empowerment treatise for the broken and is absolutely, weepingly beautiful. "Kick My Ass," a rarely-heard benefit album contribution, lets us hear that the band could probably do an awesome country album if they wanted to. And that's just from the era of their first two albums! Their next two, Beautiful Garbage and Bleed Like Me never quite launched singles like the first two, but "Cherry Lips," "Androgyny," "Bad Boyfriend" and "Why Do You Love Me?" are all damn fine songs. They just never broke the way the other songs did. Way of the world.
I have to say, though, that I have a fantasy musical moment. I think that if I were at a show (I've seen the band twice, both times in Seattle, which Shirley compared to her native Glasgow) and could lock eyes with Miss Manson as she sang "Right Between The Eyes" and feel a human connection as she sings "Life's a bitch, and then you die my love," I could go on through existence not needing to hear any additional music. I would be good.
It's been seven years since I first heard "Right Between the Eyes," and a couple since I had heard anything about a solo collection Shirley was working on. I always hoped to hear more from one of my favorite bands, but didn't expect it. Then, when poking around and hearing about a tribute album for U2's Achtung Baby, I saw it.
Garbage was covering "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses." I listened to it immediately on Youtube. It was exquisite. But more importantly, they were back in the studio.
The new disc, the self-produced, independently-released Not Your Kind of People, is out this week, and I purposefully avoided hearing it, avoided downloading or even streaming it, until I could hold a disc in my hands. I wanted to be able to sit in my car and turn my phone off and hear from some old friends and how their lives are fucked up and still yet hopeful all at the same time. I wanted to feel a sense of permanence at this reunion, hence the disc. I have no idea if I'll interact with the new songs the way I have with the old, but I love stories about things coming back to life. And Garbage is just the kind of band to give those undead stories melody and substance.
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