Shirley Manson at 60: 22 Records That Shaped Her

Born in Edinburgh on 26 August 1966, Manson came through the city’s post-punk and alternative scene before eventually becoming the unmistakable voice and presence at the centre of Garbage.

To mark her birthday, I went back through interviews and record selections she has made over the years, including her Baker’s Dozen for The Quietus and other interviews and lists in which she discussed favourite or formative records.

The resulting 22 selections make for a pretty revealing portrait. There are some names you might expect: Siouxsie and the Banshees’ The Scream, Patti Smith’s Horses and Wave, Marianne Faithfull’s Broken English and David Bowie’s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.

But the list stretches much further: Young Marble Giants’ beautifully sparse Colossal Youth, The Associates’ extraordinary Sulk, Bob Marley & The Wailers’ Exodus, The Blue Nile’s A Walk Across the Rooftops, The Stone Roses’ debut, PJ Harvey, Björk, Hole, Peaches and Sinéad O’Connor.

Taken together, they make sense of Manson’s own musical world: punk and post-punk, certainly, but also pop, reggae, electronic music, art rock and records made by artists who rarely seemed interested in fitting neatly into one category.

Happy 60th birthday to one of Edinburgh’s great alternative voices.

Shirley Manson: 22 Record Picks

David Bowie, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
The Stone Roses, The Stone Roses
Patti Smith Group, Wave
Patti Smith, Horses
Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Scream
Marianne Faithfull, Broken English
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Let Love In
The Associates, Sulk
Young Marble Giants, Colossal Youth
Cocteau Twins, Head Over Heels
Sinéad O’Connor, The Lion and the Cobra
The Clash, Combat Rock
Adam and the Ants, Dirk Wears White Sox
The Blue Nile, A Walk Across the Rooftops
Bob Marley & The Wailers, Exodus
PJ Harvey, To Bring You My Love
Hole, Live Through This
Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Fever to Tell
Björk, Debut
Peaches, Fatherfucker
Sinéad O’Connor, I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got
Constant Follower, The Smile You Send Out Returns to You

Shirley image: photographer unknown. If you know who took the photograph, please get in touch so I can add the proper credit.