Garbage Albums Ranked

Garbage Albums

Justin Higuchi from Los Angeles, CA, USA, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Our Garbage Albums Ranked list takes a looks at a band first formed in the early 90s that stand as one of the truly great modern-day rock groups. Hailing from Madison Wisconsin, the band is led by lead vocalist Shirley Manson and founding members iSteve Marker on guitar, Duke Erickson on guitar and Butch Vig on drums. Just before the formation of the band Garbage, Butch Vig  produced Nirvana’s groundbreaking album Nevermind. Duke Erickson had been a member of the band Spooner and Fire Town before forming Garbage. The four members of the band created a sound pretty much unlike any other band at the time. High energy rock and roll with blends of metal and electronica all fueled by the superior vocals of Shirley Manson. Every album the band released was amazingly produced and sounded great.

The band Garbage released their first album in 1995 entitled Garbage. The album was an instant hit spawning five singles. Garbage followed up their 1995 debut with the album Version 2.0 in 1998. It was a great record that produced even more singles than the first one with the release of six great tracks. The band returned three years later with the album entitled Beautiful Garbage. Once again, the album did well on the Billboard top 200 and spawned three big singles. By this time Garbage had produced a huge loyal following. Four years later Garbage released the album Bleed Like Me which became an instant fan favorite as the band chose to just dive into straight ahead rock and roll and with a little less like electronica.

The longest period of time between albums occured by the time Garbage released their fifth studio album entitled Not Your Kind Of People. It had been seven years since  Garbage released an album, but in 2012 their fans were happy to hear back from them once again. Not Your Kind Of People was an extraordinary album from an extraordinary band. The band’s most recent album was released in 2016 entitled Strange Little Birds. The band is due to release a new album in just a couple of weeks entitled No Gods No Masters which we have included on this list but have not reviewed it yet because we haven’t heard it yet.

Our Garbage albums ranked list is just a fun exercise in presenting this bands amazing discography. It was tough to put them in any sort of order because they’re all great, but that’s the fun of it.

# 7 – No Gods No Masters

The band’s seventh album entitled No Gods No Masters is due to be released on June 11th 2021. When the album is released we will take a listen to it and decide where to place it on this Garbage albums ranked list. So far the singles that we have heard including “The Men Who Rule The World,” are amazing.

# 6 – Not Your Kind of People

Continuing with our Garbage albums ranked list we turn to the band’s 2012 album Not Your Kind Of People. It had been a long time since the band had released an album and so fans were ecstatic that the band had returned. All four original band members was still part of the band at the time of the albums release. Five singles were released from the album including Blood For Poppies issued on March 26th 2012, Battle In Me released on March 28th 2012 which is interesting that the second single is released only two days later. The final three singles included Automatic Systematic Habit on May 8th 2012, Big Bright World released on June 1st 2012 and the album’s final single released on October 9th 2012 entitled Control. Many ways the album Not Your Kind Of People was a return to the earlier sound of their first two albums.

# 5 – Strange Little Birds

The Garbage album Strange Little Birds was released on June 10th 2016. No longer on a major label, Garbage released this album on their own independent label. This is Garbage’s lowest-selling album to date. But then again, nobody really buys albums anymore anyways. Despite the lack of sales the Garbage album Strange Little Birds is one of the strongest efforts today. It’s an amazing album that packs a powerful punch fueled by Shirley Manson’s delicious vocals that stare you in the eyes, scare you a whole lot, but just wont let you turn and walk away. Some standout tracks include Empty, Even Though Our Love Is Doomed  and Night Drive Loneliness.

# 4 –Beautiful Garbage

At number four on our Garbage albums ranked list is the garbage LP Beautiful Garbage. The album was released on October 1st 2001 and stands as the band’s third studio album. The band sounded a little different on that third album. It was a little less electronica and a whole lot more melody. Were they going for hits or were they just trying to write memorial great pop rock and roll songs? I think the two go hand-in-hand and that’s what they were attempting to do. The four singles released from the album were starting with Androgyny released on September 24th 2001 followed by Cherry lips on January 21st 2002 followed by Breaking Up the Girl on April 8th 2002 and the final single Shut Your Mouth released on September 23rd 2002.

# 3 –Version 2.0

The album Garbage Version 2.0 was the band’s sophomore release. The band continued to explore their unique sound that they developed on their first album. Garbage Version 2.0 was a very successful commercial album. It has sold close to two million copies in the United States. Some of the band’s most famous songs were released on the album including the second single I Think I’m Paranoid and the fourth single When I Grow Up. Sales of the album were helped by MTV’s love of the band by putting their videos in heavy rotation. Shirley Manson just had a dynamic screen presence. Her presence was so strong that it led her to star as a villain in the original television show Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

# 2 – Garbage

At number two on our Garbage albums ranked list, we present the band’s debut album simply entitled Garbage. Rock and roll fans were ecstatic when Garbage released their first album. There’s nothing like a great new band hitting the airwaves and the record store racks. Their debut album was released on August 15th 1985. What music fans and critics loved about the album, was how original the band sounded. Five great singles were released from the album, but it was the third single entitled Queer that went into heavy rotation on MTV that really turned people onto the band.

# 1 – Bleed Like Me

We close out our Garbage albums list with the band’s fourth album entitled Bleed Like Me. If you ever seen Garbage in concert which we did when they toured with No Doubt you were blown away by the high-energy of the band. This was a band that loved to play music. It was so obvious just watching them perform on stage. And that’s what we love about the album Bleed Like Me, it sounds like a live record. Our favorite song on the album was never released as a single but it was the album’s opening track entitled Bad Boyfriend. Shirley Manson just kills it on that one. And of course there was the four great singles entitled Why Do You Love Me, Bleed Like Me, Sex Is Not The Enemy and Run Baby Run. But there was so much more to the album than just the singles. Songs like Metal Heart, It’s All Over But The Crying, Boys Wanna Fight just rock your socks off. One of the great rock and roll albums of the 2000s.

Garbage Albums Ranked article published on Classic RockHistory.com© 2021

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