“Cough Cough” by Everything Everything

"Cough Cough" was Everything Everything's opening move for their second album, Arc, arriving in Britain as its lead single on 14 October 2012, a few months ahead of the record. Jonathan Higgs wrote the words, the music is credited to Higgs, Jeremy Pritchard, Alex Robertshaw and Michael Spearman, and the band produced it with David Kosten, who also mixed it.

Critics went for its jittery, stop-start rush: Londonist's Doron Davidson-Vidavski singled out the choppy structure and hectic vocals, and NME's Tom Howard heard something like Dirty Projectors crossed with Destiny's Child and reckoned they suddenly sounded like the saviours of music. The charts agreed more than they ever had before: it entered the UK Singles Chart at 37, the band's first top 40 hit, leaving the 121 peak of their earlier "My Kz, Ur Bf" far behind.

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