Articles Scene: Shirley Manson
From Seventeen Magazine (October 1996)

By Amy Talkington

Special thanks go to Soulchaser for sending me this article.

With her smoldering voice, a hit album and a look that's equally hot, Garbage's redhead supervixen is the reigning queen of pop.

Shirley Manson is certainly not a "Stupid Girl."

"The song is really about squandering potential--kind of our version of Madonna's 'Express Yourself,' but a little more subversive," explains the ultracool singer from the band Garbage. Well, whatever the song is about, it's not an autobiographical. With four hit singles off Garbage's self-titled album, four videos on MTV and a tour with The Smashing Pumpkins this month, Shirley Manson is the coolest girl in pop music.

She's also amazingly lucky. Two years ago Butch Vig--the producer-turned-drummer who is pretty much worshiped in the music industry for producing Nirvana's Nevermind--called Shirley in her native Scotland after seeing her sing in her dreamy, sexy way with Angelfish (her old band) on MTV. Butch and bassist Duke Erikson and guitarist Steve Marker were forming the group that would become Garbage, and "they wanted a singer who sounded like a woman, not a girl," explains Shirley.

Plus, it didn't hurt that in singing Shirley, the Garbage men snagged a lead singer with a killer pin-up potential. But even though millions of girls want to dress like her and even more guys want to date her, Shirley admits that she doesn't feel like a pop star. "Sometimes I feel the same way I did when I was in high school. I still have the same insecurities. I still get spots [aka zits] and worry about split ends."

But Shirley's too cool to waste all her time self-obsessing. She loves to read; hang out with her parents (how many rock stars can say that?) and with Eddie, her sculptor boyfriend; and listen to music by fellow soul sisters like Crissie Hynde and the late, great Ella Fitzgerald.

"I always wanted to be like them when I was growing up," Shirley says. "These women seemed in control of their lives ... smart and successful, beautiful and strong." Sounds like someone we know.