It was released in early 2002 by Mushroom Records as second single from the album, with the exception of North America, where Interscope issued "Breaking Up the Girl" instead.

In the years since release, "Cherry Lips" has become an enduring track for the band, an alternative rock LGBTQ anthem,[1] and after almost two decades continues to resonate, being used as the home run song of the Milwaukee Brewers and in advertisement campaigns for Microsoft's Surface Go laptop tablets.

[4] As the first Garbage single fully released in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the band donated a percentage of the royalties generated from the sales of "Cherry Lips" to the International Red Cross.

[6] Shirley Manson wrote the lyrics based loosely around two novels she had just read, Sarah, which was about a transgender prostitute,[8] and The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, written by author Laura Albert under the pseudonym of JT LeRoy.

"I wanted to write an ode to transgender spirit, inspired by my interactions with this peculiar but emotionally generous creature I knew online as JT", Manson later recalled.

[10] On the Beautiful Garbage sleeve notes, Manson dedicated "Cherry Lips" to "The Terminator", another alias of JT LeRoy.

In 2005, LeRoy was exposed as an invention of Laura Albert in articles published by Stephen Beachy, The New York Times and Vanity Fair.

[24] In Italy, where "Cherry Lips" had been licensed to the Breil Stones Winter 2001/02 campaign advertisements,[3] the single debuted at No.

3 on the ARIA Club chart[28] FMR scheduled the single to coincide with the Big Day Out rock festival, which Garbage were part of the line-up.

10 spot,[33] ultimately spending fifteen weeks on the charts[36] In New Zealand, the band's performance in Auckland and airplay for the single resulted in Beautiful Garbage re-charting at No.

[37] "Cherry Lips" was originally scheduled to be issued in the United Kingdom to support Garbage's mini-tour of Europe in November 2001.

At the start of 2002, Garbage kicked off the rescheduled release of "Cherry Lips", performing the song on cd:uk, T4 and on the Pepsi Chart Show.

[41] An internet-only remix of "Cherry Lips" produced by Girls Against Boys bassist Eli Janney was streamed online on various sites to promote the song.

On February 1, Mushroom partnered with The Sun tabloid and Asda supermarket to give away a free CD titled Garbage:Sampler that included the "Cherry Lips" remix.

[44][45] In 2012, the song featured on the band's second greatest hits album, The Absolute Collection, released in Australia and New Zealand ahead of Garbage's 2013 tour promoting Not Your Kind of People.

In 2022, the song was used for the "Salmon Sisters" commercial of Microsoft's Surface Go[47] and was included in the first episode of the Netflix series Heartbreak High.

's Dom Lawson described it as "lavish trashy pop"[6] while Will Stokes, a reviewer for Attitude, wrote "Has anything more funky than the bubble-gum flavoured "Cherry Lips" been written all year?

"[50] Billboard wrote "replete with "Chapel of Love" wedding-bell chimes, Garbage has created a storyline for film director Gus Van Sant.

[52] while in an album review for Rock Sound, referring to "Cherry Lips", Victoria Durham wrote "you can't help thinking that things have veered a little off course here".

[53] Knowing that the song had been inspired by the writing of JT LeRoy, director Dawn Shadforth presented a treatment for a stylized "Cherry Lips" video combining those sensibilities with 1960's biker movies and Japanese manga graphic novels.

Shadforth envisioned the visual as a "celebration of extraordinariness and difference" populated by lizard people and set at an alternative universe truck stop where Garbage were the house band.

The truck stop people would appear normal at first, but as they started to dance, hints of 'lizardness' would appear (flicking tongues, tails) with subtle prosthetics.

The video would end with a hot rod race and a flying saucer, with Manson climbing on-board or the side of one of the cars.

[54] The produced music video for "Cherry Lips" was directed by Joseph Kahn on a set installed in a loft located in Brooklyn, New York[55] on October 22, 2001.

[58] The special effect was rendered by filming Garbage wrapped in green gauze suits under their clothing and digitally replacing their bodies with the background.

For the breakdown and coda, Manson removed her clothing (except her boots and gloves) and performed an invisible striptease, and then walked across the room towards a bathroom mirror displaying her composited reflection.

[61] The set was dressed to resemble a strip club, vintage neon signs were procured from over the city to provide an authentic backdrop.

A further remix was completed by Girls Against Boys member Eli Janney titled DJEJ's Go-Go Jam and released as a streaming single via the Garbage website.