Eight albums and two hip replacements: Shirley Manson shows no sign of slowing down

Sydney Morning Herald

4 days ago

This story is part of the June 29 edition of Sunday Life. See all 13 stories.
I am an outspoken person,' says Shirley Manson on a Zoom call from her home in Los Angeles. 'It comes naturally to me, and it's how I was brought up. I don't get easily frightened. As a result, I get it in the neck, but I don't allow it to shut me up.'
It's fair to say the Scottish lead singer of rock band Garbage doesn't suffer fools gladly. You'll often find Manson on social media calling out humanitarian crises and weighing in on cancel-culture debates and world politics. She has firm views on Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, Haiti and the Congo.
'According to the way I was parented, you need to say something when people can't stand up for themselves,' she explains. 'Sometimes I get frustrated when people don't speak out, but not everybody has a robust psyche like me.'
Manson first caught our attention in 1995 when she burst onto the music scene with Garbage's hit single, Only Happy When It Rains, a song penned with founding member and drummer Butch Vig, who famously produced Nirvana's 1991 breakthrough album, Nevermind.
The late Michael Gudinski toured Garbage in Australia and New Zealand while the band was still relatively unknown, following a hunch they'd make it big. And they did. Garbage's self-titled 1995 debut peaked at No.4 in the Australian charts and went on to sell four million copies worldwide. Since then, the band's seven albums have sold more than 17 million copies.
Manson still gets teary when she talks about Gudinski. 'Michael saw me as a human being,' she says. 'He acknowledged my loyalty and witnessed me as the soft yielding mess that I actually am in real life. And when somebody sees you for how you really are, you are bound to them forever.'
The mid-1990s was a pivotal period in music, the release of Garbage coinciding with Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill, Björk's Post, Oasis's (W hat's the Story) Morning Glory? and No Doubt's Tragic Kingdom.
Now 58, and with two hip replacements behind her, Manson returns with her band for their eighth studio album, Let All That We Imagine Be the Light. The release feels like a chance for Garbage to finally embrace a sunnier disposition, trading emo anthems for hope in the face of fear. It's music fuelled by a defiance that comes with age, a perspective that's matured, and a self-confidence that's finally been acknowledged.
'I had to put positive thinking into practice and imagine something bigger and better than myself.'
SHIRLEY MANSON
Manson knows that in 2025, her band is competing with the likes of Chappell Roan, Dua Lipa, Taylor Swift and Gracie Abrams for attention. That hasn't deterred Garbage's ambitions to keep making music for their loyal followers, just tempered the band's expectations. 'You can't have the same cultural impact you had when you were young,' says Manson. 'That is the province of youth, and how it should be.'
Manson wrote most of the songs for Let All That We Imagine Be The Light in 2023 and 2024 during two bouts of post-operation rehab in the LA home she shares with husband Billy Bush, Garbage's recording engineer. She had been told she would be walking three days after surgery, but each time took three months, while a diet of painkillers led to brain fog. But rather than feel sorry for herself, the situation inspired positive thinking. 'At first, I thought it was a tragedy that I was so crippled, but it turned out to be a gift,' she says.
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She elaborates, 'I couldn't bear weight on my legs – it was frightening. I think I was clinically depressed, and I knew that if I didn't change my thinking about my health, about the dark events happening in the world at the same time, I would die of a broken heart. So, I had to put positive thinking into practice and imagine something bigger and better than myself. I employed a positive way of thinking for the first time in 58 years and was astounded by the results.'
Sisyphus, the first song she wrote for the new album, points to the recovery process. 'It's about learning how to garner all my powers to recover and walk again,' she says. 'It was good to learn new things about myself, to reacquaint myself with the idea of patience and employ it for the first time in my life.'
Earlier this year, a UK tabloid criticised Manson for looking 'unrecognisable' in a new promotional photo, a huge blow for someone who's spent her entire career fighting sexism. Asked about it now, Manson hits back: 'How can anyone expect to look the same as they did in their 20s? I don't even want to try.'
Another new song, Chinese Fire Horse, is an ode to that inner feminist fire, calling out those who put women down. 'A few years ago, I had two journalists in different countries, one male and one female, ask me when I was going to retire. I was 54 at the time and completely thrown back on my heels. How did they have the audacity to ask me that question? Nobody would ever ask this question of the men in my band, who are considerably older than me – Butch [Vig] will be 70 this year.
'It was then I realised the experience of an ageing woman in our culture has never really been fully investigated in pop music. Bob Dylan has never written a song about what it's like to be an ageing woman.'
She acknowledges that there's now a wave of female rock stars enjoying success in their 70s and even 80s. 'Women like Deborah Harry, Patti Smith, Stevie Nicks, Chaka Khan and Chrissie Hynde are the first wave who have ever done it,' she says. 'It's thrilling, and I can't think of anything more beautiful than pointing younger women to this messaging.
'When society tells you that you're dead at 25, they're lying to you. You have agency into your 80s thanks to these women. I am sick and tired of men being told how beautifully they age and how great they are. Well, how about we start talking about how great, gallus and courageous women are, because we haven't had any doors opened for us?'
Away from the spotlight, Manson often turns to her inner circle – including fellow musicians Peaches, Santigold and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Karen O – for support. She still travels back to Scotland to visit her 88-year-old father and laughs while observing that, where she grew up, nobody cares that she went to LA and became a rock star.
Manson lost her mother to dementia in 2008. While sad, it was another experience that gave the singer a spur to re-evaluate her life. 'I kept waiting for someone to recognise that I was enough,' she says. 'It wasn't until my mother died that I realised, 'Wow, I'm on my own now. I have no Joan of Arc in front of me. It's me versus the world and I have to value myself.''
That, however, doesn't make the sting of public scrutiny any easier, and Manson continues to attract media attention based on what she wears, both on and off the stage. 'I always ask myself, 'How can I be as authentic as possible with the clothing choices I make?'' says the woman who caused a ruckus in the 90s by wearing a T-shirt with the slogan 'Don't touch my tits'.
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'I don't want to play dress-up and I'm uninterested in being fashionable,' she continues. 'I don't give a f--- about fashion because I don't want to look like everybody else, nor do I want my identity consumed by the mainstream. Yes, I love beautiful clothes, but I'm not consumed by them.'
Keeping it simple is her approach now. 'I feel very concerned about the unbelievable waste the fashion industry is creating. I am trying to be more conscious. I am re-using pieces over and over again.
'Am I perfect? No. Do I make mistakes? Yes. But I will never wear fur. I am eating fewer animal products nowadays, and I'm sure that within a few years I'll be wearing rubber Crocs 100 per cent of the time, not 99.9 per cent.'