Milk (Garbage song)
"Milk" is a song written and produced by American alternative rock band Garbage from their self-titled debut studio album (1995). The song was released internationally the following year as the album's fifth and final single. Garbage collaborated with English trip hop musician Tricky on a new version of "Milk" for single release. Much media comment was made regarding a rumoured fall-out over the sessions, when it became known that Garbage produced a further mix of "Milk" that only incorporated Tricky's vocals from that session. After an acclaimed live performance of the new recording of "Milk" at the 1996 MTV Europe Music Awards, as well as winning the Best Breakthrough Act, "Milk (The Wicked Mix feat. Tricky)" debuted at number 10 on the UK Singles Chart, outselling the previous single "Stupid Girl". A mix that deleted Tricky's vocal, "Milk (The Siren mix)", charted in Germany, Australia and New Zealand. In North America, "Milk" was released alongside album cut "Supervixen" as part of a dual-single strategy to build upon the momentum built from the success of previous single "Stupid Girl". The single release was supported by Garbage's support slot for the Smashing Pumpkins Infinite Sadness arena tour and pre-empted the release of a home video compilation of all the band's music videos. Both "Milk" and "Supervixen" failed to chart when alternative radio chose to heavily support their soundtrack feature "#1 Crush" instead. Background "Milk" was written and recorded by the band at their own recording studio in Madison, Wisconsin during the 1994–95 sessions for Garbage, and was the first track that Shirley Manson wrote from scratch. Guitarist Duke Erikson had happened to walk past Manson as she strummed an acoustic guitar in their studio lounge. He thought the melody she was humming was interesting and took the idea to the rest of the band: Steve Marker and drummer Butch Vig. Within an hour, they had set up a mic in the control room, Vig programmed some drum loops, Marker played bass and Erikson fired up the mellotron. Shirley's vocal (aside from overdubs) was recorded in a single take facing the control room speakers. The main body of the song was recorded in 45 minutes. At a later point, Garbage recorded some ambient textures for the track, and even had a clarinet part recorded, but these were ultimately removed in favour of keeping the production simple. "It just had a really beautiful kind of feeling to it", explained Manson, "We tried to recreate it in the booth, but it just sounded flat." Vig elaborated: "When it came to mix, we just left it the way we had [originally] recorded it". Manson had told the rest of the band [when she joined Garbage] that she was a songwriter, but the truth was that she had little input in the songwriting team that formed the core of her previous band: "As the lead singer, I was left most of the time with coming up with the melody and the licks," Manson remembered, ""Milk" was obviously