As head of the hyper-fun, antagonistic PC Music label, producer and wannabe mogul Cook pushed pop to new extremes in 2014 with his amped-up spin on 90s and 00s chart-hit tropes. With pop-star caricatures like Hannah Diamond, he dominated our feeds with glossy plastic imagery full of product placement and shiny surfaces. And now he’s made the underground squeaky clean and super bright, he seems to have his sights set on even bigger pastures, with “Hey QT” (which he produced with SOPHIE) released on XL Recordings. Cook once said he wanted to produce for Beyoncé: with any luck, 2015 will be the year Mrs Carter comes calling.
Five essential A. G. Cook moments
Warping pop in “Keri Baby”, with finger-wagging vocals served by PC Music’s Hannah Diamond
Twisting and tearing apart trance in “HAD 1” (Club Mix)
The sped-up Top 40 blast of Personal Computer Music, his mix for DIS
Blissing out on “Beautiful”
His cream soda-sweet collab with SOPHIE as QT
Twitter: @pcmus
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