787. Garbage - Garbage (1995)

Track Listing

1. Supervixen
2. Queer
3. Only Happy When It Rains
4. As Heaven Is Wide
5. Not My Idea
6. A Stroke Of Luck
7. Vow
8. Stupid Girl
9. Dog New Tricks
10. My Lover's Box
11. Fix Me Now
12. Milk

Review

Garbage... well they're not. Firstly Shirley Manson was really hot, and that is a plus point for any pop band. Secondly. the pop that they made was alternative and innovative enough to stand a head over the competition at the time. Thirdly the singles here are really pretty great.

The problem of this album as an album is precisely how good the singles are, this makes the rest of the tracks pale in comparison. So as a collection of singles, it is very good as an album it is not consistently good.

So yeah, you'd do better just getting the good tracks from this instead of the whole album. That said, it is never bad, just slightly uninteresting in parts. The music is good and interestingly aggressive and Shirley packs a punch with her mix of sexiness and psychosis. So yeah, great songs, ok album.

Track Highlights

1. Stupid Girl
2. Milk
3. Queer
4. Only Happy When It Rains

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Garbage began in rough demo form in January 1994 during sessions between band members Butch Vig, Duke Erikson and Steve Marker at their own Smart Studios located within the Wisconsin university town of Madison. Early recordings featured Vig singing distorted vocals over the top of their instrumental tracks. The band were set on having a woman front their band. They attempted to write many lyrics from a women's perspective, but Vig said some were "a little pretentious."

After seeing Shirley Manson's outfit Angelfish on 120 Minutes, the band invited Manson to Smart Studios to sing on a couple of tracks. After a dreadful audition, she returned to Angelfish. At the end of a tour supporting Live, the band imploded and Manson returned to Smart for a second try. She began to work on the then-skeletal origins of "Vow" (ad-libbing the line "I can't use what I can't abuse"), "Stupid Girl" (the vocals from that session making it all the way to the final album) and "Queer" (it became more mellow and trip-hop) and the band invited her to become a full-time member of the band and finish the album.

Milk: