Rediscovering Garbage

This past Christmas my brother and sister-in-law, Dave and Esther, picked a CD off my wishlist and gave me Anthology, a collection of 35 Garbage songs drawn from their seven studio albums (plus some extra tracks like the James Bond theme song they recorded). 

It's the second 'Best of' compilation the band have released. I thought I owned a copy of their first one, but I can't find it on the CD shelf with the other Garbage CDs. When I read my blog post about it from back in 2007, I realised that I probably never bought it. That came as a bit of a surprise, as I'm a completist when it comes to certain bands but it seems I'd grown a bit disenchanted with Garbage back then.

On a recent long trip to North Wales (blogged here) I listened to the 'Best of' several times. Disc 2 introduced me to some of Garbage's more "recent" material. By recent, I mean from 2012 onwards, when they released Not Your Kind of People. 

I own Not Your Kind of People. It was a Christmas gift off my wishlist back in 2015, from my other sister-in-law, Abby. I had put it on my wishlist after going to see Garbage that year, on their tour celebrating the 20th anniversary of their debut album, and not recognising one of the songs in the encore. I'm pretty sure, now, that the song was Automatic Systematic Habit, which is the first song off Not Your Kind of People. 

It was the third time we had been to a gig in Manchester. I really remember Shirley Manson was wearing a gorgeous leather kilt with metal stud patterns on it. And also looking round at the crowd and realising that as a generation we had grown old together. 

I must have listened to Not Your Kind of People when I first received it, but clearly it didn't penetrate. But after hearing the singles from the album on the Anthology, I have been playing it the last few days. The first four tracks were released as singles and they are all absolute bangers. The song Control is potentially up there with my all time favourite Garbage songs.

Discovering an album ten and a half years after it was released, and seven years after receiving it shows that sometimes the best music is sitting on your shelf all along. It's also a better reason for owning a 'Best of' than just because I'm a saddo completist. 

It's also triggered my completism about the re-released deluxe editions of Garbage's early albums. In the weeks since Christmas I've ordered the special anniversary editions of the first three albums, with their bonus discs of b-sides and remixes. My stack of Garbage CDs has grown considerably. I might even have to get a copy of their first 'Best of' just for completeness's sake.