It’s usually a better year when the world receives a new Hot Chip album during it, and back in August, at the height of white-hot summer, the English electronic-pop outfit delivered their sixth studio LP in Freakout/Release. We hyped “Down” back in April, and now we raise a glass to “Broken,” an album cut about the feeling of defeat, the struggle we all endure on the regular, and the ability others have to pick us back up.
Relatedly, the track’s video surfaces today (November 29), and the Maxim Kelly-directed video sets a scene where the traditional boy band theme removes humans in favor of artificial intelligence. It’s awfully cute, but perhaps also terrifying at the same time. But then again, when most of the world’s population is beaten and bruised, we’re certainly leaving room for the robots to come take over our nonsensical day-to-day operations. Even in pop music.
“I’m intrigued by A.I. machines doing artwork. In the future, robots and computers might make music videos too, this is what I imagine the first will look like,” says Kelly. “I referenced the boy band videos I grew up watching on MTV, overly sentimental with emotional and gut-wrenching performances. In this video, soulless androids run through all the motions and cliches of these videos with deadpan robotic precision. It’s a pop video with all the entertaining and watchable bits taken out.”
Deprogram your heart below.