I’m honestly wondering as I’m getting ready to post this; how many people are going to remember the Sneaker Pimps!? I mean, this group did certainly achieve a short-term and red-hot level of success with their first album, Becoming X, and their ageless original hit Six Underground. However, after their first record came out, this group entered some tumultuous times, replacing the lead lady vocalist (Kelli Dayton) with lead male vocalist and the group founder (Christopher Corner, a very talented performer in his own right) for marketing and creative reasons. The music on their second album also took a much darker turn, replacing a somewhat upbeat and mainstream sound with a bleak and self-destructive tone. This musical change in sound, in my opinion, was the right call to make. Instead of trying to appeal to absolutely everybody, the tunes became much more personal and authentic. This is Low Five from their 1999 album Splinter, and it’s absolutely my favorite SP jam of all time because it is equal parts sad and beautiful. It’s also an anti-corporate anthem, clearly highlighting mounting internal frustrations and becoming uninspired by being put under pressure to produce their next big hit. The mere existence of this song proves to an extent that trip hop can actually be thoughtful, all while extending a solid middle finger at the lofty expectations of record labels who expect constant perfection from their performers to sell lots of records. On a final note, there are rumblings online that this group has reunited and is working on new material after nearly twenty years of literal radio silence. I, for one, hope this is true because I’d love to hear more. Smash play, and shoegaze so hard your head falls clean off your goddamn shoulders.
(Chris Corner, image credit: https://www.songfacts.com/blog/interviews/chris-corner-of-sneaker-pimps.) Above commentary was lifted from a track that I posted on February 14, 2021. SoundCloud seems to have arbitraily deleted the original audio, this is why I'm switching over to YouTube for music posts from here on out. Sneaker Pimps did release a new album in 2021 called Squaring the Circle. Just an addendum.
