Shirley Manson, where the heck have you been all this time?
You probably remember Shirley Manson best as frontwoman for 90's rock group (one of the best 90's acts, in my opinion) Garbage. That's her below with Steve Marker, Duke Erikson and Butch Vig, taken on the set of the video for "Only Happy When It Rains" in 1995.
I'm a huge Garbage fan myself. Since the band exploded into the music scene in the mid-90's, they've come out with five albums: their self-titled debut in '95, Version 2.0 in '98, beautifulgarbage in 2001, Bleed Like Me in 2005 and finally a compilation Absolute Garbage just last year.Here's one of my absolute favorite Garbage songs: Steve, Duke and Butch were all music producers and had already been working on some songs, but wanted a female vocalist. They caught Shirley Manson performing for Angelfish (her pre-Garbage band), and asked her to come audition.
She did, but hadn't quite nailed it the first time. She auditioned once again though, after Angelfish disbanded. And the vocals for that very same audition made it to the final cut of "Stupid Girl".
So here's Shirley Manson and the dudes of Garbage with the song that made the band famous virtually overnight. Enjoy!
Garbage "Stupid Girl" (1995)
"Stupid Girl" made use of a drum sample from one of The Clash's more radio-friendly tunes that made a hit in 1984 , "Train in Vain". The entire video was shot in just four hours in a warehouse they got for the production. Inspired by the opening sequence of the 1995 movie Se7en, Director Samuel Bayer cut the footage into pieces, soaked it in his bath, then deliberately added thumbprints and abrasions onto them before putting it back together by hand.
In May 2008, Shirley Manson joined the cast of The Sarah Connor Chronicles as a regular, and having seen the first three episodes of the second season, well, let's just say that you know there's definitely a Terminator-on-Terminator smackdown sometime in the near future.Right now though, we know Shirley's working on a solo album, though no word yet when her album is going to be released.
What I'm Listening To From Shirley Manson Now
The second season of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles premiered on TV some two weeks ago, picking up from where the first season left off. Without spoiling anything, you have Cameron (the Terminator character played by geek favorite Summer Glau) restoring herself and making her way to the Connor household in the opening scene, to the unmistakable sound of Shirley Manson's vocals- her version of The Grateful Dead's "Samson & Delilah"A lot of the old Garbage songs are still on my mp3 player, most of which are from the first two albums, including "Milk", "Only Happy When It Rains", "The Trick is to Keep Breathing", "When I Grow Up" and "I Think I'm Paranoid".
Right now though, I'm revisiting "Vow" and "Queer", two songs Garbage released right before they became famous.
Check out Shirley Manson here on her entry on Wikipedia, or you could go ahead and check out the official Garbage website here.
Cheers, everyone.
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Good article. I love Garbage and Shirley, too; but I think their best work was done on "Bleed Like Me". They had finally found their sound and were comfortable with it. Their first 3 albums had some great music, but they were wandering. When they realized their live sound was them, not the over-mixed and massaged studio band, they really came into their own. I always thought the live versions of their songs took on a life that their studio counterparts lacked. And I could watch Shirley perform live all day.
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