Beautiful Garbage

1	Shut Your Mouth 3:26
2	Androgyny 3:10
3	Can't Cry These Tears 4:16
4	Til the Day I Die 3:28
5	Cup of Coffee 4:31
6	Silence Is Golden 3:50
7	Cherry Lips (Go Baby Go!) 3:12
8	Breaking Up the Girl 3:33
9	Drive You Home 3:58
10	Parade 4:07
11	Nobody Loves You 5:08
12	Untouchable 4:03
13	So Like a Rose 6:19

Barnes & Noble

At a time when everyone else seems to be desperate to show off the depths of their rage, Shirley Manson -- who's no stranger to hissy and pissy moods -- has taken the opposite approach. On Garbage's third album, Manson and family get in touch with their collective tender side, winnowing out a bit of the bitterness on their first two discs and replacing it with quiet introspection and, believe it or not, even a little sweetness and light. The quartet are better at conveying the former, as they do in the ambient haze of "Nobody Loves You," which harks back to late-period Blondie, and the trip-hop-tinged "Cup of Coffee," where Manson handles a breakup with a subtle tear, rather than an angry jeer. The distorto-guitar crunch that bubbled under most of Version 2.0 is largely gone, replaced by a skittering six-string delivery that recalls the halcyon days of new wave ("Parade") and vintage hard rock (the stop-start "Shut Your Mouth"). Manson herself shows some newfound dexterity as well, laconically layering girl-group harmonies on "Can't Cry Those Tears" and slipping into torch song mode on the breathy "So Like a Rose," which slithers along with Dido-styled élan. Some folks might be put off by the lack of histrionics, but given a chance to work its magic, Beautifulgarbage proves that a band can lose its bark without losing its bite. David Sprague

All Music Guide

The great thing about Garbage -- the thing that nobody wants to mention -- is that they are veterans, from frontwoman Shirley Manson to the three studio pros who play the instruments. They slogged through the trenches of alt-rock in the '80s, whether it was in the U.S. or the U.K., and they came together at the precise moment in the '90s when they could fashion modern-sounding music with a keen eye to the present and modern. They consciously picked up elements from shoegazing, trip-hop, and indie rock -- anything sonically interesting in the underground, crafting them together with skill and a keen commercial eye. On their third record, Beautiful Garbage, that's more evident than ever, from how they approximate contemporary R&B with the sultry "Androgyny," or the Minneapolis new wave bubblegum funk of "Cherry Lips (Go Baby Go!)," or the bluesy PJ Harvey strut of "Silence Is Golden." It's all the more evident because this has a shiny, sugary, unabashedly pop coating, an element that Garbage clearly revel in, as well as should the listener. This is every bit as enticingly postmodern as their other albums, and it sounds distinctly Garbage -- there are elements of My Bloody Valentine crashing up against Tricky, post-Madchester dance, jangle pop, goth stance, and classic pop -- but they seem less like magpies, more themselves, which means Beautiful Garbage is a more consistent record. It's unlikely to storm the charts like their first two records, especially since there aren't standout singles like on the earlier albums, but overall the record works better, perhaps their best album. Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Billboard

Those approaching Beautifulgarbage expecting more of the same...are in for a wonderful surprise. Michael Paoletta