Mercury (3:52)

“Mercury” is a song by Bloc Party which was released as a single on 11 August 2008. It was produced by Jacknife Lee. Like “Flux”, the band’s previous single, the song uses mostly electronic instruments. The song was first played on Zane Lowe’s show on Radio 1 on 7 July 2008 and was uploaded to the Radio 1 website about fifteen minutes later. The single was made available for digital download on July 10. The track was named Single of the Week on music website DrownedinSound.com on 11 August 2008. It has so far peaked at 16 on the UK Singles Chart.

Music video
The music video for “Mercury”, directed by Ace Norton, was simultaneously unveiled along with the song. It portrays monkey scientists placing an assortment of body parts into a body. The resulting creature, which has a bull’s head, a crab’s pincer, and a hairy human body then rises in popularity among the world, eventually becoming the president of the United States. The entire time, the scientists are controlling it. Eventually, the creature (named Smith) goes to war with other countries to get bananas for the monkey scientists. It was made available to view on Bloc Party’s website.