I’ve owned this album for five years now, and throughout that period - throughout a period in my life when my musical tastes have changed a lot - it’s always been within easy reach in my collection.
For those new to Garbage, I’ll give you a quick overview of the group. Fronted by Shirley Manson (who my friend has a worrying obsession with), Garbage are a four-piece group mainly from America, although Manson (as you may note from her Scottish accent) is originally from Edinburgh. They may soon be gaining a new bass player - keep an eye on the various fan sites for the latest news. Their style is... well, that’s a tricky one. I’d best describe it as punk, meets rock, meets pop. The closest comparisons that come to hand are the Fun Lovin’ Criminals (’cept with a harder edge), The Smashing Pumpkins (’cept with a softer edge), and although the similarities are not immediately apparent, I’d suggest there’s something of The Jam in there. It’s hard music, but with the wisping touches of Shirley Manson’s voice.
Garbage was their self-titled debut album, released in 1995. I heard good comments made about it, mainly from friends I had at the time, so I went out and bought a copy. Back then I was a poor schoolkid (whereas now I’m a poor student ;)) so I actually bought it on tape, about the only time I can remember doing so. As you’d expect the quality wasn’t quite up to the standards of this new-fangled CD technobabble, and I was left distictly unimpressed after three hours with my finger on the fast forward button.
Skip forward a few months, though, and you’ll see me borrowing the CD from my cousin. The shiny disc drops into the tray, and WHAM!, it’s a completely different experience. The sound is smooth, the music sounds better and best of all, you only have to press the buttons once.
The album opens with Supervixen, in my opinion one of the weaker tracks on the CD. In saying that, though, I have to say by rights that it’s the weakest of a very strong bunch, a point which I’ll elaborate upon later. To compensate, the next track is Queer, a song I’m sure even non-Garbage fans will have heard. There’s been some debate over the meaning of the lyrics, but to me that’s just simple pedantry and the words pale into comparison behind the cool, almost-jazz main guitar backing. You can almost see Shirley strutting along a darkened alley, spotlights shining down on her from above, as she teases the words out of her mouth.
Following this comes Only Happy When It Rains, which is probably my favourite track on the album. It’s a difficult choice but I feel the outstanding lyrics - which despite being blunt, are so true - and the unusual synth riff in the middle of the track, take it a step above anything else on the album. As I’m sure you can imagine it was a great song for a teenage depressive to feel a little sorry for himself to. ;)
As Heaven Is Wide is the most nondescript song, and I’d really struggle to go into much depth about it. It’s not bad by any means, but to be honest it just doesn’t do it for me so you’d be better off checking out another opinion to get a better idea of the song.
Not My Idea follows on from this, and is another of their more well-known tracks. It features a very strong guitar beat that runs all the way through the song, with Shirley shouting, ’’This is not my idea of a good time’’, almost in the background. I’ve sometimes tried to work out exactly what all Garbage’s songs are about, this one in particular, but I think at times you can read too much into something that basically means what it says - as with this song. The two following songs, A Stroke Of Luck and Vow, are slightly weaker than the rest and if you don’t own any Garbage stuff it’s unlikely you’ll have heard them. They’re good, but better stuff waits around the corner.
Yeah, you guessed it: Stupid Girl. Undoubtedly their most well-known track and you’re bound to have heard it a million times before on the radio. I imagine anyone reading this who’s thinking about buying the album will be basing their opinions largely on this song - and, to be honest, that’s not such a bad idea. The catchy guitars and cool vocals are a really good sample of what the rest of the album is like.
The remaining four tracks are again slightly weaker than the really good songs. The exception is the final track, Milk, which was released as a single so may be known to you. It’s a pretty cool song and one of Garbage’s more serene attempts. It achieves what the rest of the album fails to do, in making you feel a little sad.
Summarising the album isn’t too difficult, as it plays in virtually the same style all the way through. Garbage have hit upon a unique sound and have obviously decided to stick to it - that, or they lack the talent to deviate, and I doubt that. ;) If you’ve heard Stupid Girl, then think of that song, with a slightly heavier, more ’’rock’’ feel, and angrier vocals, and you’ve got it. For those who’ve heard none of their stuff before, this is definitely the best album to be introduced to them by with.
The main strength is it’s amazing consistency, never deviating from amazingly good songs to amazingly bad, as you find with a lot of albums today which have the four singles and ten fillers. Garbage have done an amazing job in creating just about the only CD I own that I can press play to, and leave on for the entire course without ever wanting to skip a track.
Highly recommended for pop-rock fans. :)