89. Over And Over – Hot Chip

 There are many musicians that you should not piss off; Pink, Alanis Morissette and Hot Chip, to name a few. For what sounds like a reasonably typical dance song by a delightfully inventive band, is actually a thinly veiled middle finger towards critics. Following the release of their first album, Coming On Strong, in 2004, critics thought that Hot Chip were anything but what the album suggested and instead labelled them as being too ‘laid-back’, ‘boring’ and ‘repetitive’. Two years later, the band took the critical reception to heart and wrote Over And Over. The lead lyrics start off their rebuttal to the claims against them; “Laid back? Laid back? We’ll give you laid back.”, before starting to almost simultaneously explain their choice of the music they are playing. “Over and over and over and over and over, like a monkey with a miniature cymbal, the joy of repetition really is in you”. By these lyrics the band are able to creature a beautiful attack on their critics, explain their music and confuse the heck out of listeners at the end of the song with the repeated spelling of the words “Kissing, Sexing, Casio, Poke, You, Me, I”

Throughout the song, repeated beats and hooks and the fact that the main beat sounds like it is made out of some household objects, gives a great raw feeling to the song, which makes it sound as if the band are not only serious about what they are saying, but in fact, they are deadly serious. Electronic bands such as Hot Chip have a knack for really meaning what they say in their songs, and in the way that Over And Over is written, it can be clearly seen that they really disagree with their reviews and that they think their music is fantastic. Which it is.

Close Competitors

And I Was A Boy From School

When I first heard this song, it was not the original. Instead, I heard the cover version by British India, and instantly I thought this song was amazing. Sadly, I didn’t hear the original for almost a year. But when I did hear it, I was amazed! Such a beautiful song that features almost completely disjointed rhythms and beautiful jazz inspired synth notes. The song’s message is confusing, but the dulcet tones of the vocals make the message almost irrelevant as they suck you into their dreamy soundscapes and melodies. In short, a beautiful song that is only beat to the first position by a great song that is essentially about revenge.

 

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