Hot Chip don’t let chart trends dictate their musical style.
The synth-pop group return this month with their eighth studio album ‘Freakout/Release’, which has been a work in progress for the past two years.
Speaking in Retro Pop’s September 2022 issue about what to expect from the album, musician Joe Goddard reveals the LP draws from the events of the pandemic while looking to a brighter future.
Crediting “a lot of forms of dance music” for inspiring the group’s latest offering, he adds: “We also love a lot of pop music. For instance, I play this remix of Green Light by Lorde all the time in my DJ sets, this disco mix, and I just think that’s such an amazing pop record.
“So we’re open to actual pop stars as well as trying to draw from more underground, more ‘trendy’ stuff. We’re really into proper pop music as well, like Charli XCX and ABBA. We’re really lovers of pop music in all of its forms. So we try to balance those things out a little bit.”
Of the Swedish supergroup, he adds: “There’s moments of ABBA that’s the cheesiest stuff you’ve ever heard, but Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! is one of the biggest records around at the moment in disco and house music circles.
“Everyone loves that song so much. It’s just undeniably amazing.”
Twenty years into their career, Joe finds the attention placed on classic artists from young fans refreshing. “I’ve seen that kind of process happening for so long now,” he muses. “Thirty years ago, it was much more normal to dress in a certain way and just be into a certain kind of music.
“And you’ve just seen people open their horizons continually since then until it’s become normal for people to be aware of all of this different music and be allowed to like it. Which is clearly a really, really good thing.”
Read the full interview in the September 2022 edition of Retro Pop, out now. Order yours or subscribe via our Online Store or use our Store Finder to locate your nearest stockist.
