Wisconsinites and music lovers of the world rejoice: Garbage is touring again and is stopping in Madison, the town where they first assembled in 1994. The first fresh album put out since 2005’s Bleed Like Me by Garbage is anything but. Give yourself a pat on the back if you were able to read through that pun without cringing and give a listen to Garbage’s newest album, entitled Not Your Kind of People. The album combines both the synthesized post-grunge vibe that made Garbage so popular in the late ’90s and early 2000s and fast-paced and lyrical prose with an alternative ambiance that makes the tracks relevant for 2012.
The first single from People, “Blood for Poppies,” jumps off the album with the same vibrance as poppies in a meadow and blood in snow. Lead singer and Scottish-born Shirley Manson uses her unique voice to make the lyrics (a collaboration by all the band members) even more compelling, and she annunciates each line with style and grace. Manson flaunts this style on the rest of the tracks as well, whether they’re energetic like “Poppies” or more soulful such as “Beloved Freak” (which is reminiscent of “Queer” from Garbage’s self-titled first album).
This time around, Garbage is being entirely self-sufficient. The band has dropped their previous record labels (who Garbage has said was the initial reason for their hiatus the past seven years, the labels focusing too much on money and too little on the music and members) and created their own label, Stunvolume Records. The band has also stated that the title Not Your Kind of People is “kind of [their] mission statement” because they have accepted that they do not fit into any one music scene and “are happy about [their] outsider status.” This attitude allows for a more creative liberties to be taken with the new album which brings fresh and highly listenable sounds. It all comes together to make an outstanding album that will keep veteran Garbage fans pleased and wondering if Garbage’s best work is still to come while at the same time inviting new listeners to the band.
Garbage’s concert at Madison’s Duck Pond at Warner Park this Thursday is part of the inaugural Pondamonium, which will also include beloved alternative band The Flaming Lips. The Flaming Lips are quite similar to Garbage in that they don’t particularly fit in any one (or five) genre(s) but instead make music that draws in mountains of listeners across the spectrum of taste. Past featured Jonk Music artists such as the all-female indie pop group Dum Dum Girls and entirely male indie rock band Royal Bangs, along with classic rock and soul group The Congregation, will be performing as well. It’s the type of line-up that will have people queuing up at the gates long before the festival starts and not exiting them until long after the festival ends.