[6] However, singer Shirley Manson revealed in 2012 that the compilation emerged from a demand by the band's UK label A&E Records in order to meet their quarterly requirements.
[13] After producing an electric guitar-heavy version of "Tell Me Where It Hurts", Garbage recorded a second mix of the track with more emphasis on the strings[14] and recruited their former touring bassist, Daniel Shulman, to perform bass guitar on the song.
[6] Vig had created a new version of their song "Bad Boyfriend", which had opened their Bleed Like Me album, when he had been updating his home studio the previous year.
[10] Inversely, Garbage recruited production team Jeremy Wheatley and Brio Tellefario to create a new version of Bleed Like Me's track "It's All Over but the Crying"; the band hoped the song would be a possible second single.
The booklet also compiled a number of promotional photographs of the group taken over the course of their career by Stéphane Sednaoui, Ellen von Unwerth, Rankin, Pat Pope, Warwick Saint, and Joseph Cultice.
[5] In addition to interviews with the members of Garbage, the documentary also features Duke Erikson's daughter Roxy, Madison club owner and friend Jay Moran, engineer Billy Bush, former touring bassists Daniel Shulman and Eric Avery, Foo Fighters' Dave Grohl and Taylor Hawkins, White Stripes' Jack White, and former MTV News anchor Kurt Loder.
[5] In 2012, Garbage stated that the album was released as a contractual obligation to Warner Music: "This was the final straw that broke our backs", Manson said.
[4] On May 11, the band's website unveiled the artwork for Absolute Garbage,[28] and on May 22, confirmed the album's track listing, physical formats and an initial July 16–17 street date.
[29] The promotional campaign for Absolute Garbage was launched in late May 2007, when Geffen Records updated Garbage's Myspace profile streaming audio player to include the album's lead single "Tell Me Where It Hurts" and the remix of "Bad Boyfriend",[30] while the music video for "Tell Me Where It Hurts" premiered on Channel 4's Video Exclusive slot in the United Kingdom on May 28.
[34] Manson complained that the release was "shoved out with no promotion whatsoever", declaring that it was the moment the band "realized how crazy and out of whack things had gotten", inspiring them to work independently afterwards.
[37] Sal Cinqumani of Slant Magazine gave a positive overview of the compilation, writing that the album "serves as an anthropological study of the musical relics of a bygone era",[1] while Laila Hassani of Heat summed up her five-star review by writing, "Few modern female-fronted rock bands stand the test of time, but this reminds you why, along with Gwen Stefani's No Doubt, Garbage are one of them.
"The selection of songs perhaps indicates Garbage view their career the same way many fans do", wrote Victoria Durham of Rock Sound, and "that they never quite managed [to match] the brilliance of their early work.
magazine's Tom Byrant also felt that Garbage's work had dated, expounding, "Something that was once so much a part of the Zeitgeist has remained rooted to the era it marked, untranslatable across the millennial divide.
"[40] Billboard writer Kerri Mason praised the choice of remixes on the special edition: "the band continually brought the best of dance's best producers, not one of the thirteen tracks is a throwaway.
"[51] Ben Hogwood of musicOMH called the compilation a "deserved retrospective", further noting that "the best way to get to know Garbage is through their albums, which demonstrate their strength in depth.