Garbage (band)

Garbage is an American rock group formed in Madison, Wisconsin, in 1994. The band members are Duke Erikson, Shirley Manson, Steve Marker, and Butch Vig.

A greatest hits album, b-sides album, and various long-awaited DVDs are planned for release in late-2006.

Overview

Vig, the producer of such influential albums as Nirvana's Nevermind and the Smashing Pumpkins' Siamese Dream, decided he wanted to play in a band again. He asked fellow producers Marker and Erikson, whom he had played with in Spooner and Firetown, to join him. After the group saw Shirley Manson on MTV (in the music video "Suffocate Me" with her band Angelfish), they invited her to audition for (and after two auditions, asked her to join) the band. According to Butch Vig, Garbage got its name even before Shirley joined the band. While they were making some sound which included guitar riffs and electronics (later used in the song Vow) one of the guests (rumoured to be guest producer Trent Reznor) in their studio called that music "garbage" several times.

Garbage's angry, emotional lyrics contrasted with their catchy, pop alternative rock music. Garbage utilizes samples, electronic loops, grungy guitars, and various other effects to produce haunting and melodic tracks, made distinctive by Scottish singer Shirley Manson's sultry vocals. The fact that Garbage is composed of three music producers is made obvious by the high production quality, with many layers and a "wall of sound" production aesthetic.

Known publicly as an experimental group like Brit band Radiohead, Garbage used their powerful videos to distort the dimensions of their songs.

Career

Garbage released a string of increasingly-successful singles over a period of one year from 1995-1996, culminating in the massive hit "Stupid Girl". They released their debut album, Garbage, later that year. It went top 20 in the U.S. and top 10 in the United Kingdom.

Garbage spent two years working on their follow-up album, during which time Shirley Manson became well-known by the technologically savvy by being one of the first artists to maintain a blog. "Push It" was released and became a summer hit in 1998, reaching #9 in the UK and #52 in the U.S.. Their second album Version 2.0 topped the charts in the UK and hit #13 in the US. It was nominated for 2 Grammy Awards, Best Album and Best Rock Album. In 1999, they performed the theme song to the James Bond movie The World Is Not Enough.

After again retreating into the studio for several years, Garbage released beautifulgarbage in 2001. While it represented the band's most eclectic and mature sound to date, it contained no standout commercial singles. Hence, no songs charted in the US, and the four singles released charted in UK Top 30. Still, the album managed to reach #6 in the UK and #13 in the US, though it quickly slid down the charts. Garbage followed the album up with a successful tour of the US and Europe.

Garbage's newest album, Bleed Like Me, was released on April 11, 2005. It hit the charts in many countries, including a #4 peak in the United States and a radio rock hit single, "Why Do You Love Me". It originally had the working title Hands on a Hard Body, but Shirley Manson announced that the band had come up with a new title, Bleed Like Me, that better fits the band's improved dynamic following a period of tension and crisis in October 2003. Shirley has also said BLM is more hard rock and a return to Garbage's roots after the eclectic experiment of beautifulgarbage, an announcement that resonated with most fans. A compilation of b-sides and non-album tracks by the band, which had been planned by them prior to even beautifulgarbage, is also reported to be in the works.

As of May 2006, the band has also confirmed that a Greatest Hits album, a B-Sides album, a live DVD from the Bleed Like Me tour, and a video compilation DVD are set to be released if all goes right with the band's record label-related legal issues. The greatest hits album, titled "Absolute Garbage", was originally set for release on May 23rd, 2006, but currently has been pushed back to fall of the same year. ^*.

Discography

Albums

Year	Title	Label	Chart positions
1995	Garbage	Mushroom (Almo Sounds in North America)	#6 UK, #20 US, #4 Australia
1998	Version 2.0	Mushroom (Almo Sounds in North America)	#1 UK, #13 US, #2 Canada, #5 Australia
2001	beautifulgarbage	Mushroom (Interscope in North America)	#6 UK, #13 US, #6 Canada, #1 Australia
2005	Bleed Like Me	Warner Bros (Geffen in North America)	#4 UK, #4 US, #4 Australia
2006	Absolute Garbage ^*	Warner Bros (Geffen in North America)

Hit singles

Year	Title	Chart positions
Year	Title	UK	US Hot 100	US Modern Rock	Aus.
	*From Garbage:*
1995	"Vow"	#138	#97	#26	#32
	Non-album single:
1995	"Subhuman"	#50	-	-	-
	*From Garbage:*
1995	"Only Happy When It Rains"	#29	#55	#16	#80
1995	"Queer"	#13	#57^A	#12	#55
1996	"Stupid Girl"	#4	#24	#2	#47
1996	"Milk" (featuring Tricky)	#10	-	-	#44
	From the Romeo + Juliet Soundtrack:
1996	"#1 Crush"	-	#29^A	#1	-
	*From Version 2.0:*
1998	"Push It"	#9	#52	#5	#31
1998	"I Think I'm Paranoid"	#9	#70^A	#6	#57
1998	"Special"	#15	#52	#11	#54
1999	"The Trick Is to Keep Breathing"	-	-	-	-
1999	"When I Grow Up"	#9	-	#23	#22
1999	"You Look So Fine"	#19	-	-	-
	*From The World Is Not Enough Soundtrack:*
1999	"The World Is Not Enough"	#11	-	-	-
	*From beautifulgarbage:*
2001	"Androgyny"	#24	-	-	#21
2002	"Cherry Lips"	#22	-	-	#7
2002	"Breaking Up the Girl"	#27	-	-	#19
2002	"Shut Your Mouth"	#20	-	-	#74
	*From Bleed Like Me:*
2005	"Why Do You Love Me"	#7	#94	#8	#19
2005	"Bleed Like Me"	-	-	#27	-
2005	"Sex Is Not the Enemy"	#24	-	-	-
2006	"Run Baby Run"	-	-	-	#47

A - The Hot 100 airplay chart

B-sides and rare tracks

See: Garbage B-side Chronology

Live show covers and ad-libs

Garbage frequently feature cover songs as part of their live sets, and have become quite known for doing faithful and honest renditions of past tunes.

On their first tour in 1996 it was just as common for them to cover Vic Chesnutt's 'Supernatural' as it was for them to do 'Kick My Ass' which they'd covered for his tribute album.

For 1998's Version 2.0 tour, the band were including The Beatles' 'Day Tripper'. In 1999 the band even played traditional Scottish poem 'John Anderson' by Robert Burns, and The Beatles' 'Don't Let Me Down' as part of a special Edinburgh show to celebrate the opening of the Scottish Parliament in July 1999.

By the time of the 'beautifulgarbage', the band were actively asking the audience for their requests, and this led them to attempt Shirley Manson's previous band Angelfish's 'Suffocate Me' and ABBA's 'Dancing Queen', as well as throwing in a cover of Can't Get You Out Of My Head by Kylie Minogue at a few shows. By the end of the tour cycle, the band also joined with No Doubt and The Distillers in performing Blondie's "Call Me" as a closer for their joint-headline arena tour.

The band played U2's 'Pride In The Name Of Love' for Bono at a special MusiCares award night in 2003, and also played 'I Fall To Pieces' by Patsy Cline for the first time in Nashville, TN at the Ryman Theatre as a tribute to playing the Grand Ole Opry. They later played this cover again in Columbus, OH. Manson has also recently been quoting 'Singing In The Rain' at a number of recent performances of 'Only Happy When It Rains'.

Shirley has been known to throw in a few ad-libs onstage during certain performances of certain songs - some examples are listed here -

Not My Idea - ad-libs from Talking Heads 'Once In A Lifetime', Bob Marley's 'No Woman No Cry' and New Order's 'Temptation'.

Vow - ad-libs from Patti Smith's 'Revenge', Marianne Faithfull's 'Why D'Ya Do It?', The Beatles 'Why Don't We Do It In The Road', Carly Simon's 'You're So Vain', Cole Porter's 'Let's Do It', Bright Eyes' 'Lover I Don't Have To Love' and Yeah Yeah Yeahs' 'Mystery Girl' and 'Maps'.

Special - ad-lib from The Pretenders 'Kid' and 'Talk Of The Town'.

Trip My Wire - ad-libs from Junior Parker's 'Mystery Train' and Little Richard's 'Good Golly Miss Molly'.

Stupid Girl - ad-libs from Spice Girls 'Wannabe' and Britney Spears 'Baby... One More Time'. and Deee-Lite 'Groove Is In The Heart'

Parade - ad-libs from Missy Elliot's 'Get Ur Freak On'.

Songs A Stroke Of Luck, Queer and You Look So Fine also regularly featured ad-libs but so far, no-one has worked out what they were. Indeed for one 1999 YLSF ad-lib, many fans argue over what the words were, never mind where they came from!

Tours

Garbage have completed four full length tours - one for each album release - and each album took between 15 to 20 months to complete. During these tours they headlined their own shows (from clubs to arenas), supported acts such as the Smashing Pumpkins, No Doubt, Alanis Morissette, U2 and Red Hot Chili Peppers as well as playing on the line-ups of some of the world's largest and most famous festivals such as the Big Day Out, Glastonbury Festival and the Roskilde Festival.

Their tours are:

"Garbage" November 1995 - December 1996
"Version 2.0" May 1998 - November 1999
"Beautifulgarbage" October 2001 - November 2002
"Bleed Like Me" March 2005 - October 2005

Garbage toured to promote their fourth album 'Bleed Like Me', starting in March 2005. However, in late August 2005 all previously announced tour dates in Europe were cancelled, and the tour ended in Australia in September 2005. The official news stated that "the band feel they have somewhat overextended themselves." The fulfilment of the remaining dates in the U.S. and Australia probably reflects high financial penalties for cancelling closer dates.

Trivia

Early auditions saw former Pigface vocalists, Lesley Rankine and Meg Lee Chin try out. Rankine, who had already been a vocalist in Pigface as well as Silverfish, instead started her own project named Ruby. Chin, who had been in the band Crunch, essentially replaced Rankine in Pigface, after her departure.

References

Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "Garbage". All Music Guide. Retrieved June 13, 2005.

External links

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