2. Hot Chip – Over And Over

There’s a fine history of surrealism in pop. Captain Beefheart, The Flaming Lips – heck, even The White Album isn’t exactly low on moments of weird. But despite the artistic endeavour, pop surrealism is all too often accompanied by po-faced overperformance, excessive artistic licence, general pretentiousness and, frankly, not enough fun. Not so with Over And Over. Despite singing about a “monkey with a miniature cymbal” and inexplicably spelling out the words “Kissing, sexing, Casio poke” as its finale, this is a record that doles out its surrealism with a snake-hipped delight, a wide-eyed smile and a satisfying crunch. It keeps its bizarreness light and its beats bouncy, both its lyrics and music offering just the right amount of wrongness. It offers funking, zippy synth lines and glorious guitar-as-kazoo wig-outs. It has basslines as grooving and mechanical as the aforementioned monkey. It holds the swaggering slickness of a band at the peak of their game. Not since Groove Is In The Heart or Love Shack has there been a floorfiller with such an unapologetic sense of fun, such a gleeful propulsion, such a daft sense of humour. “The joy of repetition really is in you”, sings Alexis Taylor, and he’s right – Over And Over is a dancefloor masterpiece that really can be played, well, over and over.

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