Garbage the band

I Think I’m Paranoid was one of the coolest tracks from Garbage when I first heard them in the 90s. Shirley Manson was hot, bold and in your face in that music video. The song also had one of the freshest, crude yet appealing sounding distortions from a guitar. For someone in his teens, it wasn’t my first rock band but it was one of the coolest. This week, I went back to listening to Garbage and in a big way, realized I knew so little about them.

I was watching a video of them performing live while writing this post.

For one, Garbage isn’t Australian like I imagined. Somehow their style and tone made me think they were like Silverchair. Shirley is Scottish, and the rest of them are American. Butch Vig is the drummer but he’s responsible for so much, it’s insane! He produced albums for bands like Nirvana, The Smashing Pumpkins, Sonic Youth, Depeche Mode, AFI, Jimmy Eat World, Green Day and so many more. It’s crazy! It’s almost as if Garbage was a prototype to demonstrate how good a band could sound, and then he did his main gig - being a producer.

If you haven’t heard of them, listen to them in this order -

• I Think I’m Paranoid
• Only Happy When It rains
• Push It
• Stupid Girl
• Girl Don’t Come
• When I Grow Up
• You Look So Fine
• Androgyny
• Cherry Lips