Shirley Manson declared that "we didn't want to totally embrace the world of electronica", so "Version 2.0" juxtaposed "the super-hi-fi with the super-organic". The band wanted there to be echoes of music they like in the record, "and that means not just Björk and Portishead and Radiohead but the Beatles and Beach Boys and Frank Sinatra", Manson said, concluding that the album is overall "more diverse—it goes to extremes." The increased usage of techno beats emerged from frequent exposure to electronic music during the Garbage tour, both in clubs and listening to The Prodigy and The Chemical Brothers. Steve Marker stated that the band used as a reference point the "Garbage" song "As Heaven Is Wide", "but with a more technoey and dance end." The band also aimed to channel some of the energy of their live shows into the rhythm parts of the album. Vig remarked that "the songs sound looser, tougher" that way, as by the last concerts, "we'd speeded things up and toughened up a lot of the grooves" and in the album "we wanted that to be apparent from the get-go."