we do things is almost like Cubism. It's different viewpoints of the same thing, jammed together on the one canvas". ""Androgyny" is a schizophrenic song", Steve Marker claimed, describing it as "lots of urban groove... then it's got a bit of that '60s fuzz guitar, loads of strings. There are like three or four different styles of music in it. It's basically just a weird song". The majority of the recorded work on Beautiful Garbage was to analog tracked through a Trident A Range mixing console; then fed into Pro Tools for recording overdubs, editing and mixing. Originally the band had recorded a keyboard bassline during the verses; Daniel Shulman asked to perform organic bass on those parts instead. The band agreed; Shulman recorded those parts using a Fender Precision Bass Deluxe with the E String tuned down to D. While Shirley Manson's main vocals were generally not treated to the extent that they had on Garbage's first two albums, a lot of her backing vocals were; on "Androgyny" each vocal track was EQ'd and treated differently. Lyrically, "Androgyny" was described by Shirley Manson as a "third-sex manifesto" for gender expression, adding that she thought that the world was fascinated with gender-bending and cross-dressing, and that she felt that people had become sick of being categorised in binary terms: "this overt sexualisation [of society]... has become so un-erotic, so un-mysterious, and so un-sexy". The band felt that "Androgyny" was a good choice as a lead single for Beautiful Garbage, as the song represented how the album veered to pop, more than the first two albums. "Starting off with something as quote unquote "poppy" as "Androgyny" was maybe where we wanted to go with this..." explained Erikson, "it sounds a lot different to what we've done before." Later Erikson told VH1, "["Androgyny"] encapsulates the mood of the record... each part of the song has a very drastic change and the record is full of extremes like that." He pointed out that despite the R&B verse, the song is recognisably Garbage because of the rock chorus; adding that the bridge also has a Philadelphia soul influence. "We combine different genres of music within a song... in that way, it's what we've always done." Single release "Androgyny" received its world premiere radio broadcast on August 9, 2001, on Steve Lamacq's Evening Session on BBC Radio 1; this was followed up by pre-release broadcasts