Post Modern Sleaze

Album: Becoming X (1996)
Charted: 22
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Songfacts®:

  • She must be a Thelma or Louise
    She must be a post-modern sleaze


    In the 1991 movie Thelma & Louise, two women from Arkansas who escape their humdrum routines by going on a road trip where they leave a trail of destruction before driving off a cliff. The film touched a nerve with many women who felt constrained by their everyday lives and unsatisfied with their partners. Many of these women set out on road trips of their own in what some in the mental health community labelled "Thelma & Louise Complex."

    Sneaker Pimps, a trip-hop act from England, were quite amused when they read about this in a newspaper, and wrote "Post Modern Sleaze" in response.
  • According to Sneaker Pimps guitarist Chris Corner, this song was inspired by his sister, Deb. "She's a post-modem sleaze - an odd person - pretty f--ked-up," he told Vox in 1997. "Love her though I do, I think she's psychologically unstable."
  • The video was directed by Howard Greenhalgh, who also did Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun" and System of a Down's "Question!" Sneaker Pimps lead singer Kelli Dayton dons a wig to portray a woman from the South in the Thelma & Louise style. "It's an indictment of the American road movie and the power it has in glamorising problems and suggesting that everyone should be on a quest for self-discovery," Pimps keyboard player Liam Howe said.

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