Shirley Manson thought Garbage were "f***ed" after hearing The White Stripes and The Strokes
4 August 2026, 13:53 | Updated: 4 August 2026, 13:55
The Garbage frontwoman revealed she thought the band would be left behind for the “new guard” of ‘00s indie bands.
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Shirley Manson admits she was worried when bands like The White Stripes and The Strokes came out.
The Garbage frontwoman has looked back at the band's career on the Talk 90s To Me podcast, where she recalled coming across '00s indie bands and being concerned she would soon be replaced by the "new guard".
Speaking about the first time she heard the Fell in Love with a Girl rockers in particular, the 59-year-old rocker revealed: "I had a computer and I remember being on Amazon.com before it turned into an evil empire.
"I remember clicking on The White Stripes' first record because everyone was talking about the White Stripes. And I remember clicking on it, clicking on the wee mp3 thing and thinking to myself, 'Yeah, we're fucked.'"
"'Cause it was the polar opposite of what we were doing musically," added the Stupid Girl singer. And this was, you know, The Strokes and The White Stripes. This was the new guard and we had been left behind. And I I was conscious enough to understand that. I knew it before anybody else did. I knew it before anybody else was tolling the bells of our doom. I already knew it cuz yeah, like I said, like what Jack [White] was doing was the polar opposite of what we were doing".
Listen to the full podcast below:
Shirley Manson of Garbage – “Weird girls and disobedient women? That’s the ’90s”
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Manson went on to reflect on the fact that although Jack White eventually became more layered and sophisticated with his recordings, but at the time when the duo first came out their rawness of the '00s-era bands made her feel like Garbage was "cast out".
"Ironically, I think he then went through a period of getting really close to what Garbage was doing," the Scottish rocker mused. "You know, his production got really, you know, sophisticated and, you know, much more layered and complex recordings.
"But back then it was just these raw garage recordings and I'm like, 'Yeah, the party's over now.' And then yeah, we went into years of wilderness because we were no longer the you know the zeitgeist band which we had been for some time."
However, reflecting on how the band were able to weather the storm and "figure out" their direction, Manson is pretty happy of how things have turned out, still touring with eight studio albums under their belt and the most recent, Let All That We Imagine Be the Light, released in 2025.
"Here am I. I'm about to turn 60. I've had over a 40-year career in music," she said. "I've still got lots of gas left in the tank. We're getting the best reviews of our career. I can't ask for anything more than that, you know?"
"I feel very liberated. I've gotten a much better singer, a much much better writer. I've got much more of an idea of what I want to hear in the studio. Yeah. It's been an incredible ride and I'm still riding."
Introducing Radio X 90s
Radio X 90s is available across the UK on Global Player via app, globalplayer.com, on smart speakers by saying “play Radio X 90s”, on DAB Digital Radio in London, on 106.1FM and DAB in Manchester and at radiox.co.uk.
