On The Road Again: Garbage "Beautiful Garbage (Japan, Sony Records Intl., SRCS-2533)"

viernes, 14 de junio de 2024

Garbage "Beautiful Garbage (Japan, Sony Records Intl., SRCS-2533)"

Beautiful Garbage (stylized as beautifulgarbage) is the third studio album by American rock band Garbage. It was released on October 1, 2001, by Mushroom Records worldwide, with the North American release by Interscope Records the following day. Marking a departure from the sound the band had established on their first two releases, the album was written and recorded over the course of a year, when lead singer Shirley Manson chronicled their efforts weekly online, becoming one of the first high-profile musicians to keep an Internet blog. The album expanded on the band's musical variety, with stronger melodies, more direct lyrics, and sounds mixing rock with electronica, new wave, hip hop, and girl groups.

The album suffered from lack of promotion and the failure of its lead single "Androgyny" to achieve high chart positions. Beautiful Garbage debuted at number 13 on the Billboard 200, while topping the albums chart in Australia and peaking within the top 10 in multiple European countries, and was named one of Rolling Stone's "Top 10 Albums of the Year".

A remastered and expanded edition of the album was released on November 5, 2021, to mark its 20th anniversary. The triple CD set featured two bonus CDs, consisting of b-sides, alternate versions, previously unreleased recordings and remixes.

The origins of Beautiful Garbage came from a three-day recording session in September 1999 during Garbage's world tour in support of their second album, Version 2.0. The sessions resulted in "Silence Is Golden" and "Til the Day I Die", which were written for a proposed B-sides album. Both songs were loose and organic, contrasting with the very densely layered production featured on Version 2.0. "Silence Is Golden" in particular was written with an odd metric structure for a Garbage song: a 6/8 shuffle that progresses to a straight 4/4 beat.

The sale of the band's North American independent record label Almo Sounds to Universal Music Group in early 2000 put the B-sides album on hold; Garbage decided to simply start work on recording their third album instead. Garbage began writing and recording the album at their own Smart Studios in Madison, Wisconsin in April of that year. "The only vision we had was that we wanted it to sound different," recalled guitarist Duke Erikson about the influence that the two new tracks had cast, adding that the band wished to evolve the chemistry that the band had developed from touring the previous two years.

More diverse than their first two studio albums, musically more melodic and lyrically more direct, Beautiful Garbage featured electronica fused with contemporary hip hop, with influences coming from 1980s new wave to 1960s girl groups. Garbage acknowledged the broad span of sounds and styles, which included Prince, The Rolling Stones, Blondie, and Phil Spector. Regarding the melancholic lyrics, Manson stated they happened because after two years touring "we were very isolated and removed from our lives", so when writing the lyrics, "I felt an overwhelming sense that I need to reinvest in my 'relations'".

It was a really interesting experience for me as a musician. I learned a lot. It was quite a liberating experience in a funny way. I was going through a divorce, and I ripped my hair out, basically shaved it. I felt like I had rid myself of all shackles ... On the other side of it, you're stuffed in a cage and tied down to all your old ideas, all your old opinions, all your old creative output, and that can be a prison sometimes. So for me, Beautifulgarbage was really liberating. I have a real soft spot for [the record] – I think we all do in the band, actually.

—Shirley Manson

Drummer Butch Vig stated that the album is a "much simpler record than Version 2.0": "All of the songs sort of came from us playing live downstairs [in Smart Studios] with guitar, bass and drums ... That was the only conscious decision we made – to make the songs simpler. Some of the songs are still layered in spots; compared to the last record, there're about half as many tracks. As far as sounds go, it's basically drums, bass, some heavy guitars and Shirley singing." Erikson agreed that a more organic sound and simplistic approach with respect to production is embodied by the final mix of the album. "A lot of songs took shape in just a few hours as opposed to a few months with the last record....Some of the songs obviously took a long time, or we wouldn't have been in the studio for a full year. But a lot of them happened very quickly. 'Silence Is Golden' we recorded basically in three days and it was done. 'So Like a Rose,' for the most part, was recorded in three hours. I think we spent a lot of time just trying to resist adding stuff to [the new album]. Because that was our tendency on the other two records." On the lyrical content of the songs, Vig remarked that "[Manson's lyrics] aren't specifically responses to the industry, but they could be read that way. Shirley has said that, for example, 'Shut Your Mouth' is about all the bullshit that's out there, but it's also a sort of note to self to keep your mouth shut, because she says she's the biggest, most opinionated loudmouth of anyone around. So they work on multiple levels."

Garbage decided the best way to start writing the album was to set up their recording equipment, guitars, keyboards, drum kit and a sampler and "jam" as a group. Their improvisation led the inspiration of a few songs such as "Shut Your Mouth", where the band played for three hours while Manson spontaneously composed melody and lyrics, while "Breaking Up the Girl" came from both Erikson and Vig strumming acoustic guitars in the studio lounge. The band felt that it was foremost that the new songs worked on an emotional level with Manson's vocals and lyrics. The initial sessions ultimately led to around 32 song ideas to develop further.

Beautiful Garbage debuted at number 13 on the US Billboard 200 with first-week sales of 73,000 copies. It also debuted atop Billboard's Top Electronic Albums chart, spending seven consecutive weeks at the top position. As of August 2008, the album had sold 405,000 copies in the United States. The album peaked at number six on the Canadian Albums Chart, and on October 12, 2001, it was certified gold by the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA).

In the United Kingdom, Beautiful Garbage sold 25,173 units to debut at number six on the UK Albums Chart. The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) certified the album gold on October 19, 2001, and by July 2007, it had sold 121,397 copies in the UK. It was commercially successful across the rest of Europe, reaching the top five in Finland, France, and Ireland, and the top 10 in Austria, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Norway, Spain, and Switzerland.

The album debuted at number one on the Australian ARIA Albums Chart and received a platinum certification from the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA). In New Zealand, it debuted at number two on the RIANZ Albums Chart and was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand (RIANZ). By December 2001, Beautiful Garbage had sold nearly 1.2 million copies worldwide.

Track listing

All tracks are written by Garbage, except where noted.