Something Comes Along to Intervene
by Scott Hardie on May 23, 2010
I've been enjoying "Meddle" and "Remedy" by Little Boots, two great electropop songs with catchy hooks, perfect for summer. But I didn't really take her seriously as an artist until I heard "Stuck on Repeat." It's pop music on acid, like Kylie Minogue produced by Captain Beefheart, and the unlikeliest hit song of the year. Even its lyrics can be interpreted as a deconstruction of pop music. Whether it's listenable as a song depends on your taste, but I think it's a work that demands attention.
Two Replies to Something Comes Along to Intervene
Scott Hardie | March 12, 2017
I was thinking about this song again recently (it came to mind when the similarly meta-textual "Hook" came on), and two more thoughts occur to me:
1) I neglected to mention that Little Boots writes, records, and mixes her own music, usually on her own laptop (with occasional remixes by guest producers). She's the Real Deal that most pop artists aren't. That's impressive, and so is the fact that she was 23 when she made the above songs.
2) This mix of "Stuck on Repeat" deliberately breaks the rules of music, pitch-shifting the melody and making other "mistakes" to sound wrong to the ear. And that's the point, really: The self-aware lyrics are about trying in vain to escape from a loop of the rising-and-falling chord progression of traditional pop music. This song is more clever than I gave it credit for.
Logical Operator
The creator of Funeratic, Scott Hardie, blogs about running this site, losing weight, and other passions including his wife Kelly, his friends, movies, gaming, and Florida. Read more »
Eulogy for Two or Possibly Three Restaurants
Dining in Sarasota at 10:30pm on a Friday night is not the easiest proposition. I took my friends Miah and Ines downtown to the only non-franchise I knew would still be open, an upscale sports-themed bar & grill called Patrick's. I've had fifteen or so great meals there, but not last night. Go »Unmitigated Gall
Life gets unpleasant quickly when your gallbladder stops working. TMI alert. I spent all day Friday with sharp pain in my abdomen, diagnosed as spasms from my gallbladder trying to expel a stone. Go »Modern Music
Sadness is not when one of your favorite bands (Smashing Pumpkins) puts out their final album in MP3 format only and you miss it because you don't want to get into file-sharing. Sadness is five years later, when you happily stumble across a website with the entire thing available for download and you finally learn how heinous and unpublishable the album was all along. Go »New Dog Upstairs
Third in a series? I don't think I need to spell this one out. Needless to say, the dog seems to live in a cage directly over my kitchen, and its only hobby is barking nonstop, 24 hours a day. Go »Fun with Vacation Planning
I think I have discovered a new interest: Vacation planning. Most people enjoy daydreaming about possible future trips, but not everybody enjoys working out the fine nitty-gritty details of every last part of the trip. I have found that I do. Go »
Jackie Mason | May 30, 2010
[hidden by author request]