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Garbage’s greatest hits plays like the assembly line of sounds and textures of the 80s and 90s alternative rock scenes. Shirley Manson is the perfect voice and image for this kind of music: all brass attitude, smoking-in-the-girls-room sass, yet there’s a thinly veiled romanticism and vulnerability. She’s essentially the updated form of Debbie Harry, Chrissie Hynde, Siouxsie Sioux or Patti Smith depending on her mood, or the song. I’ve always found it absolutely thrilling.
Garbage and Version 2.0 provide the vast majority of the sixteen singles present on the album, which is both expected and slightly frustrating. Beautifulgarbage and Bleed Like Me weren’t slouches for great singles and album tracks, but they didn’t quite capture the ears of the public like the first two albums. Which is also a shame. But what is here is a flat out great assortment of songs.
Early singles like “Vow” and “Queer” represent the mild flirtation with fetishistic and kinky sex that Garbage would bring to bigger and badder life on later releases. “Special” and “When I Grow Up” show that Garbage was, above all things, a neo New Wave act with a fondness for electronic bleeps and burps. While “Cherry Lips (Go Baby Go!)” showcased Manson’s impressive range and the band’s willingness to experiment with different pop and alternative rock textures. “Cherry Lips” is also the best Debbie Harry impression I’ve heard from anyone. But it’s ballads like “Bleed Like Me,” “You Look So Fine” and the mid-tempo swinging 60s British pop of the newly recorded “Tell Me Where It Hurts” that prove Garbage have always been the Pretenders 2.0, that’s not a dig against them since I love them more than the Pretenders. The other new track, a remixed version of the Bleed Like Me album track “It’s All Over But the Crying,” actually improves upon the original.
Absolute Garbage, despite being the cleverest named Garbage album ever, is far from the essential Garbage recording though. Well, if you’re a fan like I am, then it’s not. Although the previous unreleased and soundtrack only songs, like “No. 1 Crush” and “The World Is Not Enough,” make it a damn fine purchase. If you’re looking for the band’s best moments and don’t feel like getting an actual album then this will work like gangbusters. DOWNLOAD: “Tell Me Where It Hurts,” “No. 1 Crush,” “The World Is Not Enough”
