Songoftheday 5/30/20 - You pretend you're high pretend you're bored, pretend you're anything just to be adored...

"Stupid Girl" - Garbage
from the album Garbage (1995)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #24 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 10

Today's song of the day comes from the modern rock band Garbage, who came together in Wisconsin in the the early 1990 with musician/producers Butch Vig (most famous for producing Nirvana), Steve Marker, and Duke Erikson. Wanting a female lead singer, they auditioned women until they decided on Scottish firebrand Shirley Manson, who was a member of the bands Goodbye Mr. Mackenzie and Angelfish. Signed to Mushroom Records in England and Almo Records in the U.S. (run by A&M founder Jerry Moss), the band released their first single "Vow" in the spring of 1995. While it got some buzz in the UK, the single missed the charts, but in America rock radio helped give the group their first pop hit at #97 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart, while going to #26 on the Alternative Rock format list. But from that buzz their British label released its "B-Side" separately, and "Subhuman" became their first British hit at #50. With that initial American hit, Garbage promoted the album track "Queer" to radio without a physical single, and it did well, peaking at #12 on the Alternative Rock chart and got to #57 on the Hot 100 Airplay tally. That song would eventually get to #13 on the British singles chart, but not before they put "Only Happy When It Rains", their true mainstream "breakthrough" single, in the UK top-40 at #29. In America, as the "third single" from their self-titled debut, "Only Happy..." went to #16 at Alternative Rock, while on the pop Hot 100 it got up to #55.

So at the beginning of 1996, the band released what would be their biggest success as the next single in both America and overseas. "Stupid Girl", written by the entire band with a subtle sample of the Clash's "Train In Vain", was a sassy and smart take on misogyny and asserting oneself in a man-centric scene...

"Stupid Girl" became Garbage's first (and officially only) top-40 pop hit on the Hot 100 chart in September of 1996 (they would have one more airplay top-40). The song spent a week at #2 on Billboard magazine's Alternative Rock chart, while popping in at #39 on their Mainstream Rock list. It also rose to #36 on the Adult Top-40 chart, and the club remixes of the track helped it climb to #5 on their Dance Club Play list. Internationally, the single peaked at #4 in the UK (their biggest hit of their career in that country) as well as in Iceland, and made the top-40 in Ireland (#16), Canada (#30), New Zealand (#32), and France (#38). The Garbage album went to #20 on the Billboard 200 sales chart, selling over two million copies. At the Grammy Awards in 1997, "Stupid Girl" was nominated for Best Rock Duo/Group Performance (losing to Dave Matthews Band for "So Much To Say"), and Best Rock Song (which went to Tracy Chapman for "Give Me One Reason"). The band was also up for Best New Artist, which went to country protege LeAnn Rimes.

A final single from the Garbage album, "Milk", was released at the end of 1996 (after another track of theirs which did make the airplay top-40), and while it only "bubbled under" the pop Hot 100 in the U.S. at #108, it made the top 10 in Britain at #10, due to a special non-album version featuring trip-hop star Tricky.

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Here's Garbage making their debut on Letterman in 1996...