January 4, 1997
- STAYED AT #1:4 Weeks
In The Alternative Number Ones, I’m reviewing every #1 single in the history of the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks/Alternative Songs, starting with the moment that the chart launched in 1988. This column is a companion piece to The Number Ones. The column is now biweekly, alternating with The Number Ones on Mondays.
Garbage shouldn't have worked. The band's entire story is deeply unlikely on every level. Here we've got three middle-aged Midwestern underground rock dudes. These guys worked together in a couple of bands for many years, and they had a couple of shots at success, though they never quite broke through. But then one of those guys — the drummer, at that — happened to produce some of the biggest, most important rock records ever made. That doesn't mean that anyone was checking for the drummer's new band. You don't become a star by producing rock records, or by playing drums. You need to find a star. The drummer and his friends did exactly that.
Specifically, these guys recruited their star directly from 120 Minutes, finding themselves a charisma-bomb singer from all the way out in Scotland. Her own band wasn't really going anywhere, and the guys knew that she had a spark even though the early audition process didn't go well. That singer moved to Wisconsin, and the newly formed band leaned into the avant-garde studio-pop sounds of their moment. Unlike most of the other acts who played around with those styles, Garbage were never really a critics' band. Instead, they became a radio band, and possibly the only radio band of their kind.