This article originally appeared in the August 2016 issue of ELLE.

"I don't know what propelled me," says founding Garbage front woman Shirley Manson of her new, chic, candy-pink dye job. "I woke up one day and thought, I cannot stay red-haired for one second longer! My hairdresser didn't want to do it. But I needed a break from myself. When she pulled the towel from my head and I saw my pink hair, I burst into this huge grin and gasped: 'I look amazing!' And I've never said that about myself in my entire life."

This is a woman who, since Garbage's first electro-tinged, trip-hop-traced, self-titled album in 1995, has challenged what it means to rock hard and—with her punky mix of combat boots, acid-bright clothes, and iconic black eyeliner—looked great doing it. She's the hard-core fighter pilot Queen Astarte in Garbage's sci-fi hit video "Special." She has seven Grammy nominations, including Best New Artist in 1997 and Album of the Year in 1999. She's sold more than 17 million records. She's kicked open doors for every modern-day pop-rock heroine, from Charli XCX to Karen O. She's even recorded a Bond theme (1999's "The World Is Not Enough")!

But what would Garbage be if Manson—who somehow turns 50 this month—weren't still tapping into the insecurities that have fueled the group's most iconically angst-ridden hits? "Sometimes I look in the mirror, feel my shoulders slump, and am disappointed with what I see," Manson says. "And I have imaginary voices about what people might say about me having pink hair at 50. But I'm at that point where I don't give a fuck if you think it's appropriate or not. Go fuck yourself and be boring! I want to be free to explore the person I want to be."

You'll find that person on Garbage's sixth studio album, Strange Little Birds, which, after an early-summer release and a European tour, the band is taking on the road in the U.S. Recorded with bandmates Butch Vig, Duke Erikson, and Steve Marker, mostly in Vig's basement studio, it's the second release on Garbage's own indie imprint, STUNVOLUME, formed in 2012 when the band ended a rocky seven-year stretch of breakups and makeups that was initiated by the troubled production of 2005's Bleed Like Me.

Getty Images

Their newest effort is Garbage's darkest, most raw, and most immediate album since that 1995 debut, with Birds' 11 tracks thriving on Manson's seductive but sorrowful voice—high, dry, and confrontational—amid crashing-and-slashing guitars, slinky bass lines, and rumbling buzz-saw beats. It's a bold production choice that enhances Manson's unflinching ruminations on self-loathing and aging ("Youth and beauty don't remain," she sings on "Teaching Little Fingers to Play"), which stand to strike a nerve among the grown-up Gen-X girls she once inspired to stockpile up-to-there shiftdresses and Manic Panic Wildfire hair color.

But while Strange Little Birds is reminiscent of Garbage (which the band played in its entirety on last year's twentieth anniversary tour, 20 Years Queer; reports say a similar celebration of 1998's Version 2.0 is in the works), Manson isn't living her life in the rearview. "I don't believe in nostalgia," she says. "Nostalgia connotes a desire to return to a moment in time. And I don't want to go back. I want to see what's next! That, to me, is much more interesting."

I hate being constricted by clothing. Fuck that. Life's too short.

Her fashion choices, too, point forward. Gone is the woman who went braless under a halterdress emblazoned with Version 2.0 album art to the 1999 Grammys, and, a year later at the same awards, rocked a Britney-baiting schoolgirl skirt. These days, she takes the stage in, say, an MSGM satin smock with side pockets and an abstract print (still pink, though). According to Manson, it's all about a wardrobe that's "simple and I can move in. I've always wanted to be more dominant than what I was wearing. I hate being constricted by clothing. Fuck that. Life's too short. My comfort's more important."

Manson, though, is no less a rebel. In fact, as an icon fearlessly following legends who have come before her in earning the rock-won right to flip the finger to ageism—Annie Lennox, Patti Smith, Mick Jagger—she may be more of a rebel than she's ever been. "People write to me on social media and say, 'Shut the fuck up! Give it up! You're too old!' But it doesn't mess with my head too much. That's other people's problem, how they view my age. Sure, I'll be compared to Taylor Swift or Sky Ferreira. I get that. But age is information. Age is empowerment. I'm tired of being told I must infantilize myself and pretend I'm younger than I am. I'm 50, and I have lived an incredible life."

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io