Sneaker Pimps :: Becoming X
Photo: Howard Sooley
Grunge wasn’t the only cultural phenomenon that had a strong grip on society’s senses in the 1990s. Hip-hop was entering its masterful metamorphosis in response to police brutality, poverty, and the crack cocaine epidemic, and EDM was still surging through the youth’s veins like a melodic matrix. But this is America we’re talking about, and, though I hate to break it to you, there’s a whole wide world out there living, breathing, and endlessly expressing its internal and external hardships, visceral visions of life, and death, and the Hartlepool, County Durham, England-based electronic, and trip-hop band Sneaker Pimps, is a great place to start in the decade’s vast volume of tonal titans. Established by childhood friends Liam Howe and Chris Corner in 1994 after planting a foundational flag as the duo F.R.I.S.K., the group released its groundbreaking EP “Soul of Indiscretion”, which would become one of the earliest installments in the trip hop genre. Quickly paving the way for Sneaker Pimps to ride shotgun in the electronic environment of transcendental tones, the duo eventually connected with Kelli Dayton, later known as Kelli Ali, with Ian Pickering writing the hypnotic trio’s lyrics in collaboration with the group’s creative core. It’s quite insane to think that within two years, they would release their monumental debut, “Becoming X.” No one sets out for such a feat, or maybe they do. Still, a lot had changed in England since the golden days of Factory Records. With a new generation of victorious vibes pouring into the sentimental streets, Sneaker Pimps became the country’s ticket to ride. Released in the summer of 1996 and later in the United States the following year, “Becoming X” is a melodic masterpiece that shifts from one feverish fusion to the next, while its eager energy surfs across the digitized daylight of its generation’s atmospheric afternoons.
“X meaning whatever you want it to mean. Also, like Generation X, X as a blank. It’s a feeling. So it’s really purposefully ambiguous, like the songs are. We’ve tried letting people use their imagination to make it more personal to them.”
Photo: Jeff Reidel
Before Kelli Dayton’s infamous joining of the group, Corner led the voyage on vocals during the infancy stages of the album, and like the water marks on the walls of Jericho, a female’s touch would soon take over the body of the band like a drug, and send them into the sonic stratosphere as trailblazers of their generation. On the condition that Dayton became a songwriting partner, the band acknowledged this revolutionary request by letting their newly established lead vocalist co-write the B-sides of the album, which, in retrospect, listeners can precisely place their eager ears on the transition from one lyrical location to the next with Dayton’s critical contributions in the fundamental fold of what makes “Becoming X” such a sonic staple. Coexisting in the captivating clubs of London’s nightlife, Sneaker Pimps shapeshift into sexy soundscapes similar to a vampire prowling amongst the public in an ancient attempt to seduce an eternal lover successfully. The late 1990s were overflowing with sexual tensions and artistic bloodshed in film during a time in culture where a stranger in a bar, on a college campus, or in a local park could occupy a space for an unlimited amount of time, as long as they were pondering their youth and precious place on this mortal marble. Featuring singles "6 Underground", “Spin Spin Sugar", “Tesko Suicide”, “Walking Zero”, and the album’s atmospherically apocalyptic opener “Low Place Like Home,” it is without a doubt the soundtrack to your weekend, which could easily become the Sneaker Pimps, as you descend into the poetic prophecy of their tonal trance.
