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"You Look So Fine" is a single released in 1999, and was the final single taken from Garbage's second album Version 2.0, where it was also the closing track. "You Look So Fine" became a fan favourite, closing either the main set or encore at every headlining show Garbage performed on the two year long Version 2.0 world tour.
"You Look so Fine" was not played during the 'beautifulgarbage' tour, but Shirley performed a verse and a chorus of the song a cappella at some concerts.
On the 'Bleed Like Me' tour, "You Look so Fine" was performed properly once on the 15th June 2005 in Spain as an encore. An incomplete rendition was performed in Toronto in April 2005.
The release of the single was promoted by a lounge version of the song arranged by Fun Lovin' Criminals, on which singer Shirley Manson performed a new vocal. The new version was part of a remix trade between both bands, where Garbage remixed Fun Lovin' Criminals single "Korean Bodega" in reciprocation.
In 2007, "You Look So Fine" was remastered and included on Garbage's greatest hits album Absolute Garbage.
"You Look So Fine" was written, recorded and mixed at Smart Studios in Madison, Wisconsin. One of the very final songs written during the recording of Version 2.0, "You Look So Fine" was created from a scrapped track titled "King of Crime" which had been abandoned very late in 1997. "You Look So Fine" was completed just as mixing for the album began in January 1998.
"You Look So Fine" was first performed live on May 15, 1998 in Combined Locks, Wisconsin on the first date of the Version 2.0 tour. In advance of the song's eventual single release in late 1998, Garbage performed the song on TV recordings for MTV Europe and MusiquePlus.
In 2001, electronica group West London Deep sampled Manson's vocal from "You Look So Fine" in their white label track "You're Taking Me Over". Manson later refused clearance for the sample and the commercial release of track was scrapped. Remixes of "You're Taking Me Over" by Inner City, Problem Kids and Desyn Masiello & Leon Roberts had already been circulated promotionally. The song was withdrawn, reworked and re-released without Manson's vocal and retitled "Gonna Make You My Lover".
In the run up the release of "You Look So Fine", Mushroom Records released promotional CDs to radio stations featuring both a radio edit of "You Look So Fine" and the reworked Fun Lovin' Criminals version. The Fun Lovin' Criminals had released Garbage's remix of their single, "Korean Bodega", on April 26, and their record company Chrysalis Records heavily promoted Garbage's remix, and the fact that Shirley Manson had contributed vocals to the remix. Much of the print ads for "Korean Bodega" pointed out that "You Look So Fine" and the Fun Lovin Criminals remix would be released the next month, and details of Garbage's single was sent out to fans on both artists mailing lists.
On May 15, Garbage performed "You Look So Fine" on Later With Jools Holland, and the same week record the track during a performance for Radio One's Evening Session. "You Look So Fine" is A-listed at XFM, GLR and Capital, B-listed at Radio One and C-listed at Virgin and playlisted at 56 regional radio stations. Mushroom serviced remixes by Eric Kupper to clubs and DJs, which enabled the track to register highly in pre-release industry charts.
"You Look So Fine" was the fifth and final 3" CD single release during the Version 2.0 album cycle.
"You Look So Fine" was commercially released in the UK on May 24 on a two CD single set and cassette single. It charted at #19 on the UK singles chart, becoming Garbage's eighth Top 20 single. Like the previous UK singles from Version 2.0, a limited edition 3" CD format was issued on June 6. Garbage could not promote the release during its first week on sale, but after the single had charted, the band returned to the UK from their European concert tour to perform the track on both Top of The Pops and TFI Friday.
On May 25, the day after the UK release, "You Look So Fine", was released via BMG across Europe as both a CD maxi and a card sleeved single CD. Garbage perform "You Look So Fine" for Gala Ragazza in Madrid on June 3 as Version 2.0 is certified platinum in Spain.To mark this, RCA issue both "You Look So Fine" and "Temptation Waits" to Spanish radio stations.
Later in the year, Festival Mushroom Records issued the single in Australia and New Zealand on December 6, in a maxi CD format, mirroring the European release.By this time, Garbage had finished the tour for Version 2.0 and international promotion was aimed at Garbage's next single, Bond theme "The World Is Not Enough".
The music video for "You Look So Fine" was directed by Stéphane Sednaoui for Propaganda Films. It was filmed on February 26, 1999 on a Los Angeles soundstage.ASP World Champion surfer champion Kelly Slater was cast as the man washed up on the shore that Manson "rescues", and much press was made from his cameo role in the video. While the male members of Garbage were filmed for the video, during offline editing, most of their shots were left unused after the director and the band felt their shots looked "naff".
With a concept for the video to visually look like a "mixture of a piece by Ingmar Bergman and a Samurai warrior movie", the director created a rock pool and white sand dune landscape dominated by a large pair of eyes in the background sky. Throughout the video, an effect similar to bioluminescent insects flying at night is also employed. The establishing shot is of the landscape, which fades to reveal Manson tending to an unconscious man who has washed up on the shore. While she tends to him, the male members of Garbage are seen lurking in silhouette in the background, while she sees her own reflection acting independently of her at the man's other side. After a while, the man regains consciousness as the sky changes to pink and the image onscreen changes to soft focus, before fading out as Manson sings the final lyrics.
The "You Look So Fine" video was first commercially released on All About Garbage, a covermounted CD-ROM issued by Italian magazine Tribe in 1999. A remastered version of the music video was included on Garbage's 2007 greatest hits DVD Absolute Garbage.
Garbage recorded two new tracks, "Soldier Through This" and "Get Busy With The Fizzy" for the b-side of the single. In a change from the band's home studio in Madison, Wisconsin, the band instead chose to book studio time in late February at Rondor Studios in Los Angeles, California. The band recorded both tracks, as well as the vocal for the Fun Lovin Criminal's version of "You Look So Fine" during this studio time.
"Get Busy With The Fizzy" was co-written with Garbage's touring bassist Daniel Shulman. Although Shulman performed bass guitar for the group between 1995 and 2002, and often contributed to the basslines written while in the recording studio, "Get Busy With The Fizzy" remains the sole Garbage track Shulman has received any writing credit. "Get Busy With The Fizzy" was included on the b-side of "You Look So Fine" internationally, however "Soldier Through This" was only released in the UK.
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