Born on August 26: Shirley Manson, whirlwind diva of the American band Garbage

She was born in 1966 in Edinburgh (Scotland) and firmly took the reins of Garbage at the dawn of the 90s.

Before linking her destiny with Butch Vig, Steve Marker and Duke Erikson, Shirley Manson learned the ropes as a backing singer with Goodbye Mr Mckenzie (possible tribute to the singer of the Associates who passed away too soon) and for a while with Angelfish. The story goes that it was while watching a video clip of this forgotten group by chance that Butch Vig fell under the spell of the stunning redhead. The boys who have been around her for several decades now are finally happy to let her undulate under the lights. Sometimes angry, sometimes lascivious, her voice constitutes the ultimate signature of catchy melodies often hemmed with sonic inventions, a true trademark of Garbage. It's not certain that "Only Happy When It Rains," "I Think I'm Paranoid," or "The World Is Not Enough" (written for the 1999 James Bond film) would have achieved the same success without Shirley's electric presence. The young lady is anything but a "Stupid Girl," to refer to their 1995 hit.

Of course, the dazzling success of Garbage also attracted the interest of major brands. Shirley agreed to pose for a Calvin Klein campaign for its CK fragrance. She later confessed in the pages of Glamour magazine that this experience helped her better accept herself and partially overcome the body dysmorphic disorder (an obsessive neurosis linked to body image) she suffered from. The singer also doesn't hesitate to support the causes close to her heart. Along with Elton John and Mary J. Blige, among others, she lent her face to the MAC cosmetics brand in 2002 for a product line called Viva Glam, the profits of which were donated to an AIDS charity.

While, like many artists of this generation, Garbage now indulges in nostalgia tours by exploring their old repertoire, it must be admitted that their latest collection of original songs, "No Gods No Masters" in 2021, doesn't hold much water compared to those that came before.

Since 2006, Shirley Manson has also been trying to release a first solo album. It's not the songs she lacks, but, first and foremost, the effective support of a label. Thus, in 2008, she submitted a collection of tracks to Geffen Records that they deemed too dark. "They wanted me to become some kind of new Annie Lennox, but I had no desire to write easy choruses to appeal to the widest possible audience." We then heard about possible collaborations with Ray Davies (The Kinks) or David Byrne, but without any convincing results despite sharing a handful of demos on his Facebook profile. In the end, only a few songs found their way to us, generally on film soundtracks like "Queen Of The Bored" for "American Gods" (2017) or the strange "Alien Inside" in collaboration with Arca in 2021. But we would like to hear more from Shirly!

(MH with Stéphane Soupart - Photo : Etienne Tordoir)

Photo: Shirley Manson with Garbage on stage at Ancienne Belgique in Brussels (Belgium) on June 17, 2019