Garbage (album) - Composition

Composition

"We ended up having 48 tracks of samples and loops, and all sorts of strange processed sound effects and weird guitar overdubs, and then through the mix process we'd add and subtract until we'd get to a point where the song still came across."

Garbage has an experimental alternative rock sound that "tr to incorporate different styles and genres, throw it all into a big melting pot and see what would happen", according to Vig. Vig explained that as in the mid-Nineties "the most exciting bands are those who incorporate all incorporate all those elements of punk, funk, techno, hip hop, etc." Garbage would attempt to do the same and "take those influences and make them work in the context of a pop song.” The band went overboard with experimentation, with Erikson adding that throughout they liked to include “sounds that we found accidentally, like Steve’s sample of a tape deck backing up, or the bit in ‘Stupid Girl’ that was initially a mistake, but when we slowed it down, actually fit the timbre and pace of the song and became the hook.”

The lyrics on the record were described by the bandmembers as "a collaborative psycho-therapy session wherein personal demons of various sizes and importance are exorcised, vilified, taken revenge upon and laid to rest." Vig said they tried to deal with "dark themes that I think a lot of people can relate to in some way or another", which included voyeurism, hedonism, perversion, obsession and "the art of self-destruction."