Hot Chip's 'Devotion' and Joy In Repetition Open a Legacy Era

A best-of with a new song at the end

Hot Chip have spent more than two decades turning repetition into a pop idea. When the band finally put out a career retrospective, they did it on their own terms. In July 2025 the London group announced Joy In Repetition, their first ever best-of compilation, set for release on September 5 through Domino. Alongside it they released "Devotion," a new song that closes the collection.12 Early headlines often called the record "Joy of Repetition," but the official title is Joy In Repetition. That name points two ways: to the most famous line in the band's 2006 breakthrough "Over and Over," and to a Prince song that frontman Alexis Taylor counts among his favourites.18

More than a year on, the compilation looks less like a full stop and more like the start of a planned look back at the band's history. That process has since taken in archival reissues, a sold-out greatest-hits tour and a fresh round of pop-culture attention. Seen from late 2026, "Devotion" works as a thesis statement for the whole stretch.

What's on the record

The standard tracklist runs to 15 songs. It opens with "Ready For The Floor" and moves through "Boy From School," "One Life Stand," "Night And Day," "Flutes," "Hungry Child," "Over And Over," "Positive," "Look At Where We Are," "Need You Now," "Eleanor," "Huarache Lights," "Melody of Love" and "I Feel Better" before ending on "Devotion."910 Domino's own listing for the release also includes a Mella Dee dub of "Ready For The Floor" and a Boys' Shorts remix of "Devotion" as bonus tracks.1

The label's framing presents the band as a fully formed group: Taylor, Joe Goddard, Owen Clarke, Al Doyle and Felix Martin. The selection picks up after their 2004 debut, which had already been revisited in the 20th-anniversary reissue Coming On Strongerer the year before.19 Leaving out Coming On Strong is the one curatorial decision critics have argued about. Spectrum Culture wished there had been room for early songs like "Playboy" and "Hittin' Skittles," while also allowing that the debut was a rough start before The Warning changed the band's fortunes.3 Another reviewer noted the absence of the debut but said every other part of the Hot Chip experience was covered.5

The packaging leans heavily on the band's best-known image. Sir Peter Blake, the pop artist behind the Sgt. Pepper's sleeve, painted the cover: a monkey with a miniature cymbal, taken straight from the lyric of "Over and Over."48 The release came on several formats, including a DomMart-exclusive clear vinyl with stickers, a replica ticket stub and a link to archive live footage, plus a white vinyl edition for independent shops.10

"Devotion" as mission statement

The new song is the compilation's emotional anchor, and the band have presented it that way. Taylor described "Devotion" as a celebration of the band's commitment to making music together and to the craft itself.1 The press materials call it buoyant psych-pop and compare it to the Beach Boys and Hall & Oates.6 Taylor took the Beach Boys link further, comparing Goddard to Brian Wilson because of his dedication to perfect pop.69

That framing matters because Hot Chip's members have never worked only in Hot Chip. Doyle joined LCD Soundsystem in 2005, and the band has a long list of side projects, but the group's own story stresses that they always come back to each other.16 Read that way, "Devotion" is a song about the band surviving as a band, which suits the last track on a record about twenty years of doing the same thing together.

The Will Kindrick-directed video takes the theme somewhere unexpected. Filmed in Japan, it is built around keibiin, the security guards who direct traffic and pedestrians. Kindrick said he became fascinated after watching one wave a light baton on a train platform with total focus, and called the clip a tribute to these overlooked workers.9 It is an apt fit: devotion shown through tireless, repeated work, the same quality the band sees in its own grooves.

Where critics split

Reviews agreed on the band's consistency but divided over whether the collection holds together as a listen. Spectrum Culture gave it 70 percent. The review praised the material but found the 15-song, roughly 75-minute running order confusing, saying the slow-burning "Look At Where We Are" sagged after the guitar rush of "Over and Over." It also argued that "Devotion" would have stood out more if it had not been placed so late.3 The same review ran "Night and Day" and "Flutes" back to back as proof of how strong In Our Heads was. It also said the band are not has-beens, because another decade of work would turn this into a 20-song set.3

A Substack review by Carter Freemon reached almost the opposite verdict and scored it 9.0 out of 10. Freemon argued that the loose sequencing hardly matters when the songs work so well side by side, and singled out the run of "Eleanor," "Huarache Lights" and "Melody of Love" as proof that the band's recent work stands up.5 Freemon called "Devotion" as good as Hot Chip gets and said its euphoria made a fitting end, though the two bonus remixes made little impression.5 The same review raised a point worth taking seriously: in the streaming era, best-of albums have largely been replaced by playlists, so releasing a physical greatest-hits record is a slightly old-fashioned move in itself.5

One factual note on the coverage. Spectrum Culture's review dated Freakout/Release to 2002. The band's previous studio album actually came out in 2022, as Domino's news archive and other reports confirm.317

My reading: both reviews are right about different things. Joy In Repetition is not built to be heard straight through as an album. It works more as a document of the band's live show, and that makes the critics' reservations about sequencing more understandable. Domino later said outright that the tracklist mirrors the setlist of the band's live shows.18 Judged as a setlist rather than an album, the order makes far more sense.

The broader look back

The compilation turned out to be the first step in a longer project. The band played release shows at London's Troxy, New York's Webster Hall and the Fonda Theatre in Los Angeles in September 2025.1 A sold-out global best-of tour followed.18 In May 2026, timed to the 20th anniversary of The Warning, Hot Chip announced first-ever reissues of The Warning, Made In The Dark and One Life Stand, released on July 17.18 All three came out on double gatefold vinyl. It was the first ever vinyl pressing of Made In The Dark, and digital editions added a second disc of B-sides and rarities.1113 To promote them, the band shared the previously unavailable Warning-era B-side "Bally" and the Made In The Dark bonus track "So Deep."1516

Clash argued that this run of albums marks the band's commercial peak.16 Domino's own figures back that up: Made In The Dark reached No. 4 in the UK in 2008, and "Ready For The Floor" became the band's first UK Top 10 single and earned a Grammy nomination.15 The Warning spent 17 weeks on the UK chart and was nominated for the Mercury Prize.18

The band's profile has also grown outside their own releases. Hot Chip perform "Ready For The Floor" and "Over And Over" in the new season of Netflix's BEEF, with Oscar Isaac joining them on Minimoog. "Boy From School" was also the subject of an episode of the Song Exploder podcast.18 Meanwhile, Taylor released his seventh solo album, Paris in the Spring, in March 2026, featuring Air's Nicolas Godin, the Avalanches and Green Gartside of Scritti Politti.1719

Why it matters

The obvious gap is new studio material. Freakout/Release remains the band's most recent full album, and "Devotion" is still their only new Hot Chip song since then.173 The skeptical reading is that Hot Chip have entered a heritage phase of compilations, anniversaries and deluxe vinyl. The evidence supports a more generous one. The band have used the anniversary cycle to make their own case for why their history matters, and they put that argument in a new song rather than only in liner notes. Clarke said the old records hold memories the band cannot return to, and that the shared experience is what ties everything together.1

That is why "Devotion" closes the set. A best-of usually looks backward, and this one ends by pointing forward: five people who have kept repeating the same process for twenty years, and who still sound as if they enjoy it.