Garbage's album Version 2.0 was perhaps the first real record I've ever owned. It wasn't my first, which was an Nsync tape, and I was eleven at the time so quit laughing. I only bought music then so I could have a point of reference with my peers. I was the wierd smartass in 6th grade, and while I wasn't the class outcast I didn't have much to talk about with the others aside from the usual class gossip and the fact that we hated Mr. Clobb's class. Knowing the difference between Justin and Lance helped keep me socially safe. And I must say, pop records are good as background music. I'd often play that tape while I was doing homework. Thom Yorke has this term for this sort of stuff, called "lifestyle music."
Garbage was the first band I liked that wasn't lifestyle music. I had heard a few songs of theirs on the radio and at parties, and I thought they were pretty good. I had just been given a CD player, and had a few dollars lying around. I picked up Version 2.0 on sale at K-mart. It proved to be a revelation. ALL of the songs were really good, although it took me quite a while to get into them. They were slickly produced, being a studio band, and they had great pop melodies so anyone could get into them, but the songs had attitude and Shirley Manson was my hero. She could wail and rasp, but then sing like an angel. I was not used to personality in my music, you see. I would get into the songs and know all their words. I could play the CD as background music, but I'd be paying more attention to the songs than the task at hand, so I prefered to play it when I wasn't doing much of anything. And I played it religiously. Meanwhile, the pop tapes I had gathered dust.
While this album did make me an interested listener of music, it wasn't the album that changed my life. I soon picked up Radiohead's Ok Computer. But I still think it's a damn fine disc. From time to time I pick it up and give it a spin. It's scratched to hell and has a few pinholes, but it still somehow plays. I've never seen Garbage live, and I nearly cried when I heard about Shirley Manson's breast cancer and throat cyst, cause I was afraid she'd die. But she's working on a new solo album, which is good news. Her and the rest of the band might come back together too. But until then I still have this record.
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