"Colours" is the third single released by Hot Chip

Hot Chip

Hot Chip are an English electronic indie band. They have released four studio albums—Coming on Strong, The Warning, Made in the Dark and One Life Stand.-Formation:...

 from their 2006 album The Warning

The Warning

The Warning is the first full-length album by Queensrÿche, released on 7 September 1984 .The original tracklisting for the album was changed by mix engineer Val Garay under orders from EMI America against the wishes of the band...

. It was released on 14 August 2006, shortly after The Warning was nominated for the 2006 Mercury Prize

Mercury Prize

The Mercury Prize, formerly called the Mercury Music Prize and currently known as the Barclaycard Mercury Prize for sponsorship reasons, is an annual music prize awarded for the best album from the United Kingdom and Ireland. It was established by the British Phonographic Industry and British...

. The single did not chart due to the inclusion of non-promotional stickers with each format.

Critical reception

The critical reception to the song was mixed. MusicOMH

MusicOMH

musicOMH is a United Kingdom-based website which publishes independent reviews, featues and interviews from across all musical genres including classical, metal, rock and R&B.-History:...

 described "Colours" as "one of the album's woozier numbers" and stated it had "layers of smile-inducing vocal harmonies and twinkly synths". Boomkat.com stated that Hot Chip's approach to the song was similar to "Boy from School" by "tak[ing] a thudding electro heart and pump[ing] it full of indie melancholy", while Contactmusic.com said "Colours" "transcends its initial child-like innocence to seem both gorgeous and, somehow, profound." The group chorus harmony was compared to Brian Wilson

Brian Wilson

Brian Douglas Wilson is an American musician, best known as the leader and chief songwriter of the group The Beach Boys. Within the band, Wilson played bass and keyboards, also providing part-time lead vocals and, more often, backing vocals, harmonizing in falsetto with the group...

, while the drum rhythms were said to "sit between Stereolab

Stereolab

Stereolab are an alternative music band formed in 1990 in London, England. The band originally comprised songwriting team Tim Gane and Lætitia Sadier , both of whom remained at the helm across many lineup changes...

 and The Beta Band

The Beta Band

The Beta Band were a British musical group who received much critical acclaim and achieved cult status amongst avid followers of the underground and experimental music scene...

".

However, Clickmusic.com said it was one of the "weakest tracks" from The Warning and said it was "bland and reptitive". The melody was described as being "as lightweight as Victoria Beckham

Victoria Beckham

Victoria Caroline Beckham is an English singer-songwriter, dancer, model, actress, fashion designer and businesswoman. In the late 1990s, Beckham rose to fame with the all-female pop group Spice Girls and was dubbed Posh Spice by the July 1996 issue of the British pop music magazine Top of the Pops...

 and less memorable than many of her singles."

Inthemix.com discussed the remix EP. It was said that the Booka Shade remix "tak[es] '(Just Like We) Breakdown' out on a glittering tech-house trajectory that's littered with digitally processed and stuttered vocal noise and dark New Wave atmosphere". Erol Alkan's remix of "Boy from School" was described as "ten brilliant minutes of dark shuffling house, delayed-out cymbal sweeps ushering in delicately-chiming xylophone tones", while Maurice Fulton's remix of "Over and Over" was said to be "disco-funk", having "a tight backdrop of slap bass and razor-sharp snares beneath shimmering organ beds while cutting fragments of the original vocal in and out of the mix".

Although many of the remixes were praised, it was said by Clickmusic.com that the DFA remix of "Colours" "failed to match the brilliance of their version of the band's 'Just Like We (Breakdown)'" with Inthemix.com stating it represented "perhaps the only slight miss-step" on the Australian EP and described it as having "kitschy retro synth stabs and lifeless prog-Krautrock rhythms only starting to really rear into Italo-house tinged life near the very end".

Boomkat.com commented on "Gang Can Dance", with the view that it was "a trickletronica tune that could easily have been a single in its own right".

Formats and track listing

UK CD single

1. "Colours" – 5:32
2. "Disguise" – 4:17
3. "Colours (Fred Falke remix)" – 6:36

UK 7" 1

1. "Colours"
2. "Gang Can Dance"

UK 7" 2

1. "Colours (Xfm Version)"
2. "Careful (Careful Version)"

UK 12"

1. "Colours"
2. "Music From Electric And Musical Industries"
3. "Colours (DFA Remix)"
4. "Take A Gamble?"

Australian remix EP (Released 2007)

1. "Colours" – 5:32
2. "Colours (DFA remix) – 7:38
3. "Boy from School (Erol Alkan’s Extended Re-Work)" – 10:18
4. "Over And Over (Maurice Fulton dub)" – 6:13
5. "(Just Like We) Breakdown (Booka Shade vocal mix)" – 7:17

Personnel

• Erol Alkan
  Erol Alkan
  Erol Alkan is a London-based electro DJ of Turkish Cypriot descent.-DJ and club promoter:In 1993, Erol Alkan started DJing in various Indie nightclubs in London....
  
   – re-mixing
• Hot Chip – mixing
  Audio mixing (recorded music)
  In audio recording, audio mixing is the process by which multiple recorded sounds are combined into one or more channels, most commonly two-channel stereo. In the process, the source signals' level, frequency content, dynamics, and panoramic position are manipulated and effects such as reverb may...
  
  
• Dick Beetham – editing
• Eric Broucek – engineer
  Audio engineering
  An audio engineer, also called audio technician, audio technologist or sound technician, is a specialist in a skilled trade that deals with the use of machinery and equipment for the recording, mixing and reproduction of sounds. The field draws on many artistic and vocational areas, including...
  
  
• DFA Records
  DFA Records
  DFA Records is an independent record label and production team, launched in September 2001 by Mo' Wax co-founder Tim Goldsworthy, musician James Murphy, and manager Jonathan Galkin. The label has an exclusive distribution deal with major record label EMI....
  
   – re-mixing
• Tom Elmhirst – mixing
  Audio mixing (recorded music)
  In audio recording, audio mixing is the process by which multiple recorded sounds are combined into one or more channels, most commonly two-channel stereo. In the process, the source signals' level, frequency content, dynamics, and panoramic position are manipulated and effects such as reverb may...
  
  
• Fred Falke – re-mixing
• Maurice Fulton – re-mixing
• Matt Paul – engineer (assistant)
• Booka Shade
  Booka Shade
  Booka Shade is a German house duo. It is made up of Walter Merziger and Arno Kammermeier, described as veterans of the Frankfurt electronic music scene...
  
   – re-mixing
• Richard Wilkinson – engineer
  Audio engineering
  An audio engineer, also called audio technician, audio technologist or sound technician, is a specialist in a skilled trade that deals with the use of machinery and equipment for the recording, mixing and reproduction of sounds. The field draws on many artistic and vocational areas, including...