Tuesday, December 11th, 2012

AMNESTY 2012: Hot Chip – Don’t Deny Your Heart

Not a spoiler to say that it’s the highest score of the day…


[Video][Website]
[6.40]

Ian Mathers: I’m on record both as lauding Hot Chip’s recent turn to the more openly emotional and comparing the arc of their work to New Order’s. But if a song like “Don’t Deny Your Heart” only confirms the former claim (and like most of In Our Heads, shows that it’s a good look for them), it confounds the latter; I’m not sure Barney and co. ever made dance music this straightforward before being remixed. It’s also nice to see that they continue to use steel drums well, but really everything you need to know about the joy in this song is there in the title. Plus, you know, “this is what football’s all about!”
[9]

Patrick St. Michel: There isn’t anything particularly deep going on here — Hot Chip moved away from their smartass ways a long time ago, and “Don’t Deny Your Heart” chooses straightforwardness over cleverness (well, for the song… the video is on a whole different trip) — but the Erasure-bounce present here is catchy all on its own. Hot Chip do still know how to write a simple-but-memorable chorus.
[7]

Iain Mew: Hot Chip’s trio of hit singles — the deadpan groove of “Over and Over”, the ghost soul of “Boy From School” and “Ready for the Floor” at their midpoint — so perfectly encapsulated what they could do that they kind of painted themselves into a corner. The albums since have gone in other fruitful directions but the singles have felt like they have nowhere to go other than increasingly refined versions of the same ideas with diminishing returns. So “Don’t Deny Your Heart” is warm and bright and does some neat things with grunted interruptions, but even though I got the album when it came out the song has made little enough impression previously that it has instantly become the soundtrack to Hot Chip Football to me.
[6]

Alfred Soto: On their best album since 2006, Hot Chip remember that archness and buoyancy aren’t mutually exclusive when beats are sutures. Here the moment of bliss unfurls at the 1:50 when the rhythm licks and sequencer are as on the one as a Paradise Garage mix in 1981. Unfair of me, however, to wish Jessie Ware had swatted Alexis Taylor aside to make a go of it herself. 
[7]

Jonathan Bogart: In another year, perhaps, one that wasn’t filled to choking with wistful indie dance (most of it with much stronger vocals than get aired here) — or in an alternate timeline where fell in love with Hot Chip when they debuted and followed them eagerly ever since — I might have fallen for the low-key charms here. As it is, I only nod sympathetically and forget it the moment it’s stopped playing.
[6]

Brad Shoup: So many interlocking parts here: the McCartney II first verse, the proto-house pre-chorus, then back to Macca as played by Matthew Wilder, a Quincy-nicking riff, then a tonally-jacked second verse (“we take fun seriously,” they sing, ponderous decay driving the point). There’s more, but I’ll spare you. We’re ushered so quickly and earnestly from point to point, it feels like the Stations of the Club. I’m certainly flattered by the lengths to which they’ve gone to please me.
[8]

Katherine St Asaph: Two songs cannibalize one another, grunting and grappling for focus. The first is chilled-steel synthpop, with understated vocals, synths that shake themselves into euphoria and a piano for gravitas: 80s retro done right. The second is a saccharine, weedy-voiced, chipper fucker that can’t decide on a key, let alone a cohesive melody. The best man does not win. 
[4]

Edward Okulicz: The up-side to being light and wimpy is occasional buoyancy.
[7]

Will Adams: Sparkles with all the gummy synths that an ’80s party jam should and has some abrupt, but welcome, key changes. Unfortunately, Alexis Taylor’s voice is an acquired taste that I still haven’t found fully palatable.
[6]

Josh Langhoff: It’s like the melody wants to focus, to coalesce into galvanizing hooks, but instead it gets distracted by all the interlocking composite-rhythm drum circle stuff around it — not to mention the guitarist who keeps breaking out “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough.” So maybe it’s a sonic metaphor for the Occupy movement? More like, if a jam band went electropop.
[4]

7 Responses to “AMNESTY 2012: Hot Chip – Don’t Deny Your Heart”

  1. I’m baffled by the no-mention of the blatantly obvious inspiration for this song, New Order’s World in Motion (1990). Originally titled ‘E for England’, which was deemed as a little bit too obvious excstacy reference (which, giving New Orders stellar intake of chemicals, it probably was) the song featured a rap from Jamaican football player John Part. He won the part in competition with other players. Where Bernard Sumner can sound like a panicked choirboy, Alexis Taylor voice is the aural equivalent of paint thinner. Hot Chip? Tepid Tea.

  2. …except this sounds nothing at all like World in Motion, melodically, production-wise, etc. I love Barney’s voice, but comparing him to any kind of choirboy is ridiculous. If you don’t like Hot Chip, fine. But why drag in a perfectly fine other band and a bunch of pointless background info about a song that’s only connected to this one in the sense that they’re both tenuously related to football to beat them with? (and I love New Order, but this song >>>>>> World in Motion, one of their very worst songs, come on)

  3. …excuse me, but weren’t you first dragging New Order in? And in my opinion, rightfully so. The incorporation of football commentary in both songs is impossible to miss, were it not for the fact that it is missing in the reviews. I love Hot Chip, but prefer New Order’s ‘very worst song’ above this listless effort, melodically, production-wise, etc. Come on indeed.

  4. The football stuff is only in the video; the song itself is just a song. (And if the mp3 had had all the football stuff in it I would have given it a [0]; leave the comedy to the professionals.)

  5. I misemphasized my first comment, sorry, I meant to focus more on you mentioning “World in Motion,” because there is zero football content in the song itself (as Jonathan says) and bringing it in just reveals that you don’t appear (still) to have actually listened to the song in question. Although there’s still a different between mentioning another band and using another band’s work as a stick to beat this band, which continues to be a dodgy rhetorical move. Nobody is saying you can’t like New Order, or like New Order more, but if your response to all other songs are “WELL THEY’RE NOT AS GOOD AS NEW ORDER,” err….

  6. @ Ian thank you for your clarification. I’ve learned from jbogart that I made a mistake: I took the [video] link as the link to the actual song. This Football Stuff Edit put me completely on the wrong foot, especially with your New Order reference. I’m sure you can dribble the ball a little along with me on that one. And of course I would be an irredeemable bore if I reviewed each song with a ‘Nice, but, hey, it’s no NEW ORDER.’ Although it would be funny for a while. Which brings me to

    @jbogart Thanks for correcting me! ‘Leave the comedy to the professionals.’ Couldn’t agree more. That’s why I’ll also leave it to you as a professional to detect the omission in your phrase ‘- or in an alternate timeline where fell in love with…’
    Comedy might be reserved for the professional, but snubbiness is for all…

    But what I really want to say is: I’ve come to The Singles Jukebox with a great admiration for the writing displayed here. I sincerely appreciate all of your writers with their ability to write with intelligence, sincerity, wit and wisdom about the greatest single invention of the twentieth century: the single. Thank you! And forgive me for trying to add something in my amateurish way. If the ‘Leave a Reply’ function is predominantly reserved for BIG HUGS, then see this reply as my attempt to hug you all. Thanks! And keep up the great work!

  7. The “leave the comedy” part is referring to the video, no? I liked that video. Thank you for the words and hugs!