Garbage Not Your Kind Of People Review
My Rating [rating=3]
Garbage are a band that challenges the notion of style vs substance. They were often derided for being an overproduced sleek amalgamation of more organic alternative music components (dream pop and trip-hop the core ingredients).
But for myself and many, it’s Garbage’s lack of authenticity that makes them so compelling. Purists cry foul, but I love the genre bending. I get bored with hermetically sealed music.
After 2005’s “Bleed Like Me” they’ve finally resurfaced. How does their new material compare to their back catalogue?
Well the good news is that they still sound like Garbage. The bad news could be that same reason. What once sounded fresh and novel is now a formula. But all is not lost.
The album kicks off with ‘Automatic Systematic Habit’ whose bleeping, warbled synths bring to mind MGMT’s massive hit “Kids”. It’s poppy and catchy, but very lightweight.
‘Big Bright World’ is better, starting with a krautrock beat before getting the slow build/big chorus that brings to mind their recent, excellent cover of U2’s ‘Who’s gonna Ride Your Wild Horses’.
Their first single ‘Blood For Poppies’ is funkier, bringing to mind elements of their greatly underrated album ‘Beautiful Garbage’ married to the skronky guitar of ‘Queer’ from their début album. Now we’re getting somewhere.
‘Control’ follows and it’s even better. With a bottom heavy rhythm complimented by eerie, echoed harmonica it sets an ominous, gloomy tone, complimenting Shirley Manson’s signature bouts of self loathing and self-effacing humor “I confess I’ve lost control, I let my guard down, I let the truth out’. “A final celebration, a bad hallucination, flip a coin and see which way I fall”.
Manson is criminally underrated as both a vocalist and lyricist. No one sounds like her, and she has the great gift of insecure vulnerability infused with gritty inner strength. This makes her empowering for women, while not being so overly defensive that she scares off the guys. She wears her heart on her sleeve and it resonates powerfully from her vocal cords.
The title track brings to mind the epic weepie ‘Cup Of Coffee’. Elements of 60’s psychedelic pop are used to great effect. Shirley Manson always sticks up for the underdog, and this anthem fits in nicely. Something tells me this is her reflection on the anti-gay marriage movement at the moment; “We are not your kind of people, won’t be cast as demons, creatures you despise, we are extraordinary people”.
‘I Hate Love’ could be a sequel to ‘Stupid Girl’ both in sound and lyrical content as Manson ruminates over romantic betrayal. I have a feeling this will get lodged in my head for some time. ‘Sugar’ follows and brings to mind ‘Milk’. Smooth, silky trip-hop it sounds straight out of 1996. I’m not complaining.
But ‘Not Your Kind Of People’ seems to kick into high gear towards the tail end of the album. ‘Battle in Me’ is a standout. Slick beats and crunchy guitars support Manson’s calling out of a man who done her wrong. ‘It’s a bloody war of attrition, let’s see which one of us is going to last the night”.
‘Man On a Wire’ is even better and I feel it’s the albums best. Recalling elements of their forbearer Blondie, this rocks harder than anything else on here, and her vocals punch through the speakers. It has a great glam strut, empowered by Manson’s lyrics of demons overcome: “Could you tell I was afraid? I sat myself down and shot my fear in the face”.
It seems Garbage always ends albums on a contemplative, epic note (‘You Look So Fine’ and ‘Happy Home’ being 2 of my faves from past releases), and this album is no different. ‘Beloved Freak’ is again another paean to the misunderstood and it’s meditative yet stirring.
All in all, this album falls into a similar vein as ‘Bleed Like Me’. It’s not as compelling as their 1st 3 albums, but there’s still plenty to love. If you’re a Garbage fan you’ll find enough to keep you happy, even if it doesn’t break new ground. In a environment of vapid, auto-tuned pop sung by entitled idiotic turds, Garbage fulfill an important role; smart-pop rock for smart folks. A rare thing indeed.
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I’ve only heard the single, which is piss poor.
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“notion of style vs substance”
No, since they are fine songwriters and Manson too fine lyricist, and were praised for it. And the members experimenting with production does not translate to a lack of authenticity. What a lame assumption.
“sleek amalgamation of more organic alternative music components (dream pop and trip-hop the core ingredients).”
Oh, so repeatedly doing one subgenre is more “organic” and “authentic”, so to your mind more commendable, than creatively fusing elements from multiple genres into fresh concepts and songs. ‘Genre bending’ is ‘foul’. Gotcha.
“they’re composed of 3 producers including Butch Vig (also their drummer)”
They’re composed of 4 co-producers on their albums, one of which is a mega-alt-rock producer, and his two male compatriots did remixers.
P.S
“Garbage fulfill an important role; smart-pop rock for smart folks.”
‘Pop-rock’ is Maroon 5, Pink, One Republic, Avril Lavigne, Bruno Mars, etc. It’s called alternative rock, or alternative pop.
You’re missing the point. The criticisms I’m leveling here are directed more towards the band’s detractors. Over the years they’ve been savaged by rock critics for the points I mention. I’m saying those are their strengths.
As for the pop comment: “alternative” like “pop” is a semantic term. And again pop is only a dirty word when it’s crap, like those artists you mentioned. But yes, they were at their most popular during the time when alternative rock was at it’s zenith.
I’m not trying to extrapolate some other implicit point you think you’ve made, i’m just responding to what you directly stated in your post.
“The criticisms I’m leveling here are directed more towards the band’s detractors”
Such ‘criticisms’ are coming directly from your words. I responded to the notion that “They were often derided for…”, however what follows that in your post is personalized and given as a conclusion to the previous premise: “But for myself and many, it’s Garbage’s lack of authenticity that makes them so compelling” . You restated an implied ‘lack of authenticity’ (from the previous quote) as a statement of fact. You believe and validate a supposed “lack of authenticity”.
“Over the years they’ve been savaged by rock critics for the points I mention”
No, they’d been criticized generally for over-production/production-obsession, not for blending multiple genres, something many other acclaimed bands did and do.
“I’m saying those are their strengths”
Exactly my point. You validate such misleading ‘criticism’ as being facts, regardless if you claim to disagree with it being their weakness. I mean really, this is quite transparent as the validation and a backhanded compliment: “it’s Garbage’s lack of authenticity that makes them so compelling”. And in my opinion, doesn’t even make sense, since perceiving something to be inauthentic would therefore not make it compelling for you.
How is alternative a semantic term? They’re widely considered to be an alternative rock or alternative pop band. Alternative means alternative to mainstream top 40 rock/pop. Hence, like you agree, since they are not like those artists and their ilk, they’re alternative…not pop-rock.
But they have been criticized for taking on multiple genres. They were also accused of ripping off Curve’s sound wholesale. Not just getting slagged on the production angle. I like the fact that they are unafraid to show their influences while shaking it up into a blender. That being said, ‘Not Your Kind of People’ isn’t their best work. I prefer in this order: Beautiful Garbage, 2.0. self-tiled, Bleed Like Me, Not Your Kind of People. But I still like them. “You like tomato and I like tomahto. Potato, potahto, tomato, tomahto. Let’s call the whole thing off.”
Not sure why I can’t reply to your post now.
I’ve followed their career since the beginning, and if my memory serves correctly, they weren’t criticized in any significant fashion, at least by reputable critics (not some blog) for merely incorporating multiple genres. Again that is something many bands did.
They were accused by Curve fandom of taking their musical platform (as if guitars, hooks, electronics is even remotely unique to Curve), and Curve fans also incorrectly claimed Butch Vig tried to work with them but was turned down (which is untrue – Vig never did, and Curve’s singer herself said she was a fan of Butch’s work). The Curve following obsessively claiming such connection always with comments rooted in resentment, like ‘Curve should’ve been bigger’, ‘Garbage are a commercial version of Curve’, etc. I guess Curve’s singer agreed with the former notion, when she stated: “[Curve had] put records out and we always thought they were nice little pop albums full of nice little pop songs. I’ve always thought that Curve have made great pop.”
Curve’s singer, with arrogance or delusion, claimed she could see “see bits of Garbage in what we’ve done, just like we see bits of Sonic Youth or the Valentines or really any band that was doing something supposedly outside the norm”.
What I gather is you actually validate all such criticisms, but instead try to turn it into some backhanded compliment. But whatever, moving on. It looks like you prefer their more noticeably pop-influenced work. I don’t find NYKOP their best work either, it ranks third for me, after the debut and version 2.0. Beautiful Garbage didn’t work on the whole for me, like it didn’t for a lot of people, but there are some gems in there. Garbage members have always been open about their various influences, particularly 60s music and 80s music (which is really evident in Beautiful Garbage). Bleed Like Me was alright, a little underwhelming (title track and Bad Boyfriend were great), and I’d definitely rank NYKOP above it.
Enjoyed their new album. Loved Curve but Dean’s doing even more incredible music now. Have never compared the two because one is a pop band (Garbage) and the other wasn’t (Curve).
According to Curve’s singer, Curve made pop.
How would you rank their new album?
Curve have been gone nearly a decade, there’s nothing new coming from them. If she says they were pop, good for her. To me, they never were.
Is Dean’s new work self-titled? I’ll have to check that out.
Curve released stuff throughout the 2000s, as recent as 2010.
What were they to you?
How would you rank the Not Your Kind of People album (relative to their past albums)?
Rare and Unreleased came out well after they were done. As a sort of thank you to the fans from Toni and Dean. Their final studio album was 2002.
What were Curve to me… they were Curve.
Garbage’s latest was fine. It’s pop. It’s meant to entertain. It succeeds in this easily.
His main project is called SPC ECO and features his daughter Rose Berlin on vocals.
http://spceco.bandcamp.com/
He had a bunch of solo material up on his deangarcia.com site but that’s long gone. Other prominent things he’s done include KGC with Lucia and Sascha of KMFDM and The Secret Meeting with Collide.
So they released material after calling it quits as a band? Sorry I haven’t followed their since the early 2000s.
You said you didn’t consider them pop, my question was what style where they to you, not if you thought they were themselves heh.
“Garbage’s latest was fine. It’s pop. It’s meant to entertain. It succeeds in this easily.”
Are you describing a movie? Music meant to entertain? huh? What’s ‘pop’? Popular, melodic? Or are you saying it’s like Lady Gaga or Taylor Swift’s music? Lol. Anyway, hats off to sly, backhanded compliments like the author of this post did. No offense, but clearly you’re both on the resentful side of Curve fandom.
Let’s see, well the album is generally categorized as alternative rock, electronic rock, with “elements” of industrial by reviewers/articles, and usually compared to their earlier, 90s albums, e.g, fuzzy guitar-hook/pop melody thing, “alternative fusion”, etc.
So as to attempt to abate the usually-transparent perceived superiority of your beloved band, need I quote a bio page, w/ a reviewer statement, and then Curve’s Halliday:
As is typical in the UK though, the backlash started quickly. Toni and Dean’s failed ‘pop’ past was continually referred to and they were accused of being contrived, manufactured and of cashing in on the current “shoegazing” scene. In 1992 their debut album Doppelgänger was released and received mixed reviews – mostly criticising that it sounded too similar to the three EP’s released over the previous year.
A few months later in 1998, their third album Come Clean was released after several delays…popular overseas but the UK press were as cynical as ever:
“…a band unique in the world of hi-tech, low-calorie goth music for never having chanced upon a tune… they split up a few years ago in the face of universal indifference – while still releasing identically-flawed records.”
(James Oldham : New Musical Express, May 1998)
And, Curve’s singer (from an interview):
Halliday: I love hooks! Dean and I always try to ram in as many hooks as possible.
Cosmik: The main hook in that song, it seems to me, is just ripe for the charts.
Halliday: I won’t argue. We think it’s a huge single. But then again when we put “Horror Head” out, which came off the first album, Doppelganger, we thought that was a huge hit. I think Dean and I did that all the time, you know? We’d put records out and we always thought they were nice little pop albums full of nice little pop songs. I’ve always thought that Curve have made great pop. It might come in a different guise to what people presume is pop, you know, like it doesn’t sound like Backstreet Boys pop, but still, there’s melody there, and there are hooks, and we’ve done that on every record we’ve ever made. We love pop. We love guitar motifs and keyboard things. I love that record by The Cardigans, that Gran Turismo record, and the reason I love it is that every single song is a winner. It’s got like ten hits on it, as far as I’m concerned. Every single track. You put it on and you listen to it all the way through because you don’t want to miss a song.
Cosmik: And you find yourself getting kind of pissed off at the general public for not paying any attention to it at all.
Halliday: Yeah, I know. Exactly. So we strive to do the same thing with our records as well.
….
Halliday: I know, and I never understood that tag. I always wonder “is it because I’ve got black hair? Is that it?
…
Halliday: …and the whole gamut of labels, but not once have we been called a pop band, and I’d really like to be called that.
There’s no resentful side of Curve fandom going on here, just you trying to have an argument over a topic which was beaten to death almost 20 years ago. Perhaps if you’d been around then, you’d understand this. It’s nice that you can write novels to make your points, even if they are creepy and completely obsessive.
No one cares anymore. No one. Curve had plenty of success, just not in the US. You’re not particularly knowledgeable about them and have to rely on Wikipedia for your back story. Leads me to believe you aren’t as old as you claim.
But as you measure a band’s worth by how much public approval they get, I can see why Curve weren’t the ones for you. The only thing they seem to do is threaten and intimidate you -something you have tried to do throughout this discussion and failed at miserably- in particular, Toni Halliday really offends you. Why I don’t know, but I’m done responding.You can have the last word, so you’ll have “won”
/thread
The content of your post says otherwise. I’m not trying to have an argument, I asked you a question, which you clearly are too uptight and and sensitive to respond directly to. And me quoting a site (that is not Wikipedia – you’d know since I’m sure you’ve read their Wikipedia page at some point) is creepy and obsessive because you disagree with it? lol ok.
Exactly, Curve did have success, I know that. When did I say they didn’t? That very site I quoted from says that too. A band threaten me, what? Lol. Are you trying to project the undercurrent in your posts?
“But as you measure a band’s worth by how much public approval they get”
What? Lol. Pulling ideas out of thin air with nothing to substantiate it. Did you even read my post? Nothing whatsoever even implies that. Your post just proves you are the resentful side of Curve fandom.
“in particular, Toni Halliday really offends you”
Lol, wow. You have a good imagination boy. It appears that my quoting offended you, and that you are very touchy regarding Curve. I merely quoted others, including Ms Halliday herself, didn’t make that up myself (like you’ve done here). Clearly you passionately disagree with it. No last word, just responding to your aimless reply.