Garbage Release New Music Video – Lets Take A Walk Down Memory Lane And Revisit Their Greatest Contributions To The MTV Generation.

For most of the last three decades, when it comes to an artist that has ruled the commerical music video format, there was Madonna.  For indie fans though, for our money, the Queen of all Media is actually Shirley Manson (and, obviously, the rest of Garbage).  Just releasing their first single in over five years, what better time to reflect on the video output of what became The Little Alternative Band That Could.  Because really, find any band in the last couple of decades – commerical or otherwise – that produced such consistently exhilarating music and videos.

Most bands produced visual accompaniments for their songs – Garbage produced mini works of art.  From the dark torturous art porn of Queer to the slinky, CGI-laden Cherry Lips (Go Baby Go) to the glossy, on the nose seventies stylism of Tell Me Where It Hurts, no band had such a spot on, fantastical handle on the imagery of their musical output, and it constantly gave Garbage an edge and an additional dimension to many of their mid-nineties counterparts.

New track Blood For Poppies has a video that has been described as a ‘gorgeous surrealist dream’ and, honestly, it’s hard to come up with words to describe it better.  Well, until the part where someone slits Shirley Mansons eyeballs open anyway.. The song itself is still growing on us, but since we can’t work out whether it’s even a single or not, we’re just glad to have some real Garbage in our lives.  Here it is :-

 

So – how does it rank amongst their all time greatest clips?  Lets take a walk down memory lane and see how it compares to some of their best (and most visually arresting) work..

QUEER

While Vow basically introduced the band by having Shirley Manson shimmy around a studio awkwardly while somehow managing to wear a giant Poodle for a coat, Queer was the clip to introduce us to the winning formula for Garbage videos.  Basically – Shirley Manson = Sex + Threats of Violence  x Hypnotic Scottish Pronunciation of Random Words.  A sleazy Andy Warhol-esque clip starting with a coquettish eye fuck, it descends in no time into literal follicular rape.  In short, it was AMAHZING.  Plus, the song is still pretty much the sexiest and most carnal thing they ever did.

 

PUSH IT

Not just the best video Garbage ever did, but perhaps the greatest commercial music video of all time.  Easily the darkest clip this side of Nine Inch Nails, it’s a cross between The Village Of The Tori Spellings and a David Lynch After School Special Of Mankind’s Inevitable Demise.  Instead of rhapsodizing all day about the genius of the clip, lets just have a look at all the things that pop up in the space of 4 minutes and 04 seconds :-

• Random French Title Cards
• BONDAGE! PVC! A DEER! (a Female Deer!)
• Larcenous Nuns (THE BEST KIND).  They might be men (EVEN BETTER).
• Some dude made of electric squiggles just like those Crunchie Ads in the 80’s
• Ooooh, more Nuns!  Basically, it’s The Sound Of Music directed by Quentin Tarantino at this point..
• Lesbian Conjoined Twins
• Extras from Village Of The Damned
• A Dude with a LIGHTBULB for a Head.  Shirley seems to be married to him.  *shrugs*  Seems fair.
• “Hi – My name is Shirley and I’ll be your manicurist.. From Hell!  Mwahahahahaha etc..”
• Crash Test Dummies come to life.  Mmmmm Mmmmmmmmm Mmmmmmmmmmm.
• A little Lightbulb Baby in a suit.  Well, at least we know who the Baby Daddy is for once.  Maury Povichcan just take the week off..
• Cemeteries.  Seances.  A Giant Light Balloon.
• Children riding their parents in a supermarket parking lot like some torture porn version of a bucking bronco meme
• Brawling Japanese Businessmen
• Blurred Boobs
• Naval Officer Self-Toe Sucking
• Shirley Manson fucking licking her fucking face in a fucking mirror.

 

SPECIAL

Confession Time – We never used to be too fond of this clip because it was so far removed from the lyric of the song.  But, a decade on, it’s hard to not be impressed with the sheer charisma the carries this along, especially the hyper-active manga cartoon attitude the Manson brings to this WW2 Fighter Pilot meets the (Will Smith Futuristic) Sonnenfeld Wild West delightful mish-mash of a clip.  Certainly, it’s iconic if nothing else.  And it’s better than when Girls Aloud tried the same thing fifteen years later in PVC catsuits and Space Bubbles of Doom.

 

THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH

NOW – this is a Masterpiece.  Any other band that didn’t have the clip for Push It in their audio-visual arsenal would be using this as their calling card until the end of time.  And, lets be honest, it’s approximately 27 times better than the Bond movie of the same name.  Heck – they should have screened this in cinemas countrywide instead.  Nothing short of a tour de force, the filmclip features Manson as both, well, Shirley Manson and as an evil cyborg created to incinerate a room full of pretentious society types (which, lets face it, probably deserved it).  Oh, and she kills people with a burning kiss.  Basically, she’s like the HPV virus in a slinky red dress and better hair.  Why are you even reading this WHEN YOU COULD BE WATCHING THIS CLIP AGAIN?

 

CHERRY LIPS (GO BABY GO)

Basically three and a half minutes of Shirley Manson doing a striptease wearing that Invisibility Cloak from one of the Harry Potter books that wasn’t the first one, it proves that, even off screen covered in a CGI bodysuit, Manson was still sexier than most of today’s most stripped down pop starlets.  Plus, there’s the glorious part where she pees standing up.  The part where she appears to be dancing on the toilet while taking a dump?  Less glorious..

 

WHY DO YOU LOVE ME?

There’s an alternate reality where this was the first clip that Garbage ever made.  Mostly because, for some reason, it feels like a audio-visual reintroduction to the band after the masses fled for the hills after Garbage, umm, got blonde hair and Phil Spectors old Mixing Desk (this just in – the masses suck) and because, unlike a fine wine, Shirley Manson just never seems to age.  Like an old black and white soap opera, it’s also a testament to how good the Garbage Guys are at holding their own and carrying scenes in their own right.  And the middle eight in the bathtub? AMAHZING.

 

BLEED LIKE ME

One of the most visually arresting clips the band ever did.  It manages to have both a fitting storyline and basically be a visual advertisement for how good red hair looks against pretty much every colour in the history of the world, ever.  Seriously, it’s like a really spooky ad for Clairol Red #57 – Aunt Flo edition.  Also, it needs to be said – it’s a fucking crime against music fans everywhere that this wasn’t a worldwide proper single.  It may be the best Garbage single of all time (besides Push It, obvs).

 

Anyway, what about you guys?  Any that we missed?  Or any you think that deserve more credit than the complete opus that is Push It?  And what do y’all think about Blood For Poppies?