I saw the video for Kylie’s “Chocolate” recently and didn’t think I liked it – seemed too much like breathy, stock R&B – but somehow it’s catching. (This is a good thing: my listening tends to be far too prejudicial. I like to be seduced; I like, in fact, to be proven wrong.) I love the way she falls into this toggling between two notes in the bridge, up and down, up and down, up and down, stuck in this interminable little lock groove (right after she’s sung, “I waited so long…”) and then filliping out and into this wonderfully filigreed little trill (“…and then you came…”) that carries a kind of implied acceleration without actually speeding up. Despite the breathiness of the vocals, Kylie’s delivery is in fact incredibly weighted, as though swimming towards the surface with lead strapped to her ankles.
Better still is Tom Middleton’s remix, which effectively translates her two-note toggle into a bassline that just bobs endlessly beneath gorgeous sunrise pads cribbed straight from the Cocteau Twins. The first bits of the vocal that Middleton exploits are precisely this snatch of the bridge, which I think is not coincidental – recognizing its locked-groove quality, he taps into it and finds no reason ever to leave. Completely ignoring the original’s rather D’Angelo-like minimalist drum pattern, Middleton swaps in a deceptively upbeat, open-hi-hat-heavy rhythm to propel the waves of melted taffy. I’m still in the first phase of infatuation, so my appraisal could change, but today I’m willing to class this one of the greatest seven-in-the-morning-on-the-beach tunes ever. It’s seven minutes long, but I wouldn’t complain if it stretched to 70.
Posted by philip at August 9, 2004 10:29 PM