Ready For The Floor by Hot Chip

Album: Made in the Dark (2008)

Charted: 6

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There were some media claims that "Ready For The Floor" was turned down by Kylie Minogue for her 2007 X album. However band member Alexis Taylor revealed to the New Musical Express that this was written before any possible collaboration with the Australian singer was suggested. A meeting with Minogue's "top-line songwriter" had been proposed and the band were ready to offer this song as they felt it was well suited to Kylie. However the get together never took place as the band were too busy recording their third album and Minogue never got to hear the song.
Though some of the tracks, including "Ready For The Floor" were recorded in band member's homes on home-recording equipment, part of the album was recorded by the band for the first time in a proper music studio- Strongrooms studio in Shoreditch, London. Hot Chip band member Joe Goddard explained to the New Musical Express why the band wanted to make the change: "We wanted to record properly as a band for the first time. My bedroom is only six foot wide and it's got my bed in it, so I would have had to choose between my girlfriend and the band if I wanted to record it all in there! Our aim was to make the bedroom-recorded stuff, like "Shake A Fist" and "Ready For The Floor" just as exciting and vital as the studio stuff."
Taylor, who's the band's lyricist, explained to Uncut magazine February 2008 the background behind the writing of this song: "The music seemed very direct, so the first words I wrote were 'do it now' and I just wanted to finish the song straight away. It's so simple that later I wondered if there might not be enough to it. I'd been listening to a program on the radio where they said that every great Pop song has three hooks in it. This only has two. I'm not sure it's even a rule I care about but it's hard for us not to over think these things. We could have given it a catchier name too, like 'Do It Now' or 'No 1.'"
This was Hot Chip's first song to enter the UK Top 10. Joe Goddard told The Daily Telegraph: "I knew 'Ready For The Floor' was catchy, but you just never know whether something is going to be a hit."
Some fans have interpreted the line "You're my number one guy" as meaning that Alexis Taylor is gay. In fact it's a line that Jack Nicholson's Joker mutters to one of his goons in Batman.

Comments: 1

Josh from Champaign, IlHa, that's why I love this site. I was just listening to this, actually listening to the lyrics intently and the "You're my number one guy." jumped out at me that it was from Batman (1989)! Actually, Grissom (Jack Palance) said it first to his underling Napier (Jack Nicholson, soon to be Joker) when he was sending Napier to the ill-fated chemical plant job where he was setting Napier up to be executed by his dirty cop, Lieutenant Eckhardt, for sleeping with his mistress. Of course the plot was foiled, Napier then killed Grissom and then Napier was doing an impression of Grissom to his underling, Bob, almost as a mockery of the boss he killed, but signaling that now he was The Man.

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