“Wrong” was released as Depeche Mode's first single from their 12th and most recent studio album, Sounds of the Universe.
The video of this song is possibly one of the weirdest things that came out during the first half of this year.
49.The Climb - MILEY CYRUS
Dear Annoying Miley Cyrus,
You finally had me with this song!!
48.
My Life Would Suck Without You - KELLY CLARKSON
47.
Dog Days Are Over - FLORENCE AND THE MACHINE
Happiness really does hit you like a train after hard times.
"The dogs days" are the horrible things in life that happen and tramatise us, and at some point you have to let go to move on and change your own future.
46.I Hate This Part - THE PUSSYCAT DOLLS
45. TIE
Oh My God - IDA MARIA
"Oh My God" is the debut song by Norwegian rock musician Ida Maria, the song was originally released in October 2007 but was to be re-released in the UK following the success of her previous single, "I Like You So Much Better When You're Naked". The re-release date was pushed back several times, however, it was eventually rescheduled for 26 January 2009.
Untouched - THE VERONICAS
44.Red - DANIEL MERRIWEATHER
Daniel is the voice of the Mark Ronson's 2007 version of the Smiths' song Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before.
Red it’s an emotional track that catches every emotion of everybody who hears it. It’s somehow about being “perfect” as Daniel sings, “It took something perfect, to paint it red”. Along with the impressive arrangement, Daniel’s soulful, raspy vocals ventures into the whole track making it one of his finest.
43.Let It Rock - KEVIN RUDOLF AND LIL' WAYNE
42.Decode - PARAMORE
41. TIE
Wonderful - GARY GO
Gary Go is considered "The One Man Coldplay" by the british critics. This life-affirming song was the first tune that Go wrote for his debut album. In an interview with Safe Davis transcribed on his website, Gary Go explained: "I wrote it on my favorite piano at my favorite studio in New Jersey USA, right by where that miracle plane landing happened recently on The Hudson river. I was feeling down and I wrote the song about feeling down and finding a way out of the darkness."
Island - THE BPA FEAT. JUSTIN ROBERTSON
The BPA or "The Brighton Port Authority" is an alias for multi-instrumentalist and musician Norman Cook, who is better known as Fatboy Slim.
Their debut album released at the beginning of this year is OK. Island, perhaps the best song of the album, doesn't have a music video and haven't been released as a single yet.
40.I Remember - DEADMAU5 AND KASKADE
I Remember is an electronica/dance song by Canadian DJ Deadmau5, & American DJ Kaskade. It features vocals from Haley Gibby.
Deadmau5 told HousePlanet.DJ that this was originally an older track that he re-visited. He explained that it "was based on a track that I never released called 'I Forget.'"
"It had been more of a cinematic segue-type thing, not dance music at all, which is something that I'll throw together every month—just some 50 second long thing. So I went back to that track and realized that if we expanded it, and added a vocal it might work."
And that is how I Forget became I Remember.
39.Symphonies - DAN BLACK
The cool video for symphonies has a lot of classic movies references. The track is essentially good background noise, the lyrics seem to be there just to provide more weight and rhythm and by using a recognisable sample Black has ensured that the track will be just as easy to dance to as Rihanna’s original.
If you’re after something to pad out a party mix tape or you fancy hearing ‘Umbrella’ with different words, then this single could well be for you.
38. TIE
I'm Not Alone - CALVIN HARRIS
Ain't No Rest For The Wicked
- CAGE THE ELEPHANT
Is it just me or does this song sounds like the sequel for Beck's loser?
37.Not Fair - LILY ALLEN
Finally a girl got the balls to talk about her sexual frustrations!
Obviously this song needs little interpretation, girl finds perfect man of her dreams, only he is selfish and useless in the bedroom. Lily doesn't sugarcoat her lyrics, and this song is one fine example of that.
36.No You Girls - FRANZ FERDINAND
35.
Magnificent (Dave Aude Remix) - U2
Dave Aude really understands that much of the appeal of U2 lies in their dynamics and guitar-driven rock and works those elements into a solid dance mix.
AMAZING MIX!! Specially when The Edge's riff breaks into the climax of this dance tune.
34.Panic Switch - SILVERSUN PICKUPS
Panic Switch became the third independently-distributed song ever to reach the #1 position on the Hot Alternative Tracks (formerly Hot Modern Rock Tracks) chart. The other two to achieve this feat were The Offspring's 1994 debut hit "Come Out and Play" and Everlast's "What It's Like,"which had a nine-week run at the summit in 1998-9.
33.The Boy Does Nothing - ALESHA DIXON
This song resembles Lou Bega's 1999 UK #1 hit "Mambo No 5 (A Little Bit Of)."
Dixon explained to the Observer Music Monthly October 2008: "As for the 'Mambo No.5' sound, it just feels right. The song started over as more jazzy, bluesy music, but it ended up going there. We need a good feelgood song now, what with everything going on in the world."
In a February 2009 interview with the BBC Breakfast news programme, Alesha Dixon said she wrote this song for women as a tongue-in-cheek swipe at husbands and boyfriends generally.
"Does he wash up? Never wash up
Does he clean up? No, he never cleans up
Does he brush up? Never brushed up
He does nothing, the boy does nothing!!"
32. TIE
1901 - PHOENIX
No Surprise - JAMES YUILL
Folk and electronica? The two genres seemed to be like beef jerky and Pop Rocks, two substances who were delicious apart but shouldn't ever ever be mixed together.
Well...almost never. There are exceptions to every rule. What if the folk is not a sample, but written by the artist in question? What if the synth beats don't overpower the melody, but just add a little bit of crunchy edge to the otherwise smooth veneer of the folk ballad? It would take a subtle hand, and by God, James Yuill has done it. For all of you who thought Postal Service's classic album, Give Up, was a flash in the pan sort of moment, I am delighted to announce that it wasn't.
One young man from Britain has picked up the torch and run with it. His debut album, Turning Down Water for Air, which has been a sweeping success in the UK and Europe was released in the States in May.
31.When Love Takes Over - DAVID GUETTA FT. KELLY ROWLAND
The official anthem for Pride 2009!
30.Broken Strings - JAMES MORRISON FT. NELLY FURTADO
29.Know Your Enemy - GREEN DAY
28.Meddle - LITTLE BOOTS
Little Boots plays on this track the Tenori-on, a Japanese gadget, which has become her trademark instrument.
She explained to The Sun May 29, 2009: "I saw a Tenori-on in the studio and picked it up. I think it's great and when you can play that live you can see the sound. I think it's important to bring the physicality back, to see the beamed light, which is also a sound. See the pattern being made as you hear it."
27.Breakeven -THE SCRIPT
This could be the sequel for my break up song of 2008, THE MAN WHO CAN BE MOVED.
It's by the same british band, The Script.
26.Halo - BEYONCE
Halo describes a love that is so phenomenal that it is heavenly and was written by Ryan Tedder, who previously wrote "Bleeding Love."
The tune was originally earmarked for "Bleeding Love" singer Leona Lewis. However the British singer was unable to find the time to record the song so it was passed to Beyoncé, a decision that reportedly left her mentor Simon Cowell fuming.
25.Heartless - KANYE WEST
I remember hearing this song on and on everywhere during Valentine's day of this year.
It reminds me of that feeling that I got during 1991 when Will to Power released a cover for 10cc's I'm not in love.
Bittersweet!!
24.My Delirium - LADYHAWKE
Ladyhawke explained the background to this song on her website: " I wrote the song a year and a half ago after days of no sleep due to terrible jetlag. I felt like I was going out of my mind. I was missing my friends and family back home, and I was basically living to hear my phone ring in hope that it would be one of them calling. So my delirium came out of me thinking I was going crazy from lack of sleep!"
23.Walking On a Dream - EMPIRE OF THE SUN
Empire of the Sun are Luke Steele of The Sleepy Jackson and Nick Littlemore, of the techno act Pnau. The duo find it difficult to explain exactly what their songs are about and are keen to hang on to the mystery of them.
Steele explained to The Sun February 13, 2009 that talking about this song "and what it feels like when you're missing home or you're missing someone isn't just 'it' — one thing."
He added: "It's also about when two people become one which is about me and Nick, when we were reunited but at the same time it's about so many other things. Sometimes trying to explain what a song is about spoils the beauty and it rips your heart out painting it black and white. The mystery is part of the beauty and you kill a song when you tell too much."
22.Death - THE WHITE LIES
Definitely my favorite band of 2009. This is the first of THREE songs that I include in the Best of 2009.
Death has a pretty depressing lyric but it's uplifting too because it can help people feel it's alright to think and worry about these things. We're less about 'I hate everything' than finding solace in introspective thought.
21.TIE
Daniel - BAT FOR LASHES
Natasha Khan, who is of Pakistani and English parentage, first came to the attention of the record buying public when her debut album Fur and Gold was nominated for the 2007 Mercury Prize for best UK album of the year. Despite being a favorite amongst the critics to win the award, she lost out to Klaxons' Myths of the Near Future. Six months later she was nominated for Best British Breakthrough and Best British Solo Female at the 2008 Brit Awards. She was also chosen by The Guardian as one of the newspaper's women of 2007, a significant accolade as Khan was the only musician to appear on their list. Despite all this acclaim Fur and Gold did not sell in huge quantities.
This song was the much anticipated lead single from her second album, Two Suns.
Khan told The Sun newspaper April 10, 2009: "Daniel wasn't real. He's based on a fictional character that I fell in love with as a teenager. He represents that era of my life and exactly how I felt about my boyfriends at that time. My ambition was to make a pop song like the ones I grew up listening to."
Zero - YEAH YEAH YEAHS
This is a new era for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. This record got their confidence back and was really a move towards enjoying being in a band again. They started off writing this record with guitars, but gradually the sound developed into what you hear now. They chose synths because they allow for more space.
20.Gives You Hell - THE ALL AMERICAN REJECTS
19.The Way It Used to Be - PET SHOP BOYS
Tennant and Lowe hooked up with spiritual heirs Xenomania in an attempt to return to core values and reaffirm their pop relevance in their 10th album, YES.
It all starts promisingly: “All Over The World” samples a nutcracking snatch of Tchaikovsky to deliver a grand, mordant hymn to global pop songs and everyday desires, harking back to the metropolitan ennui of “West End Girls”. But the heart of the album lies in more low-key numbers such as “King Of Rome” and “Legacy”, which recall the windblown balladry of 1990’s Behaviour.
The characteristically titled “The Way It Used To Be” is the best thing here, defiantly struggling against easy nostalgia, but nevertheless suggesting that the PSB melancholy vision of perfect pop is now, commercially, a period piece.
18.Nothing to Worry About -PETER, BJORN AND JOHN
This song features a children's choir. PB & J's Peter Móren told MTV News that the American rapper Jay-Z was an unlikely inspiration. He explained: "We listened to Jay-Z's 'Hard Knock Life' with the 'Annie' sample, and we needed clear, bright voices going straight through little radios. So we recorded with a children's choir. Plus, you know, cheap labor."
17.Beautiful - EMINEM
On this melancholy song Eminem raps about his struggles with drug addiction.
In August 2005 Eminem entered drug rehabilitation in order to treat a dependency on sleep medication. He subsequently took a break during which he battled his addiction whilst industry insiders speculated that Shady had ended his rapping career.
Eminem is now sober and he told Vibe magazine that this song is the only one he kept from the recordings he made during that dark period in his life. He explained: "One of the only reasons that I put that track on there is that I feel like it's the best song out of that batch that I did when I wasn't sober.
At the time I felt like, 'This is it for me.' I wrote the first verse and a half in rehab, and when I came out, I finished it. It was the only song that marks that period without bringing me back to that place. Every other track not only didn't fit with the album, but when I listened to it, it would bring up bad memories."
This samples Paul Rodgers and Queen's version of Rock Therapy's 1996 charity single "Reaching Out."
16.Warrior's Dance - PRODIGY
This was originally written specifically for a Gatecrasher gig that the band were participating in. It was also the first song that Liam Howlett, Keith Flint and Maxim Reality had recorded together for a number of years and the catalyst to get the trio working together again. (The Prodigy's previous album Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned, featured only Howlett musically).
Flint explained to The Guardian February 6, 2009: "It was the anniversary of 20 years of acid house and the rave scene, and we were a genuine part of that - a really significant British youth culture movement. That realization freed us up. We wanted to write something like a bootleg-type retrospective track that represented that, just to play live. It wasn't meant as the start of an album."
15.Blame it - JAMIE FOXX FT. T-PAIN
The song's music video features an A-list cast. Foxx explained to MTV News: "The video [by director] Hype Williams, we went vintage. Ron Howard, who's [won] an Oscar; Jake Gyllenhaal, Oscar-nominated; Forest Whitaker, Oscar winner; Samuel Jackson, Oscar-nominated; Quincy Jones, Oscar winner and Grammys beyond; Clarence Avant; Morris Chestnut; Tatiana Ali, Ced' the Entertainer; Tommy Davidson — the biggest video!"
Foxx added that he was inspired by the late Notorious B.I.G. to call on so many friends for the clip. He said: "We wanted to sort of relive the Biggie [experience]. Remember when Biggie did the 'One More Chance' remix video?' So, we relived that. But [we have] the most Oscar-nominated and Oscar winners in one video that you ever seen."
14.Boom Boom Pow - BLACK EYED PEAS
13.The Fear - LILY ALLEN
Lily Allen told the Observer Music Monthly December 2008 that this sarcastic indictment of celebrity culture was inspired by "one of those days when you just shout at the telly, 'This is wrong!'" She added that her fear is "of the world becoming this horrible sterile place. Being scared that there's never going to be anything real any more that isn't sponsored."
12.To Lose My Life - THE WHITE LIES
11.Bulletproof - LA ROUX
I said it earlier this year and I will repeat it. THE 80's ARE BACK!! And La Roux is proof of that!!
This was the third single to be released by the London-based electro-pop duo La Roux from their self-titled debut album.
"For me Bulletproof is just about looking at a situation that's usually a reoccurring one. It could be to do with anything in your life - whatever you want it to be about. I don't like being specific about what my tracks are about to me because its not really about that.
It serves its purpose for me and once you put it out into the public - it then becomes what anyone wants it to be about. But it's just vaguely about, realising there's a reoccurring situation in your life, something which keeps happening to you or keeps knocking you back. Something that you can't quite get over.
It's about going to yourself, 'No, I'm not going to do this to myself again because it's not good for me and I'm going to be bulletproof'."
Singer Elly Jackson
10.Love Story - TAYLOR SWIFT
This was the first country song to top the Mainstream Top 40 chart in that tally's history. The previous highest ranking on that chart for a country song, was the #3 placing of Shania Twain's "You're Still the One" in 1998.
Marketing Country and Western acts in Europe can be a problem, so an alternative "International Radio Mix" was created for the release of this song across the Atlantic. This Country-Lite mix retained the banjo plucking from the originally version but added a bassline, drums and an electric guitar solo to make it more palatable to European ears. The tactic worked in the UK, as this song became Swift's first British hit.
This could be about Swift's relationship with Joe Jonas of The Jonas Brothers, who she dated for much of 2008. The line "Romeo, take me some place we can be alone" relates to the fact that they were never alone due to their popularity. "I sneak out to the garden" is symbolic of how they had to sneak around to have dates due to the paparazzi. The song also talks about Swift's father and his objection to Joe, but Taylor ignored her father's advice and continued to date him until their breakup in October.
9. TIE
Sleepyhead - PASSION PIT
Passion Pit are a vehicle for Massachusetts auteur Michael Angelakos, who writes all of their songs. He enlisted Ian Hultquist, Ayad Al Adhamy, Jeff Apruzzese and Nate Donmoyer for the band in 2007.
The name of the band is taken from an old slang term that refers to the area in movie theatres and drive-ins where teenagers would go to make out.
This song was originally included on Passion Pit's debut EP, The Chunk of Change, which they released in September 2008. The set was originally a belated Valentine's Day present, which Angelakos put together for his girlfriend at Boston's Emerson College. He explained to The Sun: "Originally it was a Valentine's gift for my girlfriend that was never supposed to go beyond her ears. She put up with a lot of my s--t and was a saint for it and that is the theme of a lot of the EP." The French Kiss label liked it so much they gave it a general release and watched as this song caught fire on the net.
Sleepyhead samples Irish folk artist Mary O'Hara.
"I'm big fan of '70s singer/songwriters and just general folk artists. Mary O'Hara was part of the revival over seas and also in the American '70s folk scene. When I came across her traditional folk stuff and I was absolutely blown away. Everything on the record is, it's like 25 tracks, everything is just utter perfect folk music in Gaelic. I was like 'Oh my god, this would be so perfect for me to sample right now. I need to sample this.' I cut it up, worked with it and I finally figured out a way to do it. I never thought I'd have to deal with copyright stuff y'know, the issues that come with another artists publishing. It's a traditional song, she didn't write the song, but I used her actual recording of it. I was a huge fan, a really big fan. I loved her voice. I loved her work with harp so I wanted to integrate it into a song."
Michael Angelakos
Seven - FEVER RAY
Fever Ray is an alias of Karin Dreijer Andersson of the electronic duo The Knife. Remember the awesome song HEARTBEAT?
A haunting, rhythmic movement of shifting sounds, Fever Ray drills both sounds and lyrics into each listener with melodic and methodic turning. Andersson's lyrics are inspired from the dreary and shifting consciousness that losing sleep can provide, and her steady beats build the foundation for her to use a variety of other instruments.
The lyrics of "Seven" show how Andersson's take on life add a necessary depth to the songs she creates. Providing a variety of stories involving the number seven, the song takes on new life and complicates the rest of the album due to the sweeping, transient lyrics.
8.Use Somebody - KINGS OF LEON
Frontman Caleb Followill wrote this song about longing for somebody to have a cuddle with while feeling lonely on the road. He said on his band's website: "It's about being far from home."
"The meat of song was written on tour. When I came up with 'I could use somebody,' I didn't know if I was talking about a person or home or God. I felt immediately that it was a big song, and it scared me away. Then, when we were writing the record, Matthew kept sayin', 'What's that song, man?', and I acted like I didn't know what he was talking about. Then, finally, I went, 'All right, we'll do it,' and as soon as we started playin' it, the producers looked up and said, 'Whoa, that's a good song.' I was like, 'OK.'"
7.E.S.T. - THE WHITE LIES
Two months after Ian Curtis died, Bono stopped by the desk of Factory Records founder Tony Wilson and said something like, "Now he's gone, I promise you I'll do it for him." At least that's what Wilson later told critic Simon Reynolds. U2 soldiered on without Joy Divison's gothy glamor, and of course Bono wasn't the only one carrying an unforgettable fire for Curtis. Then and since, a long list of bands have tried fusing U2's stadium-size grandiosity with Joy Division's bleak foreboding. Sometimes they're Radiohead, sometimes they're Interpol, and sometimes they're White Lies.
TO LOSE MY LIFE, their doomy debut is full of ghoulish stories of undead lovers (‘Unfinished Business’), haunted funfairs (‘Farewell To The Fairground’), millionaire breakdowns (‘From The Stars’), kidnappings gone murderously wrong (‘The Price Of Love’), manic depressives committing suicide due to fear of undergoing electrocution therapy (‘EST’).
It’s stuffed with gore-spattered lines such as “I’ll leave my memoirs in blood on the floor”, “A desperate fear flows through my blood/That our dead love’s buried beneath the mud” and the definitive White Lies manifesto, “Everything has got to be love or death”.
They’re OMD, Echo And The Bunnymen, The Psychedelic Furs, Depeche Mode, Magazine. At times, when the drum echo booms and the visions of being strapped to a massive wheel and dunked head-first in a fire-swathed pond kick in, they’re even Duran Duran’s ‘Wild Boys’.
The Dark Music never sounded so luminous.
6.Day 'N' Nite (Crookers Remix) - KID CUDI
"I was going through a lot of stuff at the time in my life and so I felt like I needed to write those things down just to get them off my chest. I wasn't really thinking about making a hit record or anything like that, I was just making the song to get my feelings out."
Kid Cudi
Kid Cudi hails from Cleveland, Ohio and is known as Scott Mescudi to his mom. This anthem for the "lonely stoner," who frees his mind at night caught the attention of Kanye West when his tour DJ A-Trak released it on his Fools Gold label in Spring 2008. West subsequently signed Kid Cudi to his Good Music label as the song became a hit across European dancefloors.
5.Stuck On Repeat - LITTLE BOOTS
Hands down, the most played song on my ipod during this year!!
Victoria Hesketh, the Blackpool singer-songwriter behing Little Boots wrote this tune with Australian dance-pop singer Kylie Minogue in mind.
This disco-pop nugget was co-written and produced by Hot Chip's Joe Goddard. His first contact with Boots came about after she handed to him a demo tape containing an early version of this song.
After listening to it he tagged Hesketh as "The future of British pop." After posting the song on her MySpace page STUCK ON REPEAT became a blogosphere hit at the end of 2008.
4.My Girls - ANIMAL COLLECTIVE
(This song is dedicated to all my friends that just became proud parents during the last 10 years)
Despite being released in mid January 2009, a number of bloggers and reviewers swiftly claimed that Merriweather Post Pavilion would prove to be the best album of the year. Pitchfork Media gave the album a 9.6 rating, the highest score that the site has conferred on a new album since the 9.7 it bestowed the Arcade Fire's Funeral in 2004.
With so many other Animal Collective songs spewing absurd groupings of words, this is one that actually comes off blunt and direct in every way. With the group now growing and starting families, this tune is a reflection on domesticated lifestyle that's to come, and the minimal requirements they aspire to have: contentment with self, wife and children that live well and happy, and a place to rest bones at the end of the day.
Nothing extravagant or sublime, just the standard house-that-can-be-called-a-home type of deal.
I don't mean
To seem like I care about material things
Like our social stats
I just want
Four walls and adobe slats
For my girls
Adobe is one of the more basic substances used to build houses and has been around for thousands of years, so it seems like what's going on inside the house is more important than its actual appearance.
"I'm not big on possessions but, for some reason, being the owner of a space, a safe house for my wife and my daughter, has become the most important thing for me, for better or worse."
Noah Lennox aka Panda Bear
3.Poker Face - LADY GAGA
2009 is definitely the year of GAGA. For the last 7 months, Lady Gaga has been the most selling artist all over the world.
When this song reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, Lady GaGa became the first artist to top the chart with his or her first two entries since 1999-2000, when Christina Aguilera achieved the same feat with "Genie in a Bottle" and "What a Girl Wants."
In an interview with UK's Daily Star, Gaga noted of the song, "It's about a lot of different things. I gamble but I’ve also dated a lot of guys who are really into sex and booze and gambling, so I wanted to write a record my boyfriends would like too."
In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, when asked about the meaning of the line "bluffin' with my muffin", Gaga explained that it really was a metaphor for her vagina. She explained,
"Obviously, it's my pussy's poker face!
"Obviously, it's my pussy's poker face!
I took that line from another song I wrote but never released, called "Blueberry Kisses." It was about a girl singing to her boyfriend about how she wants him to go down on her, and I used the lyric. [Gaga sings] "Blueberry kisses, the muffin man misses them kisses."
During her Fame Ball tour performance at Palm Springs on April 11, 2009, Gaga explained to the crowd the true meaning behind the term "Poker Face" used in the song. She suggested that the song dealt with her personal experience with bisexuality.
The idea behind the song was to be with a man but fantasizing about a woman, hence the man in the song needs to read her "Poker Face" to understand what is going through her mind.
2.Moment Of Surrender - U2
This 7-minute-long spiritual ballad about an epiphany at an ATM machine has been billed as this album's "One" or "With our without you"
This my friends, IT'S THE MOST BEAUTIFUL SONG THAT U2 HAVE WRITTEN IN YEARS!!
There are so many ways that this song can be interpreted, but for me, it's about loneliness and finding God to overcome that loneliness.
It's about feeling like nobody notices you and trying so hard, over and over again, to come out of that loneliness and find a way to be loved (because that's all we really want, when it comes down to it, right?).
I'm just not sure where the song culminates. Like, where the revelatory point is... But I can see the moment of surrender being the point where you just give up and surrender to Christ rather than searching fruitlessly in the material world.
The meaning behind this song, behind all of U2's song are so relevant, life-changing, meaningful, and really forces me to THINK about myself and others, and the world.
That's why U2 is still around, just darn good music. No, amazingly wonderful music!!
1.In For The Kill - LA ROUX
This is it! The best song of the first half of 2009!! And it feels so 80's!!
La Roux are red haired singer Elly Jackson and her studio partner Ben Langmaid, who is a veteran of the 1990s dance scene. La Roux "means 'red haired one' in French."
"We didn't have a name for ages. I was racking brains about it. I knew that when the right one came along it would feel right. I wanted it to be something to do with my red hair and the fact that I'm a bit French. I also wanted it to match up to other band names in the same vein from the '80s. Finally, I wanted it to have a slightly enigmatic quality. I wanted people to be like, What does that mean? I came up with it after I went to see the guy who was designing graphics for our MySpace site. He'd just found a baby name book in the bin. I opened it and the first word that popped out was 'La Roux'. I didn't know what it meant. I just liked the way it looked. Then I looked up what it meant and I was like, Tah-dah!"
Elly Jackson
Jackson explained this '80s-derived song to a radio station earlier this year:
"It's about telling someone how you feel regardless of what you get back, and not waiting to find out if they want you or not."
She added that when she wrote this, "I was quite in to someone in quite a deep and intense way and I went overseas (Paris) and told them I like them. It all fired back in my face but that's not the point you do it for yourself."
In for the kill proved to be a huge hit for the electro-pop duo, peaking at #2 in the UK.
Elly told the BBC Newsbeat program that the song ‘s success was a total surprise.
“None of us expected it to do that at all. Me and Ben have had faith in it and we always thought it had potential to go far but we were never sure if other people were going to feel the same or if other people were going to like it. We know it has a Marmite effect vocally. Some people don't like it or they find it a bit annoying which is totally fine. We knew that when we wrote it that it was going to be a love/hate thing. It's just always really lovely when music speaks for itself like that.”
Whether you love it or hate it, this is 2009's NUMERO UNO!!
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