Shirley Manson's style: how has the Garbage vocalist changed over the past twenty years? Interview with Shirley Manson: Breaking up with a bad girl.

Career: Actress

Growth: 1.70 m

Place of Birth: Edinburgh, Scotland

Genres: drama, fantasy, thriller

Spouse: Eddie Farrell (divorced), Billy Bush

Shirley Ann Manson is a Scottish singer and actress, rock vocalist Garbage bands. Shirley Manson became known for her charismatic, rebellious personality and unusual contralto vocals.
Shirley started her musical career in Edinburgh in the early 1980s. The most significant was participation in the local group Goodbye Mr. Mackenzie as a backing vocalist and keyboardist, and then in the band's new project, Angelfish. After seeing Manson in Angelfish's "Suffocate Me" video on MTV, the Garbage musicians invited her to record as a vocalist. After Garbage took a creative break after four successful studio albums, a greatest hits collection and over 14 million discs sold, Manson began recording the yet-to-be-released solo album. Shirley Manson also starred in Terminator: The Battle for the Future as Katherine Weaver. In 2010, the members of Garbage resumed activities and Manson returned to the group.

Shirley Manson is ranked 60th on VH1's "100 Sexiest Artists" list.

Biography

Shirley Manson was born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1966, the son of a genetics teacher, John and jazz singer Muriel Manson. Shirley was named after her aunt, who was in turn named after Charlotte Brontë's short story Shirley. Shirley was the middle daughter, she has an older sister, Lindy Jane, and a younger Sarah. At the age of 7, Shirley learned to play the piano, and later entered the City of Edinburgh Music School, the music division of Broughton High. Shirley was also a member of the Brownies, a girl scouting organization.

While studying at Brogton, Manson became an active member of the local theater circle, playing in such performances as The Wizard of Oz and American dream". Shirley was bullied at school for having red hair and big eyes. Her classmates gave her the cruel nicknames "Frog Eyes" and "Bloodhound", because of which, from the age of 14, she began to have problems with academic performance, although before that she was an excellent student. Shirley began to experience depression and attempts at self-torture: she wore sharp objects in the insoles of her shoes and cut herself when she felt stressed, depressed, or nervous.

Shirley Manson suffered from attacks by classmates until she got involved with a hooligan company, and as a result, skipped classes for almost the entire Last year learning. She also began experimenting with drugs: smoking marijuana and sniffing glue, drinking, shoplifting, and once even climbed into the Edinburgh Zoo. Shirley went on to volunteer at the local hospital cafeteria, then as a waitress at a local hotel, before spending the next five years working as an assistant at Miss Selfridge. Ultimately, due to Shirley's attitude towards customers, she was transferred to a warehouse. Contrary to Shirley's opinion about her own appearance, she was hired to model for Jackie magazine for a while.

Musical career

Manson became a regular in the Edinburgh club scene, and gained popularity as a stylist for several local bands. At the local theatrical circle Shirley was met by Martin Metcalfe of Goodbye Mr. Mackenzie with an offer to join their group. Manson started almost immediately love relationship with Metcalfe, but she remained with the band after they broke off and became a prominent member of the band, playing keyboards, singing backing vocals, and managing the band's business. In 1984, the debut album Goodbye Mr. Mackenzie Death of a Salesman, which became the first release of Shirley Manson, in the recording of which she participated.

Angelfish

After the breakup of Goodbye Mr. Mackenzie part of the musicians formed new team, dubbed Angelfish, which included the original four members of Goodbye Mr Mackenzie, including Shirley as the main vocalist.

After touring with Live, Angelfish went out of business and Shirley Manson contacted Garbage's manager herself and asked for an audition. She began to work on the drafts of several songs, and the band members invited her to become a full member of Garbage and finish the album together. In August 1994, Radioactive Records gave permission to Shirley Manson to work for Garbage.

In August 1995, the band's debut album, Garbage, was released and sold over 4 million copies, thanks to such successful singles as "Only Happy When It Rains" and "Stupid Girl". Shirley Manson quickly became the face of the band during the tour that followed the album's release in late 1996.

Manson became the main songwriter for the second album, Version 2.0, which repeated the success of its predecessor. Over the next two years, Garbage toured in support of the album, Shirley modeled for Calvin Klein, and the band recorded the theme for the James Bond film The World Is Not Enough, becoming the third Scottish artist to perform a James Bond theme after Lulu and Sheena Watson.

The third album, Beautiful Garbage, contained Shirley's most open and heartfelt lyrics. The album did not sell as well as its predecessors, despite Garbage having a successful world tour in support of the album. During the tour, Manson had problems with her voice, because of which she subsequently had a major operation to remove a cyst on her vocal cords. Garbage's fourth album, Bleed Like Me, released in 2005, saw Manson's lyrics become more politically oriented, and the album itself, after the surprising success of the lead single "Why Do You Love Me", reached the top positions in the charts.

Personal life

As a child, Shirley Manson was interested in religion. She later recalled: “When I was very young, I was absolutely drugged by the church…”. Shirley's father was a Sunday school teacher for a time. Around the age of 12, Shirley Manson had a conflict with his father about religion. She stopped attending church, but still continued to argue with her father. According to Manson, she was disillusioned with the church, although she continued to show interest in religion. Later, Shirley Manson wrote on her Facebook page that she supports science in many ways, but does not exclude the existence of God.

On September 7, 1996, Shirley married sculptor Eddie Farrell, whom she subsequently divorced in 2003. On May 28, 2010, Manson announced that she had remarried. Sound engineer Billy Bush became her new chosen one.

AT this moment The singer lives in Los Angeles.

Acting activity

In May 2008, Shirley Manson starred in the TV series Terminator: The Battle for the Future, as Katherine Weaver, the manager of the advanced technology corporation Zeira. In 2009, Manson became a character in the video game Guitar Hero 5.

Seven years ago Garbage, one of the most successful rock bands in the world, broke up. So why did Shirley Manson want to start over?

Shirley Manson, photo shoot in support of the new album Not Your Kind Of People

What is your favorite Shirley Manson story? About the soloist of the group singing about her love for her new orange guitar because it was "the color of my pussy"? The time she shit in her boyfriend's cornflakes because he annoyed her? Or the moment she hacked off her famous fiery mane?

The latest stunt was partly a protest against her, the 45-year-old Scot laughs contagiously. It seemed wild to people who measured everything in money that one of the most striking music stars I decided to ruin my image so drastically. But there was also some madness in it. "Yes, I was out of my mind". It was 2001 and Manson was promoting Beautiful Garbage, the group's third album. “My heart was broken. Then my divorce proceedings were going on, and it was inhumanly hard for me. And during a promotional tour, you can’t afford a single drop of human weakness.”.

And what was the rumor that, although the American electronic rock band, which she entered in 1994 and immediately became an icon of the generation - with her intractable character, smart speeches and heavy boots - sold 13 million albums, Manson was afraid to enter alone until the age of thirty to clothing stores? And this is a girl who, as a teenager, at the very beginning of her non-musical career, managed to work in the Dorothy Perkins store in Edinburgh. "This is true!"

She talks about Vila, a terrier that lives at her home in Los Angeles. “Taking a dog for myself, I went with it to a cynologist trainer, because you never know what to expect from a dog that has been rescued from something. And he first of all said: "There are no aggressive dogs, there are only frightened ones." “And I immediately realized: this is the problem of my life, that’s it!” Manson claps his hands and laughs. “It was a moment of enlightenment!”

My favorite story is about a girl who started in Goodbye Mr Mackenzie, one of the most untalented rock bands in Scotland, and ten years later she already sang in a powerful rock band with a worldwide reputation. She never gave up on stage. But there were problems behind the scenes. But in the end, Manson came out of them laughing, undefeated, and singing overwhelmingly. new music revived and updated group .

Shirley Manson serves tea and shortbread in a small house perched on a windy hillside in Los Feliz, near Los Angeles. She lives here with her second husband, Billy Bush. He co-produced Not Your Kind of People, first album after Bleed like me, released in 2005. The living room is furnished with comfortable heavy furniture and littered with piles of books - novels about art, about travel.

Behind is a long journey from Edinburgh and then from Madison, Wisconsin, in the Midwest - the cities where Butch Vig, Steve Marker and Duke Erickson founded . This trio - American musicians and producers - were almost ten years older than Manson. Vig was best known as the producer of the album. Nevermind group that conquered the world in 1990. In the mid-90s, he and his old buddies decided to form their own band. They offered Manson a job, and she finally broke up with the old Edinburgh unfortunate musicians, realizing that she had nothing to lose with them.

And now, when we met, Manson is rushing in the stream endless rehearsals group, video filming and photo sessions in support of the return after a seven year absence. There were already jokes with the image: one stylist suggested that she pose in a skirt, "practically not covering my pussy!"- she laughs.

Playlist with mini-movies about the songs of the album Not Your Kind Of People

The voice of '90s alternative rock anthems "Happy When it Rains", "Stupid Girl" and "Supervixen" hates to talk about the meaning of the lyrics or what makes a particular tune a hit. But Manson is pleased that the new album retained a sense of "sincere playing" - she insisted on this as a condition for the group to reunite. This sense of fun was sorely lacking by the time the participants considered the job done. Awards, the theme of James Bond ("The World is Not Enough"), thousands of concerts - success overtook and crushed all four.

"It was humiliating", she recalls of the group's decline. “We just got swallowed up. When we started, we had a contract with an independent studio. And we enjoyed complete freedom. And then we were sold as a consumer product of a record label that had us by the throat with our music, our careers, and ourselves. It was terrible".

“They had ‘corporate expectations’. We didn't aspire to be the greatest band in the world! But for this studio, if we're not the greatest, then we're worthless. I do not in any way adhere to this principle.. All the artists she loves, from Patti Smith to Siouxsie Sioux, “We didn’t sell anything. I really don't want to think about how much we are more precious than a lot of the bands we love.".

Photo shoot in support of the new album Not Your Kind Of People

Punk rockers Vig, Erickson, and Marker, like Manson, were unenthusiastic about commercial success. “But we were trapped in corporate expectations and we were sick of it. It took away our joy and we switched to each other. We have turned our disappointments and frustrations against ourselves.".

Breakdowns, disappointments, unfulfilled hopes - Shirley Manson had enough of all this even before leaving Scotland.

I first crossed paths with her sometime in 1987 on stage at the Teviot Row Student Union House at the University of Edinburgh. 21-year-old, brought up in an atmosphere of politeness inherent in the middle class of the city of Stockbridge, she played keyboards with Goodbye Mr Mackenzie and on her head was a wild mop of red hair. She did not look like a girl who can be frightened by anything, or who - as I later learned - suffers from body dysmorphia, or "ugly syndrome."

"Yes, but when I'm on stage, I don't feel fear, she replies in a Scottish accent that hasn't gone away in twenty years of living in another country. - Others feel exactly the opposite on stage.”.

This is because she early years passionately dreamed of playing in a band? “I was not enthusiastic. It's just that the singer of that group invited me. I never imagined myself in a group. So my long career, which began without a shadow of my intention, cannot but surprise. It took me a long time to accept that this is how I make a living and really believe that I have something to say. ”.

In her first group she was “Totally powerless being. On all fronts. I had a connection with the lead singer of the group - open, this is bad. What if it's normal in America? Don't grill your sausage on the company grill!" She burst out laughing again. "Yeah, it wasn't good".

The last time I saw Manson was in Edinburgh, we were both in line at the labor exchange. Group Goodbye Mr MacKenzie made five albums for five labels. But they had only one hit - "Rattler", number 37, in March 1989. And the years of concerts in not the best halls did not bring anything either. It was sometime in 1992, when Manson was penniless and registered with the labor exchange to receive unemployment benefits. But Vig, Marker and Erickson spotted her in the music video for MTV. And it turned out that in 1994 she left native city and settled in the American Midwest.

rose, but on the wreckage of Manson's personal life. Her marriage to the sculptor, who remained in Scotland, fell apart. I interviewed her in Madison in 1998. It was clear that her life had changed. , who were recording their second album at the time, were already a cool band. And she lived in a hotel by the lake, alone, in the center of the American "cheese country" (Wisconsin). Manson lived in the hotel all the time, not even while touring. It was like Alan Partridge: The Grunge Years.

"There's another point that people don't really understand" she says. - I came from big city- and even if you can’t compare Edinburgh with London, it was still a real city where you are surrounded by culture all the time ... But then you get to the Midwest, and there is nothing. I don't think a person in the UK can even imagine what it's like to live in a place that is basically tundra. Where there is no art, there is nothing at all. Ten plus years of touring has exhausted me so much that there is not a drop of inspiration left in me. I hardly listened to other bands, because they had the same thing as us. ”.

After ten years of touring left the stage in Perth, Australia. It was not a parting forever, but each of them needed their own space. Manson and Erickson were strongly at odds with each other, and Vig and Marker's neutral stance only exacerbated this conflict. In late 2005, Manson moved to California with Bush, who from the early days was the group's engineer.

She spent her time traveling around Asia. She enjoyed family life. She finally lived as she wanted - in her own house and by her own rules. It couldn't last long. When I ask why after everything that happened back together, Manson, as usual, bursts into laughter. First, she names banal reasons: “Because we felt like it… Uh, it was our crisis of “seven years family life", and now the reunion turned out to be successful". Then her usual openness takes over: “A lot of strange things happened. A lot of sadness and… it was a turbulent time in many ways.”.

In distant Scotland, the husband of one of Manson's friends suddenly died. “It’s very sad to see your peer, whom you love like your own, from the age of fourteen or fifteen ... Seeing her widowed, in all black, at her husband’s funeral with three kids by her skirt is very depressing. This, of course, is her grief. But to see all this ... ". In Manson, the middle of three daughters, the bitterness of her own loss was still fresh. In 2008 her mother died. “When someone dies, you don’t immediately understand how hard it is ... I lost my memory, I couldn’t speak coherently, I couldn’t choose words. It's hard to imagine. We were very close with my mother. And she had such a disease that the sight of her was devastating. Such a death is… cruel.”.

Muriel Manson suffered from Pick's disease, a form of dementia. “which is so rare that doctors in Scotland have not come across it before. But she recognized me before her last minute. That is, it was not ordinary dementia. The disease progressed very quickly, and after two years it was all over, too soon..

In the midst of these events, she received a call from a Hollywood TV producer, whom she met at a baby shower * party (that's what Manson moved in circles). He asked her to come to the casting, "because we want you to play the terminator". As a teenager, Manson dreamed of becoming an actress, but she was not accepted into the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. “I just thought it would be funny. And maybe if everything wasn’t so strange, I would think harder and disagree.”.

She got the part of a cyborg business woman “and it was so great to play someone without a single feeling or emotion, just pure genuine power, just when I felt so helpless. It was a real lifesaver.”. It was said that she built the image, focusing on Margaret Thatcher.

Manson was still trying to write music. Among other things, she worked on a solo disc and with Paul Buchanan from the cult band blue nile from Glasgow. “I wanted to make a calm album. I'm so tired of all this noise, unfinished business, electronics, guitars!" Her recording studio had other ideas. "They wanted her to be Katy Perry or Gwen Stefani - a pop star, Vig says. - The songs she wrote were amazing. Very dark, and some of them quite introspective. She wrote the kind of music she wanted - and the label was not interested. I think that's why she realized she had to get back on stage with her band.".

Manson does not recall such a rigid causal connection. “The record company said something really weird – they wanted me to be my generation. And then I thought: "They want to fuck me." This was not disrespectful to Annie Lennox, she does an amazing job, but I'm not interested in this path at all. I got into my car and burst into tears. I thought, “They won't let me do what I want. Why don't I just refuse." This is what I did. I stopped writing music. And I continued to work in a TV series, because there I was inserted into everything more episodes".

But Providence intervened again. Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles has been pulled from television. Then in 2009 there was a third bereavement: friends Manson and Viga lost a child. Manson sang at the memorial service, where Vig was also present. This " full cycle» deaths – child, adult, parent – ​​were “Incredibly, burning painful. And it was like someone pushed me. What to expect? Why waste energy trying to self-destruct? Do you know that I'm cutting?"

I knew that Manson was involved in the filming of a documentary released in 2006 "Cuts: Teenagers and Self-Mutilation" (Cut: Teens and Self-Injury). But is she still cutting? “I don’t cut myself physically, no, but psychologically I cut myself time after time. Or at least I did until my mother died. And I thought, “Why do you keep attacking yourself?” This is such a stupid waste of time. And I thought: "You need to come to your senses, you need to grow up and become responsible". Manson calls Vig, Marker and Erickson. Their aspirations coincided, and the four members of the group formed an alliance and began work on a new album.

I met Manson again on a bright spring morning at her agent's office in west London. She flew in from Berlin early in the morning. The promotional tour for the new album was in full swing, and her hairstyle was evidence of this - a luxurious mop of orange-red. She was inspired by the hits of the disc Not Your Kind of People and what recorded it in her own studio, stunvolume. No more corporate nonsense. And yes, they are back, but now more meaningful. It was evident that she knew that the tour that had just begun had to be carried out in its entirety. "We're not Beyoncé - we can't just jump on our private jets back to New York".

And what about the readiness for photography and the suggestions of stylists to dress in completely closed dresses - is she ready for this? Like a middle aged woman "I'm older now! I'm sure I'll live a fast life!"), does Manson think about whether she should and can do this?

"Of course!", she retorts. “This is a real test. What is very important to me now is that many of the photographers I have worked with have grown up with the band's music. And they want to protect me. I was even a little surprised at how closely they watched to make sure everything was going well.”.

Now Manson is completely captured by adult joys. Helped death around her to see the problems in true light? "Partially yes, I think" she nods. “However, there was also a simple surge of selfishness, I began to appreciate myself more, because I thought that my life was coming to an end”. After a seven-year hiatus from racing for popularity, Manson offers a new metaphor for movement. "I want my horses to break free, she says with a smile. - And I want them to run at full speed. After all, this is what we were born for.”

* Baby shower (English) - a party three to four weeks before the birth of a child with gifts for future parents.

Origin Shirley Manson

The father of the future singer, John Manson, was a teacher of genetics, and his mother, Muriel Manson, was a jazz performer. The girl received her name in honor of Aunt Shirley, and the aunt at one time received this name in honor of the story "Shirley" English writer Charlotte Bronte. Shirley has an older sister Lindy Jane and a younger Sarah. From the age of seven, the girl began to learn to play the piano, and at an older age she entered music school Edinburgh. While studying at a music school, Shirley became interested in theater and was actively involved in the school theater group. The first performances of the girl were The Wizard of Oz and The American Dream.

At school, Shirley was often made fun of because of her big eyes and red hair. The boys in her class nicknamed her "Frog Eyes", after which Shirley, who had no problems with academic performance before, began to study worse and worse. The girl began to look for death, wore sharp objects in her shoes and tried to open her veins, but soon she found another way out of the situation - by contacting a company of hooligans, Shirley began to skip school. For almost the entire last year of study, the girl did not appear in class. Bad company had an impact on Shirley's lifestyle: she began to drink alcohol, tried drugs, became addicted to smoking marijuana, often sniffed glue, stole from local stores.

After high school, Shirley worked as a volunteer in the hospital cafeteria, as a waitress, and as a sales assistant. Despite the girl's biased attitude towards her own appearance, for some time Shirley worked as a model for the local Jackie magazine.

Goodbye Mr. Mackenzie"

Shirley Manson, after working in a cosmetics store, spent time on the Edinburgh club scene, soon becoming a regular. With free samples of cosmetics from her store's warehouse, Manson became a popular stylist for several bands who often performed in Edinburgh clubs. In addition, Shirley tried herself as a vocalist in the band " The Wild Indians" and was the backing vocalist of the group "Autumn 1904", but these groups quickly disbanded, giving Shirley little to no vocal and stage experience.

The first serious project of the vocalist was the Goodbye Mr. Mackenzie ”, with the founder of which, Martin Matcalfe, Shirley soon began to make love. Later, they met for some time, however, even after the official break, Shirley remained in the group as a backing vocalist, keyboardist and partly the team's manager.

Interview with Shirley Manson, soloists of Garbage

The band's debut album was released in 1984 under the title "Death of a Salesman". The group's record label became interested in Shirley's vocal abilities and in 1993 signed a contract with her as a solo artist. From that time on, Shirley Manson and Goodbye Mr. Mackenzie dispersed, and the team broke up shortly after the girl left.

Angelfish

After "Goodbye Mr. Mackenzie broke up, many musicians created a new group called "Angelfish". Angelfish was made up of four members of the former band, including Shirley Manson as the main vocalist. After recording debut album and two singles in February 1994, the group went on tour in Europe, the United States and Canada. The video for the song “Suffocate Me” enters the rotation of MTV as part of the program “120 Minutes”. The video catches the eye of producer and musician Steve Marker, who decides to invite Shirley Manson to the role of vocalist in his new project "Garbage".

Shirley Manson and Garbage

Shirley Manson was soon contacted by phone by Butch Vig. During telephone conversation he invited the girl to become a vocalist in a new group. Communicating with Vig, Shirley did not even suspect who it was. The singer decided to consult with her label Radioactive Records, where they explained to her that Vig is an extremely influential producer, and in no case should you refuse to cooperate with him. As a result, Shirley agrees to participate in the project. However, the audition went horribly, and Shirley ended up returning to Angelfish. However, at the end of the concert tour, the group ceased to exist, and then Shirley herself called the producer, asking for a second audition. The second attempt was successful, and Shirley was accepted into the "Garbage".

Shirley Manson officially joined the band in August 1994. A year later, the group released their first album of the same name, which eventually sold more than four million copies. In 1996, during the tour of the band, Shirley quickly becomes the face of the group. For the second and third album, almost all the songs were written by the vocalist. The 2000 album "Beautiful Garbage" was not as successful, however music critics and was hailed by fans as containing Manson's most heartfelt lyrics. During the tour in support of the record, the vocalist discovered serious health problems, as a result of which she could not sing. The diagnosis is a cyst of the vocal cords.

After the operation to remove the cyst and a period of recovery, the group recorded the fourth album "Bleed Like Me" in 2005, which turned out to be quite politicized and socially oriented. After the release of this record, which took the highest positions in the charts in the history of the band, the band takes a sick break in creative and concert activities, which eventually ends with the dissolution of "Garbage" since 2008, the band members have been engaged in own projects, however, in 2010 "Garbage" reunites and starts working on a new album. The record, called "Not Your Kind of People", is released in 2012.

Solo career and personal life of Shirley Manson

Since March 2006, Shirley Manson has been working on a solo project. After negotiations with several labels that rejected the material proposed by the singer, and repeated statements about the end of her musical career, in 2012 Shirley spread the information that the release of the solo album was finally canceled. In September 2006, the vocalist got married. Shirley's husband was the architect Eddie Farrell. The singer divorced Eddie in 2003, and in May 2010 she announced a new marriage to sound engineer Billy Bush.

Shirley Manson gets angry

Charity

Since 2002, Shirley Manson has been actively involved in charity work. Joining the M A C AIDS Foundation, together with Elton John, the vocalist led a charity campaign for the sale of VIVAMAC cosmetics. Proceeds from the campaign went to the treatment of patients with HIV and AIDS. As a result, the amount of donations for the treatment of HIV-infected people amounted to more than a million dollars. In 2008, Shirley presented a previously unreleased Garbage composition "Witness to Your Love", the proceeds of which were used to support children with cancer. In 2010, two Shirley Manson-designed T-shirts were purchased at a charity auction for $1.5 million, which Shirley sent to help those affected by the earthquake on the island of Haiti.

Today we will tell you who Shirley Ann Manson is (Shirley Ann Manson). We are talking about the Scottish singer and actress, vocalist of the rock band Garbage. She became famous for her charismatic, rebellious character and unusual contralto vocals. She began her musical career in the 1980s in Edinburgh. The most significant was participation in a group called Goodbye Mr. Mackenzie. She also became part of the Angelfish project. Garbage musicians saw the girl in one of the clips on MTV. As a result, she was invited to record as a vocalist. Garbage have taken a break from acting. At this time, Manson began recording a solo album. In addition, our heroine starred in the film "Terminator: The Battle for the Future." She got the role of Catherine Weaver. In 2010, Garbage resumed activities, and the vocalist returned to the band.

Biography: beginning

Manson Shirley was born in 1966 in Scotland, in Edinburgh. Comes from a family of a genetics teacher and a jazz singer. Her parents' names are John and Muriel. Shirley Manson was named after her aunt, who took her name from the short story "Shirley" by Charlotte Brontë. The future singer became the middle daughter. She has a younger sister, Sarah, and an older sister, Lindy-Jane. The girl learned to play the piano when she was 7 years old. She later went to music school. The educational institution was located in the city of Edinburgh. Next was the music division of Broughton High.

Musical career

Butch Vig contacted our heroine. When Shirley Manson first discussed with him the possibility of joining the band as a vocalist, she had no idea who she was really talking to. Soon the singer contacted the label Radioactive Records and spoke about the proposal. The vocalist was informed that Butch Vig is an influential producer and the opportunity to collaborate with this man should not be missed. Our heroine agreed to participate in the project, but the first audition turned out to be a failure.

Personal life

Shirley Manson was interested in religion as a child. The girl's father was a teacher for some time. Sunday school. At about age 12, she stopped attending church. However, she continued to be interested in religion. Later, she noted that she supported science, but did not exclude the possibility of the existence of God. In 1996, our heroine got married. The sculptor Eddie Farrell became her chosen one. The couple divorced in 2003. In 2010, the vocalist announced that she had remarried. Billy Bush, a sound engineer, became her new chosen one. The singer currently lives in Los Angeles.

Musical influences and other activities

Shirley Manson listened to jazz as a child. She liked the work of Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee, Cher. Our heroine emphasizes that the music of Debbie Harry, Chrissie Hynde, Susie Sue and Patti Smith had a significant influence on her. Shirley highlights in a special way the work of David Bowie, Frank Sinatra, Nick Cave, and Ian Brown. A feature of the vocalist is an unusual singing voice contralto range.

The singer herself influenced the following artists: Katy Perry, Karen Oh, Lana Del Rey, Gwen Stefani. In 2009, our heroine became a character in the game Guitar Hero 5. In 2002, the vocalist began to represent the MAC AIDS Foundation. Along with Blige and Elton John, she spearheaded a two-year campaign. This activity began with the release of a lipstick called VivaMac IV. All proceeds from its sale are directed to the treatment of AIDS patients. Manson visited a number of charitable institutions in Madison, San Francisco, New York, Toronto, Edinburgh, and Amsterdam. There she made several donations on behalf of the MAC AIDS Foundation.

In 2008, Garbage's unreleased composition Witness to Your Love was included in a special compilation. All proceeds from its sale were directed to the treatment of children who suffer from cancer. In 2010, Shirley decorated T-shirts with her own hands, which were sold out at a special event. The money was sent to help victims of the earthquake that occurred in Haiti.

Garbage vocalist Shirley Manson has always stood apart from her peers. While many of them put too much emphasis on visual perception and flashy outfits (every time provoking scandals and often forgetting that music still dominates the musical project), the flamboyant native of Edinburgh confidently honed her style, almost never hitting the mark. under the scrutiny and barrage of criticism from the Fashion Police. Shirley Manson's style seems to have never known failure. He just was and is. Inspired by one of recent photo shoot Shirley for Billboard magazine, we decided to recall how the images of one of the brightest rock vocalists of our time have changed over the past twenty years.

Growing up star: what influenced the style of Shirley Manson?

Born in 1966 (yes, this year the singer will be fifty years old), Shirley Manson witnessed the change of different fashion eras with her own eyes. In the late 1960s, fashion was dominated by hippie culture and its opposite in spirit, minimalist avant-garde pop art. The crazy 1970s gave the world disco, safari and military styles, giving way to punk culture in the second half of the decade. In the 1980s, the time came when fashion trends, as such, ceased to exist separately from each other. And the same punk fashion became the quintessence of this mixture. Depending on taste and musical preferences, young people actively worked on their unique style, looking for inspiration in literally everything: in the past decades and even centuries, in other cultures, in different trends and types of art. And the style of Shirley Manson in its own way became unique precisely because of the atmosphere of freedom and rebellion in which she happened to grow up.

Having experienced serious problems with the perception of her own appearance due to peer attacks, the owner of large eyes and a luxurious mop of red hair began to spend a lot of time on the streets of Edinburgh along with various informals. Shirley's tastes were largely influenced by the post-punk wave with its gothic and pretentious gloominess, as well as the style of her favorite performers - Patti Smith, Debbie Harry (you can read about the style of the Blondie vocalist), Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Pretenders and others. It was thanks to such a wide choice of fashionable reference points that Shirley Manson learned to skillfully combine femininity and androgyny in her images, to emphasize sexuality, while not being vulgar.

As a result, already in the early 1980s, even before participating in his first group, Goodbye Mr. Mackenzie, Shirley rose to prominence in musical circles like a classy person. It was not uncommon for her to work as a stylist with various musicians. With her height of 170 cm, the singer managed to become a model in Jackie magazine, as well as a seller in the famous Miss Selfridge store (in outfits from which the girl often went to clubs).

This is how we saw Shirley Manson in the 1990s

Already during participation in his second group Angelfish (1992-1994), Shirley gravitated toward interesting sexual images that the whole world would later see in videos and at Garbage concerts. The main element of the singer's wardrobe was a small short dress. In different styles and colors, Shirley's dresses most often sent us straight to the 1960s. But! As soon as heavy boots and a classic black mesh were put on down, the outfit began to become more aggressive, provocative and daring. The girl complemented the image with voluminous styling (at that time, the singer's hairstyle ranged from a torn bob to long hair below the shoulders), as well as catchy makeup using bright monochrome shadows or elaborate black smoky eyes. To imagine Shirley in the 1990s without eyeliner and bright ruby ​​lips was almost impossible.

However, in the band's videography, one can also find an example of a more relaxed image of the singer, such Manson could be seen on tours. In the 1995 Vow video, Shirley appeared in black jeans and a T-shirt, plain black boots. The heart of the image was a bright shaggy fur coat of rich red color, which contrasted advantageously with the red hair color.

Particularly piquant and memorable at that time was the image of Shirley in the I Think I'm Paranoid video, where the singer appeared before the audience in a short black polka-dot dress with bare shoulders, which was complemented by panties with the same print and heavy black boots. If you grew up in the 1990s, you will remember exactly how sexy this video was.

Late 1990s - early 2000s: the other side of Shirley Manson

However, already in the course of the promotional campaign of the second disc Version 2.0, Shirley Manson's style began to undergo changes. Clips Special, You Look So Fine, and then the soundtrack to the Bond film The World Is Not Enough showed us the luxurious Shirley, who is no stranger to femininity in its most classic and even austere manifestations. The images of that period combined women's military and evening wear, a reference to the military fashion of the 1930s and 1940s and the aesthetics of sadomasochism. For example, consider the aviator-style fur-collared vest and leather miniskirt from the Special video. Or the canonical image of Manson from the video The World Is Not Enough, where the singer appeared before the public in a tailored ruby ​​evening dress with an equally sophisticated hairstyle. By the way, Shirley was very good at the tall horse.

Followed in 2001, the album Beautiful Garbage and the clips released one after another in support of the record were accompanied by a sharp change in the image of the singer. If in the Androgyny clip we saw Shirley for the last time with the usual red hair color, then in subsequent videos the performer appeared before the public as a bright blonde. She also opted for a short boyish haircut with lots of ragged asymmetrical strands. In the style of clothes, however, as well as in the texts, Manson flirted with the theme of glamor, but, according to the musicians themselves, this period of creativity was filled with irony: it is no coincidence that the album's title is translated as "Beautiful Garbage". Shirley's outfits were dominated by an interesting cut, a combination of leather and hard fabrics, as well as shoes with heels.

With the release of the disc Bleed Like Me, the singer returned to her usual red hair color and systematically demonstrated different sides your style. For example, in the Why Do You Love Me video, we not only saw the old style of Shirley Manson (think of the scene where she dresses in a little black dress against the backdrop of a photo of Debbie Harry), but also could appreciate the tweed jacket straight from the 1960s, as well as the variety stockings and a pair of wonderful striped socks. In the urban clip Run My Baby Run, filmed in a documentary style, Shirley showed her casual style at all: sneakers, jackets, neckerchiefs. However, in the video you can also see the allegorical image of a girl with long blond hair and a golden cloak. Clips Bleed Like Me and Sex Is Not The Enemy can be called more fashion-oriented.

There is 1970s glamor and animal prints, interesting military looks. By the way, the work of Garbage of this period became more socio-politically oriented: Manson often wrote texts on the topics of equal rights and military operations that were of concern to her. That is why military style and khaki print most often appeared in Shirley's concert wardrobe.

Late 2000s - 2010s: Shirley Manson takes glamour to the absolute

Promo photo for new album Garbage – Strange Little Birds

After the release in 2007 of the greatest hits collection and new song Tell Me Where It Hurts, the audience saw Shirley Manson in a sophisticated way. To this day, the singer often adheres to the retro style in her outfits. Experiments with pre-war feminine looks, such as in the videos of Blood For Poppies and Big Bright World - flowing dresses and tops that emphasize the figure, soft curls or interesting high buns. He uses leopard print, preferring it both on stage and in clips, and in life (by the way, it was he who became the centerpiece in the design of the latest album of the Strange Little Birds group).

Shooting for NOTOFU magazine (2014)