Garbage Drop “The Men Who Rule The World” & Announce New Album, ‘No Gods No Masters’

Garbage fans, the big day is finally here! Garbage just released their new single, “The Men Who Rule The World,” along with an animated music video. The song is our first taste of their upcoming 7th studio album, No Gods No Masters, due out on June 11th. In addition to the single, Garbage also shared the full tracklisting for the album and have it up to pre-order and pre-save.

“The Men Who Rule The World” has an industrial yet electronic sound from the beginning, in some ways recalling The Eurythmics. Its dark atmosphere perfectly matches Shirley Manson’s lyrics about our world leaders making a mess of everything. The whole song is explicitly political in a way we haven’t heard from Garbage, and it’s amazing. We get several hooks during “The Men Who Rule The World,” too, from the eerie “money money money” to the “hate the violator, destroy the violator” refrain. But the main chorus, in which Shirley sings “Stuck inside my head,” is perhaps the most telling: These political and social woes are inescapable and endlessly haunt us.

The music video for “The Men Who Rule The World” was directed by Javi Miamor. It’s a collage of well-known imagery, from figures of our forefathers to images of riots, from spray painted profanities to a mothership rescuing the only good living beings (like dogs and squids). Shirley eventually ascends as a robotic savior. (Her pup Veela is also there to help!) The whole visual feels very punk, like a riot distilled into a four-minute video.

Watch the impactful music video for “The Men Who Rule The World” below:

No Gods No Masters

“The Men Who Rule The World” will appear on Garbage’s upcoming album, No Gods No Masters. The album is due out on June 11th. Today, the band officially announced the album and shared the following statement about it:

This is our seventh record, the significant numerology of which affected the DNA of its content: the seven virtues, the seven sorrows, and the seven deadly sins.

It was our way of trying to make sense of how f*cking nuts the world is and the astounding chaos we find ourselves in. It’s the record we felt that we had to make at this time.

The main album will feature 11 songs. Some of the titles may look familiar if you were snooping on Garbage’s social posts in the last few years! We knew about “The Creeps,” “Waiting For God To Show Up” (which now has a shorter title), “Anonymous Sexxx” (which is now XXX instead of Sexxx), and “This City Will Kill You.”

Check out the main album’s tracklisting below:

1. The Men Who Rule The World
2. The Creeps
3. Uncomfortably Me
4. Wolves
5. Waiting For God
6. Godhead
7. Anonymous XXX
8. A Woman Destroyed
9. Flipping The Bird
10. No Gods No Masters
11. This City Will Kill You

However, a deluxe edition of No Gods No Masters is also available. In addition to the first 11 tracks, it will also include all the standalone singles and Record Store Day releases Garbage has put out over the last several years.

See the deluxe edition bonus tracks list:

1. No Horses
2. Starman
3. Girls Talk featuring Brody Dalle
4. Because the Night featuring Screaming Females
5. On Fire
6. The Chemicals featuring Brian Aubert
7. Destroying Angels featuring John Doe & Exene Cervenka
8. Time Will Destroy Everything

Some marketing copy has described No Gods No Masters as:

…a big, bold and indignant record – overtly political and socially charged in a way that the band has not been before. Its songs touch on themes ranging from global unrest and encroaching climate change (“The Men Who Rule the World”) to the Black Lives Matter movement (“Waiting For God”), to the Me Too movement, sexism and misogyny.

We are definitely here for Garbage being overtly political! You can pre-order or pre-save No Gods No Masters from all the major music providers here.

Making the 7th Album & Sharing Early Songs

Garbage first started working on new songs in spring 2017. That summer, we got a taste of their upcoming 7th album when they shared “No Horses” as a single. It was one of five songs they’d already started that year. They continued working on new songs early in 2018 and into that spring, though studio time halted when they toured in celebration of Version 2.0 turning 20.

For Record Store Day: Black Friday in late 2018, Garbage shared another new song; “Destroying Angels” was released more widely at the beginning of 2019. Whereas “No Horses” was apocalyptic, “Destroying Angels” was a murder song. It sounds like the next Garbage album will be pretty dark! Though, as they said February last year, it’ll be balanced out with some light, too. And, of course, sugar and spice and everything nice.

Following the 2018 celebration of the 20th anniversary of their sophomore album Version 2.0, Garbage spent much of early 2019 working on their upcoming 7th studio album. Early in 2019 they teased the “darkness and light” and “sugar and spice” they were creating in the studio. In April 2019, they were in the studio again. In mid-September, Garbage returned to the studio, announcing it as “Day 1” of recording the new album. Did that mark the official beginning of the recording and production, following months of writing and demoing? Or was it just “Day 1” of that particular session? It’s unclear, but we do know the band continued making progress! Garbage re-entered the studio in January 2020 and shared an update at the end of that February.

Finally, at the end of March 2020, drummer Butch Vig shared an update. In addition to saying the album was going into the mixing phase, he also shared a short clip of one of the new songs. After finishing the album in September, it was mastered in December 2020.

A “Poppier” Direction

Last August, Shirley did a few interviews, and naturally, Garbage’s upcoming 7th album came up. In her interview with SPIN, she first talked about where they’re at with recording and when we can hear it. Their original plan was to release it in early spring 2021, but now its release date is uncertain. But what is certain is that the record will sound different from Garbage’s latest albums. In addition to “lots of guitars,” it will also feature a “poppier” sound filled with melodies and hooks. We love Garbage’s poppier material from past albums, so consider us pretty excited!

Read Shirley’s exchange with SPIN about the new album:

What can you say about the new album? Can we know what it’s called or when it’s coming?
I could tell you, but I probably won’t because of the situation … We finished our record literally a week before lockdown really happened. So we got all the recording done, which was astounding for us, so we now have that record sort of in the can. It’s currently getting mixed, so there is action happening on that front, and it’s keeping us all sort of vaguely tethered to the real world. There were plans literally the week before the shutdown that we were going to release it in early spring of next year. Now I have no idea.

It’s certainly a different-sounding record than our last couple. It has lots of guitars, lots of melodies and hooks. It’s poppier than the last record. We were very inspired by the weird, subversive pop of Roxy Music — that was kind of our muse. Not that it sounds anything like Roxy music, but that was definitely something we thought about a lot.

I can’t wait to hear it; I hope we’re all around to hear it.
[Laughs.] You have now revealed yourself as to why you wanted to talk to me — you, too, have a heart of dark.

In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Shirley talked her podcast, The Jump, and about Garbage’s evolving plans to release music:

What’s the future of Garbage?
A bright future. The sad thing is, we were looking at the most fun year we’ve had in quite some time. We’re restructuring our business and changing the way we release records from the way that we have in the last eight years. We have a lot of touring lined up, which of course we can’t carry out. We have a new record being mixed as we speak that’s going to come out next year. We’ve got three more songs to go and then we’re done. And then we’ll concentrate on the artwork and start planning for next year. We were really excited. We were talking with our team this morning, and things are still looking hopeful.

Additional Clues

In June 2019, NME shared an interview with Shirley Manson about politics, the future of rock music, and, of course, their new album. She revealed that the music is “cinematic” and “pretty personal.”

Two years ago, Garbage teased fans with a handful of full and partial song titles, including the following:

• [unreadable] About You
• This City Will Kill You
• The Creeps
• [unreadable] K
• Waiting For God To Show Up
• Anonymous Sexx

Beautiful Garbage Box Set Coming Soon

Following No Gods No Masters, fans can also celebrate 20 years of Beautiful Garbage with its box set re-release. Just like the band did with Garbage and Version 2.0, their third record will be honored with remastered recordings of all standard tracks, the release of numerous b-sides and rarities, and likely some live recordings and remixes.

In a recent Instagram post, we can see several song titles. Most of them appeared on Beautiful Garbage. “Pay You Back” ended up being released as a b-side under the name of “Enough Is Never Enough.” “After Life,” on the other hand, has not knowingly been released up to this point. The CDs pictured also featured demos, “Shut Your Mouth” remixes, and more.

Since Beautiful Garbage was first released in early fall of 2001, we’ll likely get the box set around September or October this year.

No Gods No Masters Coming Soon

We love “The Men Who Rule The World,” and we can’t wait to hear all of No Gods No Masters on June 11th. You can catch up on all that’s gone into making the album so far here, and get ready for more updates in the coming weeks. We’re only a few months away from the new album! Keep checking back here for all the latest Garbage music news.