16: Hot Chip - Over And Over

"Like a monkey with a miniature cymbal"

The nonsensical playfulness of 'Over and Over' was a breath of fresh air blowing through the British alternative music scene in 2006. Hot Chip's insanely addictive club floor-filler was NME's Single of the Year, and, as I'd mentioned previously, was inescapable that summer. Yet it didn't suffer from overkill, probably because of its inherent freshness and impish lyrics about monkeys with cymbals, Casio keyboards, and generally, being "laid back". Every time that familiar beat started playing, I found myself hopping from foot to foot, allowing myself even a little headbang for the thrashy electro breakdown in mid-song.



The word play that was employed towards the song's culmination was bizarre and amusing to me. Alexis Taylor and Joe Goddard spell out various words, each one letter shorter than the previous, and, apparently not bearing any relation to each other. So "K-I-S-S-I-N-G" and "S-E-X-I-N-G" make some sort of sense, but then that context is blown off course by the follow-up "C-A-S-I-O" and "P-O-K-E". I genuinely have no idea what they are on about. Does it matter? Not really. It's still a fine example of a modern electro-pop song, undeniably cool. "We'll give you laid back" indeed.