Watch Garbage’s magnetic new music video

Earlier this year, Garbage returned with their sixth studio album Strange Little Birds. The album retains the alt-rock legends’ penchant for huge pop choruses, but it adopts far darker lyrical themes than anything else you’ll find in the charts right now.

“I think anyone with half a brain is aware that we’re living in treacherous times,” the band’s Shirley Manson told us recently, “I mean, I really, genuinely feel that. It’s the most tumultuous time that I can remember... my agenda was certainly that I wanted to be truthful about the world I found myself in and what that meant. It was an exploration of that, rather than a focus on just making people feel good. There are enough artists doing that.”

It’s a serious subject matter, but this doesn’t mean that Manson and co aren’t still having a lot of fun with their music, as seen in their new video for Strange Little Birds’ second single “Magnetized”. Directed by Scott Stuckey (creator of Pancake Mountain, the leftfield children’s TV show that notably featured a slew of guest musicians from the indie rock scene), it’s a wild ride featuring weird science, electroshock therapy, and an eight-year-old Shirley Manson stand-in.

“We made the video for ‘Magnetized’ at Pancake Mountain Headquarters in Los Angeles with an incredibly gifted team under the madcap direction of my next door neighbour Scott Stuckey,” she says, “We wanted to create an ode to the magic of science and the mysteries of love.”

“‘Magnetized’ is one of my favorite songs on the album,” Stuckey adds, “Any time you get to send 300,000 volts of electricity through an eight-year-old Shirley Manson doppelgänger and the real Shirley, then YES, sign me up!”

Garbage are about to head out on a marathon world tour. Watch the video for “Magnetized” below.