Not Your Kind of People
| Garbage
Not Your Kind of People
Not Your Kind of People is the fifth studio album by American rock band Garbage. It was released on May 11, 2012, through the band's own record label, Stunvolume. The album marks the return of the band after a seven-year hiatus that started with previous album Bleed Like Me. Guitarist Duke Erikson said at the launch of the record that "working with Garbage again was very instinctual. Like getting on a bicycle...with three other people."The band emphasized that they did not want to reinvent themselves, but embrace their sonic identity, reflecting their classic sound whilst updating it for 2012. Although Shirley Manson's morose dispositions have a presence on the record, many of the songs share a more optimistic outlook on life, influenced by some of Manson's personal experiences during their hiatus. -Wikipedia
Critic Reviews
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Pitchfork
It's a soothing moment on the otherwise pummeling record but, characteristically, Manson can't help but sound a little sinister as she sings, "They're only feelings, baby."
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COS
Even at its weakest moments, though, Not Your Kind of People is still as good as any mediocre album released in the late ’90s.
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Roling Stone
The first new Garbage album in seven years is like a film sequel where familiar characters haven’t changed much – especially Manson,who still cherishes the wary alertness of adolescence.
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The Guardian
Their first album since 2005 returns to the blueprint of their first two, best albums, the major change being fewer electronics, more fuzzy guitars and production aimed at the Gaga generation.
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BBC
It might be business as usual compositionally, and public demand for another Garbage album was questionable; but this set will stir interest in both fans and casual listeners alike.
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AV Club
But for an outfit that’s never denied its plastic-coated glamour, Garbage exits Not Your Kind Of People remarkably well-preserved.
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Chicago Tribune
Most of the rest holds up as credible but hardly ground-breaking pop-rock, an album that proves Garbage still exists even if it hasn't necessarily come up with any new tricks.
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Time
Aside from the aforementioned pair of tracks that hit dark pop highs akin to Garbage’s best, this is just another solid disc from solid musicians, no more, no less.
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NY Daily News
Small wonder Garbage, a group expert at pay-back songs and anger anthems, sounds so plucky and fresh after six long years away.
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Diffuser
It's all just so clumsy. In the era of the MP3, Garbage are still singing about "calling into the radio." Seeing an act once so carefully cool resurface as irrelevant is deeply disappointing. Though once full of movement, here Manson is stiff and frozen.
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Vice
On their first independent release, the grunge iconoclasts have never sounded more earnest.
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Smells Like Infinite Sadness
All in all, this album falls into a similar vein as ‘Bleed Like Me’. It’s not as compelling as their 1st 3 albums, but there’s still plenty to love.
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Sputnik Music
A nostalgia trip that finds the band not so much returning to their roots, but praising them. This is fine for those familiar with Garbage, but it does lead to relevancy issues arising as well.
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Soundblab
Overall, this is a brilliant album, and excellent comeback record for the band. It sounds just like vintage Garbage, what we have come to love them for, with a few electronic tweaks to make it sound a little more fresh and exciting.
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PopMatters
Sonically, the album is precisely what you would expect from a Garbage album. It’s baffling to think that a band that started off sounding so varied and intricate, piecing together so many various aspects of sound and synth technology now have predictable tropes that characterize them to such an insipid level.
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Slant Magazine
The songs here may be a bit sharper than those on 2005’s Bleed Like Me, but there’s no indication that the band has evolved much.
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Glide Magazine
Armed with a fresh vitality and a solid album that plays to their strengths, Garbage is back as talented as ever, and they won’t be leaving any time soon.
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Bloody Disgusting
I’ve been brought back to the glitz and glamour of 90’s alt-rock and I’m loving every second of it. Equal parts music and noise, Not Your Kind Of People is everything I could’ve wanted from a new Garbage album and more.
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EW
Not Your Kind of People‘s title track deftly threads blues licks through a ’60s psychedelic needle. But too often the tomorrow-is-now thrills are missing here.
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From The Inside
There are the dancey songs, the slower songs, the heartbreak songs, the empowerment songs, the darker songs, the poppy songs and the rock songs. All of that mixed together; sometimes one song can be dark, empowering, and dancey at the same time, or slow, dark and dancey, if you get my drift.
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All Music
a simultaneous testament and revival of their strengths. And therein lies the rub: what once was futuristic now sounds nostalgic -- or to borrow a title from another member from the class of 1995, "Brand New You're Retro" -- and that's the appeal of Not Your Kind of People, for better or worse.
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The Scotsman
For a band that’s supposedly about alienation and rawness, the return of Shirley Manson’s gang is as polished, accessible and overproduced as ever.
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The Line of Best Fit
Though the band’s members are all accomplished, it is the beguiling, charismatic force of Shirley Manson that most of their notoriety is based upon and in this album she flourishes.
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Seth Saith
For while this isn't a collection of throwaway songs, and far from junk, Not Your Kind of People just feels rather disposable.
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Drowned in Sound
The album introduces a whole bucket load of new (over) production techniques that mean there's no real flow to it. There's the now compulsory ballad that isn't much cop and the couple of belters that bolster their admirable singles back catalogue yet falsely give you hope that they might still have a brilliant album in them.
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Clash Magazine
Garbage’s new album plods along with an overproduced pompousness that falls somewhere between boring and annoying.
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Vocals on Top
Not Your Kind of People is a very frustrating album because you can hear traces of the old Garbage that was so great in the late 1990’s. Any cool part of a song will be trounced by a change in direction soon after. They band’s music actually sounds less mature now than they did in first couple records.
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MusicOMH
This album is literally a love song to the band’s existing rabid fanbase, and this is no more apparent than on the languid, melodic Beloved Freak, where Manson reassures the devotees she calls her Darklings, “You’re not alone…” It’s possibly not only a message to her fans, but also a message to herself.
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Internetfm
‘Not Your Kind of People’ Feels Disposable.
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The Skinny
Not Your Kind of People contents itself with refining an established musical palette but the frisson of their best work is in short supply. Whilst it would be unreasonable to expect Shirley Manson to resurrect her supervixen persona in 2012, it would have probably been more engaging than the stream of earnest platitudes that saturate the album.
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The Northern Echo
They are back with an album that is fresh yet keeps to the band’s individual sound, straddling alternative rock and electronica.
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The Independent
Garbage have always been prime sci-fi enthusiasts, so it's apt this comeback album suggests a hiatus spent in a cryogenic freezer.
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NOW Magazine
Back from a seven-year hiatus and now far removed from the "alt-rock" zeitgeist of the late 90s, the post-grunge survivors sound even more like a straight-up pop act, albeit one with a retro flavour.
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News Tribune
The volcanic red-haired, high-priestess of alternative rock shows off her range with gusto throughout an album with a sound and lyrics that don't disappoint. There's good reason to celebrate that Manson, Duke Erikson, Butch Vig and Steve Marker are back.
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The Arts Desk
The combination of Manson’s unmistakable vocals - strident, sexy, arresting - with poppy guitar licks and rhythm section more influenced by industrial and electronica than a guitar-fronted band has any right to be - hasn’t dated in the slightest. It’s good to have them back.
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Rukus Magazine
Not Your Kind of People is the kind of album you can listen to straight through as even the weaker songs fit in well enough with the sound that you don’t notice they’re not as good. Even people that never really liked Garbage or were just being born in the ‘90s will still be able to get into the beautiful mix of electronic resonances, guitars, bass, beats and Shirley Manson.
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Paste
Rather than upend expectations of female-driven rock or smuggle darker realities/fantasies onto the radio (or whatever is the present-day equivalent), the band is content to nod toward ideas of nonconformity and individualism without enacting them lyrically or musically
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Alternative Addiction
Garbage's return, Not Your Kind of People is a tremendous return for the band. Although they didn't exactly pick up where they left off, they made the perfect return album for Garbage that recaptures some of the band's magic from their early days.
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Witch Doctor
the album is a thing of beauty and quite beguiling, devious and sassy – the best new record I’ve heard so far this year.
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Express
they are back with an album that’s every bit as exciting and energetic as you might expect with perhaps more sensitivity than we’re used to.
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Seattlepi
Fans of old should not be disappointed with Not Your Kind of People, while it should gain the band a whole collection of brand new followers. Enough of the tracks will be comfortable on pop radio to make the album as successful as those that came before it.
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Nitemice
They’re unique and different from what has come before, but not too much, and not too drastically that it’s a loss. No, there’s just enough change here to call it inventive… Well, maybe not inventive, but enjoyably new. It’s a new feel for Garbage, but what do you expect after seven years of waiting.
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The Solute
It’s a polished, assured, tremendously energetic return to a special niche the band has carved for itself. Not Your Kind of People may not be a big step forward for the band, but it’s like a visit from a collection of fun, good-natured old friends.
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Yahoo
In the seven years since the band last put out an album, somebody must have recalibrated their flux capacitor; singer Shirley Manson’s sultry bluster on late-’80s industrial chugger ”Man on a Wire” is electric, and Not Your Kind of People‘s title track deftly threads blues licks through a ’60s psychedelic needle. But too often the tomorrow-is-now thrills are missing here.
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Garbage Disco Box
If Not Your Kind Of People doesn’t hit you straight away then give it another couple of listens, you will thank me for it because this album is defiantly a grower and one you will come back to in years to come, a fine revival from Garbage.
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Carousel Redundancy
It’s a decent album with a few good songs but I expected a lot more from a group whose drummer is Butch Vig , the man who produced ‘NEVERMIND’ by Nirvana.
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Madison
Incredibly, seven years after many thought Garbage had disappeared for good, it sounds like Manson and Co. are just getting started.
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