“Ch-Ching,” the dare-you new track from Chairlift, has a secret weapon beneath its sneaky horn jabs and handclaps: its consonants. The way singer Caroline Polachek emphasizes each word on the hook, cadences so textured that what she’s even saying remains opaque, effects a kind of soothing crackle for the ASMR-inclined. They’ve hit on a pop goldmine not even Calvin Harris or Max Martin has prospected out, tapping into a huge, YouTube-tested market and maybe mapping out a new calculus for registering wins at radio.
I’m kidding, mostly; you’re gonna jam along to this for its bhangra-referencing drum patterns and deeply singable uh-ohhhs, but the whispered bits do elevate its whole premise. And the premise is to the moon—in 2013 the duo crafted “No Angel” for Beyoncé, sister of their friend Solange, and it’s easy to wonder whether this song, about tasking risks and living your dreams came from the discarded tracks they wrote for the superstar during that session. (You can imagine Bey singing it, right?)
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