Garbage Serve up a Cooling Balm of Angst on No Gods No Masters
No Gods No Masters, no skips on Garbage’s most danceable album to date
In 1880, French socialist revolutionary Louis Auguste Blanqui coined the term “ni dieu ni maître”—neither god nor master—in his journal of the same name to describe the new world order he envisioned. Since then, the phrase has been appropriated by Friedrich Nietzsche, birth control advocate Margaret Sanger, and a myriad of punks, anarchists and feminists to describe a global frustration with the laws that enable systemic injustice in Western society. Though it’s since become a passé statement—the sort of thing you might find graffitied in a venue bathroom—it has legitimate claim to multiple ideologies and has become a basic signifier of political unrest.
It seemed questionable when Garbage announced their new album, their first in five years, was titled No Gods No Masters. Over the years, it’s become difficult to trust our musical heroes from the ‘80s and ‘90s; acts like Billy Corgan, Morrissey and Sex Pistols have made careers out of preaching radical thought while remaining bigoted or reprehensible in their personal lives. Johnny Rotten’s even gone on record saying anarchy “is mind games for the middle class.” “Punk” has always been an aesthetic, and the face of the genre has always been overwhelmingly white and straight. But part of me has always wanted to believe that Shirley Manson is an exception here. For me, Manson’s a veritable gay icon in her own right; she’s been a longtime vocal supporter of the queer community, and she’s always been earnest and open despite her prickly, badass image. On a more personal level, tracks like “Queer” and “Push It” were integral for my angstiest high school years—Garbage has always had a motivational sound, despite being shrouded in gothy orchestration.
An established artist openly admitting their album is inspired by the BLM and #MeToo movements admittedly makes me nervous—it’s often a slippery slope towards exploitative self-aggrandizing. But No Gods No Masters leads with an honesty that’s hard to deny, even when it leans into more typical protest music tropes. I can believe Manson feels what she’s singing about here, and it never gets so corny that it reads like a platitudinous liberal Facebook post.