Love Letter to a Record: Delilah Holliday on ’99 Cents’ by Chicks On Speed

June 2, 2023

Music Feeds’ Love Letter to a Record series asks artists to reflect on their relationship with the music they love and share stories about how it has influenced their lives. Here, London lo-fi soul artist Delilah Holliday celebrates Chicks On Speed’s 2003 breakout LP, ’99 Cents’.

Delilah Holliday will release the EP Invaluable Vol. 1 on Friday, 7th July via One Little Independent Records (Björk, Ásgeir). The London artist, whose past collaborators include Baxter Dury and TYSON, has released two singles from Invaluable, including the latest, ‘Silent Streets’ – find that below.

Delilah Holliday’s Love Letter to 99 Cents

Delilah Holliday: This album from front to back is just an exhilarating journey. It’s peak indie sleaze and I love the combination between guitar music and electronic instruments. The way Chicks On Speed cut up and re-sample the guitar in ‘Shooting From The Hip’ is something I’m really excited to explore in my own work.

I love how every song on the record is so different. It makes the listen so much more breathtaking. The added element of humour in the lyrical content is a chef’s kiss in my opinion. ‘Wordy Rappinghood’ just makes you feel like a bad b. I love how it combines disco with hip-hop. It’s a plain, pure bop.

The fact this album is 20 years old and still sounds so contemporary proves that authentic sounds age like fine wine – another goal of mine in my creative endeavours.

‘Coventry’ sounds like a 00s R&B song and I love the additional conscious storytelling lyrics. ’99 Cents’ is a clubland classic mixed with punk vocals. It makes you want to rave it up. ‘Sell Out’ is a good electronic warning song about selling out your integrity for quick cash and what it does to the world around us. A DIY anthem.

‘Culture Vulture’ is humorous rap song about fads and trends and exploiting the culture, but also, this beat goes off. The production is a madness. ‘Universal Pussy’ is a sludgy electronic punk song. Again, it’s an anthem that makes you feel powerful when you listen to it.

‘Love Life’ is another storytelling anthem. This is a beautiful switch up from the rest of the album. It kind of gives ballad vibes – it’s still got an upbeat mood whilst also having a melancholy element in the mix. ‘Shick Shaving’ is my personal favourite about shaving hair off our bodies. This was also my favourite song when the album first came out. The instrumental on this song is absolutely stunning. I love the accordion sounds combined with the sub bass.

‘Fashion Rules’ is a tongue-in-cheek song about all the potholes of the fashion industry but also providing the sound you’d want to hear accompanying a model down a catwalk, which I personally think is genius. The album ends on ‘Flame On’, which is an atmospheric trip-hop bop. It’s a nice ending for the album as I feel the instrumental rounds off the body of work really delightfully. It makes me feel like I’m in the Terminator or another 80s sci-fi movie.