“Cellphone's Dead” by Beck

"Cellphone's Dead" came off Beck's The Information in 2006 as a single on Interscope, and it struts in on a fat synth-bass riff that's been compared, in tone and rhythmic bounce, to Herbie Hancock's "Chameleon" from Head Hunters, his 1973 record. Beck is the only name on the writing credit, words and music both.

Not everybody was sold on it at first. In the Guardian, Caroline Sullivan heard a jumble of robotic bleeps, cackling kids and deadpan rapping, but the paper came around later, when Ben Beaumont-Thomas ranked it number 18 among Beck's greatest songs and hailed a bassline that might be his best, the thing that makes it so elastic and danceable. BBC 6 Music listeners voted it number 83 in their poll of 2006's singles, and Michel Gondry directed the official video.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.