After a few minutes of reverb-heavy, hypnotic droning about how "she can't stand her hair, she can't stand her face," "Peel" now had a chorus of, "She was gonna swing/ She was gonna swing from her neckbone..." "Bunny" is a 2-minute ambient segue apparently based on a sampled loop of an orchestra, with sounds of explosions in the distance; it concludes with a muffled, echoing scream of "We're gonna die..." Barragan handled the vocals on "56", a song said to be inspired by his love of numerology; the album's sleeve also had cryptic "23" artwork on it.

Cheer Up was re-released on CD and cassette on July 29, 1997, as a joint release by Sub Pop/Lava/Atlantic (the vinyl LP version remains in print solely on Sub Pop).

A video was shot for "Forest Ranger," featuring the band cavorting in a bathtub and in the studio; it aired a few times on MTV's 120 Minutes in September '97.

It featured the Cheer Up version of "Mountains," plus live recordings of "Forest Ranger," "Change" and "Simple Man."

The Vancouver Sun wrote: "Go-go dancing their way through the current morass of music with stylish elan—including punk, Brit-pop, glam and goth—they have a gift for sounding serious without losing their sense of fun.