"Crystalised" is the debut single by English

indie pop Indie pop (also typeset as indie-pop or indiepop) is a music genre and subculture that combines guitar pop with a DIY ethic in opposition to the style and tone of mainstream pop music. It originated from British post-punk in the late 1970s and s ...

band

the xx The xx are an English indie rock band from Wandsworth, London, formed in 2005. The band consists of Romy Madley Croft (guitar, vocals), Oliver Sim (bass guitar, vocals), Jamie Smith, also known as Jamie xx (beats, MPC, record production), ...

. It was released on 27 April 2009 as the first single from their 2009 self-titled debut album.

Music and lyrics

According to

Robert Christgau Robert Thomas Christgau ( ; born April 18, 1942) is an American music journalist and essayist. Among the most influential music critics, he began his career in the late 1960s as one of the earliest professional rock critics and later became a ...

, "Crystalised" uses a musical structure similar to " VCR", "hooky

ostinato In music, an ostinato (; derived from the Italian word for ''stubborn'', compare English ''obstinate'') is a motif or phrase that persistently repeats in the same musical voice, frequently in the same pitch. Well-known ostinato-based pieces inc ...

riff embellished with a few subtle effects, leading to a soft vocal. The exaggerated

drawl A drawl is a perceived feature of some varieties of spoken English and generally indicates slower, longer vowel sounds and diphthongs. The drawl is often perceived as a method of speaking more slowly and may be erroneously attributed to laziness ...

of bassist

Oliver Sim Oliver Sim is an English singer and bass guitarist. He is a member of the xx and released a solo album, '' Hideous Bastard'', in 2022, which peaked at No. 58 on the UK Albums Chart. Personal life In 2022, Oliver Sim publicly came out as living ...

precedes the more human-scale

croon A crooner is a singer who performs with a smooth, intimate style that originated in the 1920s. The crooning style was made possible by better microphones that picked up quieter sounds and a wider range of frequencies, allowing the singer to acce ...

of guitarist

Romy Madley Croft Romy Madley Croft (born 18 August 1989) who releases solo music as Romy, is an English musician. She is the guitarist and co-vocalist of the xx, and she released a solo album, '' Mid Air'', in 2023, which peaked at No. 15 on the UK Albums Ch ...

." Croft and Sim shared lead vocals, which Rachel Kowal from

NPR National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...

said are "delivered in a sexy

call and response Call and response is a form of interaction between a speaker and an audience in which the speaker's statements ("calls") are punctuated by responses from the listeners. This form is also used in music, where it falls under the general category of ...

fashion that is reminiscent of the duets" by Canadian

band

Stars A star is a luminous spheroid of plasma held together by self-gravity. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night; their immense distances from Earth make them appear as fixed points of ...

on their 2004 album ''

Set Yourself on Fire ''Set Yourself on Fire'' is the third studio album by Canadian indie rock band Stars. It was released on September 14, 2004 on the Arts & Crafts International record label in Canada and the United Kingdom, and on March 8, 2005 in the United Stat ...

'', "minus all the antagonism associated with ex-lovers." Like most of the other songs on ''xx'', "Crystalised" was based on an imagined romantic scenario, developed from a verse Sim had written thinking about what a fling would be like: "I hadn't really had any relationships to be working off. But I had a huge interest in life, and looking at other people’s relationships around me." He wrote the first lines of the song, including "you applied the pressure / to keep me crystalised", and shared it through

iChat iChat (previously iChat AV) is a discontinued instant messaging software application developed by Apple Inc. for use on its Mac OS X operating system. It supported instant text messaging over XMPP/Jingle or OSCAR ( AIM) protocol, audio and video ...

with Croft, who responded with her verse, beginning with "I'll forgive and forget / Before I’m paralyzed." John Colapinto of ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...

'' critiqued that "the finished lyrics, some of their best, suggest a twisted love affair, but also hint at drugs and ecological disaster."

Release and reception

"Crystalised" was first released in the UK on 27 April 2009 by Vinyl and on 25 November 2009 by Digital download and then again on 11 October 2010. It has been used in numerous advertisements and TV shows and has over 26 million hits on

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

as of June 2011. It was sampled in the song "Less Than Zero" by

K.Flay Kristine Meredith Flaherty (born June 30, 1985), better known as K.Flay, is an American singer, musician, songwriter, and rapper. She has released five studio albums: '' Life as a Dog'' (2014), '' Every Where Is Some Where'' (2017), ''Solutions' ...

and covered by

Gorillaz Gorillaz are an English virtual band created by musician Damon Albarn and artist Jamie Hewlett in London, England in 1998. The band primarily consists of four fictional members: (vocals, keyboards), Murdoc Niccals (bass guitar), Noodle (gui ...

whose version was included in the advertisement for ''

Grey's Anatomy ''Grey's Anatomy'' is an American medical drama television series focusing on the personal and professional lives of surgical internship (medicine), interns, residency (medicine), residents, and attending physician, attendings at the fictional ...

'' in late 2010. In 2013, it was covered and released as a single by

Martina Topley-Bird Martina Gillian Topley-Bird (''née'' Topley; born 7 May 1975) is an English singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist who first gained fame as the featured female vocalist on trip hop pioneer Tricky (musician), Tricky's debut album, ''Maxi ...

Mark Lanegan Mark William Lanegan (November 25, 1964 – February 22, 2022) was an American singer and songwriter. First becoming prominent as the lead singer for the early grunge band Screaming Trees, he was also known as a member of Queens of the Stone Age ...

, and Warpaint.

Track listing

;UK iTunes single #"Crystalised" – 3:21 ;UK iTunes EP #"Crystalised" (Edu Imbernon Remix) – 7:23 #"Crystalised" (Dark Sky Remix) – 4:54 #"Crystalised" (Rory Phillips Remix) – 4:44 #"Crystalised" (The Neon Lights Remix) – 3:45

Chart performance

Certifications

Release history

References

External links

* {{authority control 2009 debut singles The xx songs 2009 songs Young (record label) singles