“Empty” by Garbage

"Empty" was the first taste of Strange Little Birds, Garbage's sixth album, arriving on April 20, 2016, through the band's own independent label, Stunvolume. It's electronic rock with the old sneer intact, and the band said as much: drummer Butch Vig reckoned it sounded like classic Garbage and set the tone for the whole record, and touring bassist Eric Avery, who plays on it, agreed. Guitarist Steve Marker said its slot on the album, right after the eerie, atmospheric "Sometimes", was a deliberate jolt of contrast to show what the rest had in store.

Shirley Manson has described it as a song about the hole in everybody, an obsession so all-consuming it crowds out everything else. Manson, Vig, Marker and Duke Erikson share the writing credit, and Billy Bush engineered and mixed it.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.