Windowlicker

This article is about the track by Aphex Twin. For a definition of the term "window licker", see the Wiktionary entry window licker.

"Windowlicker" is a track by the British electronic music artist and producer Aphex Twin. It was released on 22 March 1999 through Warp Records.^[1] The artwork for the single was created by Chris Cunningham, with additional work by The Designers Republic. Cunningham also directed the song's music video, which was nominated for the Brit Award for Best British Video.^[4]

"Windowlicker"
Single by Aphex Twin
B-side	"ΔMi−1 = −αΣn=1NDi[n] [Σj∈C[i]Fji[n − 1] + Fexti[n−1]]" (Formula on digital platforms) "Nannou"
Released	22 March 1999 (1999-03-22)[1]
Genre	Electronica[2] R&B[3]
Length	6:07
Label	Warp
Songwriter(s)	Richard D. James
Producer(s)	Richard D. James
Aphex Twin singles chronology
"Come to Daddy" (1997) "Windowlicker" (1999) "minipops 67 [120.2]" (2014)
Richard D. James singles chronology
"Caustic Window Compilation" (1998) "Windowlicker" (1999) "2 Remixes by AFX" (2001)

The song peaked at number 16 on the UK Singles Chart, and was later voted by fans as Warp Records' most popular song for its 2009 Warp20 compilation. In 2010, Pitchfork included the song at number 12 on their list of the "Top 200 Tracks of the 90s"^[5] and in 2025, Billboard magazine ranked it among "The 100 Best Dance Songs of All Time".^[6]

Music

Characteristics

"Windowlicker" has been described variously as "uncompromising cyborg R&B",^[3] "hip-hop written in the language of glitches",^[7] and "eerie lounge-porn music";^[8] the track's "sleazy, erotic ambiance connote[s] images and emotions alien to James's previous compositions."^[9] Heavily digitally processed and rhythmically rearranged breakbeats prominently appear in the song's backing track. Gasps, vocal harmonies and moans reminiscent of sexual vocal tones "glide in and out of the production"; it has been speculated that, like in many of James's productions from the late 1990s, the vocals are his own.^[10] The track consists of various sections, including a drum and bass intro, a "gooey middle section", and an abrasive noise ending, as well as featuring consistent melodic elements throughout.^[5]

In 2012, Pitchfork stated that the track's futuristic elements presaged various musical developments, including "Flying Lotus' digital deconstruction, James Blake's bent vocals, [and] the wobble and knock of dubstep".^[5] Similarly, Stereogum stated that "the song's mix of unpredictable syncopation, digital-dub alien transformations, errant noises, and bursts of melody would serve as a starting block for much of today's electronic music".^[11] Additionally, Daft Punk credited "Windowlicker" as an influence on the direction of their stylistic approach on their 2001 album Discovery.^[12]

Spectrogram

The spiral at the end of the spectrogram for "Windowlicker"

A spectrogram of "Windowlicker" reveals a spiral at the end of the song. This spiral is more impressive when viewed with an X-Y scatter graph, X and Y being the amplitudes of the L and R channels, which shows expanding and contracting concentric circles and spirals.

The effect was achieved through use of the Mac-based program MetaSynth.^[13] This program allows the user to insert a digital image as the spectrogram. MetaSynth will then convert the spectrogram to digital sound and "play" the picture. According to an article on the website Wired News, photographs run through the program tend to produce "a kind of discordant, metallic scratching".^[14]

A logarithmic spectrogram of the track entitled "${\textstyle \Delta M_{i}^{-1}=-\alpha \sum _{n=1}^{N}D_{i}\left[n\right]\left[\sum _{j\in C\left[i\right]}^{}F_{ji}\left[n-1\right]+Fext_{i}\left[n^{-1}\right]\right]}$" (commonly known as "Equation" or "Formula") reveals a portrait of James' face near the end of the track, grinning.^[14]

Single release

The "Windowlicker" single contains its title track and two B-sides. Track two, commonly known as "[Formula]",^[15] "[Equation]", or, as translated on the Japanese edition, "[Symbol]", due to its actual title being a complex mathematical formula ("${\textstyle \Delta M_{i}^{-1}=-\alpha \sum _{n=1}^{N}D_{i}\left[n\right]\left[\sum _{j\in C\left[i\right]}^{}F_{ji}\left[n-1\right]+Fext_{i}\left[n^{-1}\right]\right]}$"), has a very experimental sound.^{[citation needed]} Track three, "Nannou", dedicated to his then-girlfriend, is made up of wind-up music box samples.^[16]

As of 2001, "Windowlicker" had sold over 300,000 copies.^[17]

Music video

I don't really like it very much because it's me working in a slightly different area. It was fun though because it was just done in the spirit of trying to have a crack, I'm too much of a hip-hop fan to want to take the piss out of hip-hop.

Chris Cunningham, director^[18]

The music video for "Windowlicker" was directed by Chris Cunningham, who had also directed Aphex Twin's previous music video, "Come to Daddy". It is a ten-minute long parody of contemporary American gangsta hip-hop music videos. In the video, two foul-mouthed young men in Los Angeles are window shopping for women; the French term for window shopping is faire du lèche-vitrine, which literally translates to "licking the windows"; "window licker" and "window licking" are pejorative British English terms.^[19] They come across two women (referred to in the end credits as "hoochies") who repeatedly turn down their advances. Suddenly, a ridiculously long white limousine (38 windows in length, including the driver's window, which takes 20 seconds to fully display) crashes into the two men's black Mazda Miata NA (MX5) convertible, and a "pimped-out" Richard D. James, displaying a hyperbolic amount of wealth and power, emerges with his signature fixed grin, at which point the song begins. After emerging from the limousine, James begins provocatively dancing with an umbrella bearing the Aphex Twin logo in an attempt to seduce the two women. The women then accompany James and other women in his limousine while their faces morph into James' own likeness. When two women emerge from the limousine's sunroof, the young men try to woo them but fail. The men arrive at an area where James and a group of women bearing his face are dancing together, and they receive leis from two of the women. Their attention is eventually drawn to a dancing woman turned away from them, but she turns around to reveal a horrifically ugly, buck-toothed, deformed face (which was later illustrated in a sketch by Swiss artist H. R. Giger titled "The Windowlickers"^[20]), much to the men's horror. The video ends with James' women dancing on Santa Monica Beach while James pops and sprays a bottle of champagne.

James's faces aren't digitally morphed on the women. Masks and make-up were specifically designed by the production, to achieve the desired morphing effect. The cast for the dialogue intro of the clip are Marcus Morris, Gary Cruz, Marcy Turner and Chiquita Martin.^[21] Filming was done in the Los Angeles area.

There are 127 uses of profanity in the dialogue segment of the video (which is under 4 minutes), including 44 uses of the word "fuck".^[22] This averages to more than one use of profanity every two seconds. The video was released as a VHS single, containing both uncut and censored versions (the latter being referred to as the "Bleep Version").^[15] It was also nominated for the Best Video award at the BRIT Awards 2000, alongside videos by Supergrass, The Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim, and eventual winner Robbie Williams.^[23]

The full "Windowlicker" video is restricted to being broadcast only during the nighttime on most music television channels. A bleeped-out version of the video exists, and MTV Two even made a daytime version, with all the opening dialogue removed (the censored version starts with the arrival of the limousine), along with some of its more graphic images. In 2008 MTV Networks Europe was fined by the United Kingdom's media regulator Ofcom for several breaches of its broadcasting code, including airing the uncensored version of the "Windowlicker" video on TMF in 2006 before the 9 PM watershed.^[24]

Reception

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[8]
Pitchfork	8.5/10[25]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide	[26]

"Windowlicker" was acclaimed. AllMusic gave the single 4/5 stars,^[8] and was named by NME as Single of the Year in its 1999 year-end charts.^[27] In September 2010 Pitchfork Media included the song at number 12 on their list of the "Top 200 Tracks of the 90s".^[5] In March 2025, Billboard magazine ranked it number 81 in their list of "The 100 Best Dance Songs of All Time".^[6]

Remixes and use in other media

A remix of "Windowlicker" in the acid techno style, entitled "Windowlicker, Acid Edit", is available on the remix compilation 26 Mixes for Cash. Another remix of "Windowlicker", entitled "WINDuckyQuaCKer", appears on V/VM's HelpAphexTwin/1.0 (2001)^[28] and HelpAphexTwin 4.0 (2003).^[29] A remix entitled "it's a richJAMs World" appears on V/VM's HelpAphexTwin 4.0 (2003).^[29] Run Jeremy (an alias of Danish producer Anders Trentemøller) also made his own remix of "Windowlicker". Beardyman performed a live version of "Windowlicker" as part of his Edinburgh show in 2009.^[30]

A. G. Cook made a "note-for-note" cover of "Windowlicker" in 2017 as part of the PC Music compilation Month of Mayhem.^[31]

Track listing

All tracks written, produced and engineered by Richard D. James. The original single was released on 12-inch, two separate CDs, a special edition Japanese CD and VHS.

CD1 and 12-inch vinyl

WAP105CD/WAP105

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Windowlicker"	6:07
2.	"${\displaystyle \Delta M_{i}^{-1}=-\alpha \sum _{n=1}^{N}D_{i}\left[n\right]\left[\sum _{j\in C\left[i\right]}^{}F_{ji}\left[n-1\right]+Fext_{i}\left[n^{-1}\right]\right]}$" (commonly referred to as "[Equation]" or "[Formula]")	5:43
3.	"Nannou"	4:13
Total length:		16:03

CD2

WAP105CDR

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Windowlicker" (original demo)	2:37

• The "Windowlicker" video is also included in QuickTime format.

Japanese version

WPCR-10328

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Windowlicker"	6:04
2.	"${\displaystyle \Delta M_{i}^{-1}=-\alpha \sum _{n=1}^{N}D_{i}\left[n\right]\left[\sum _{j\in C\left[i\right]}^{}F_{ji}\left[n-1\right]+Fext_{i}\left[n^{-1}\right]\right]}$"	5:43
3.	"Nannou"	4:22
4.	"Windowlicker" (demo version)	1:57
5.	"Windowlicker" (end-roll version)	1:07
Total length:		19:13

Chart positions

Chart (1999)	Peak position
Australia (ARIA)[32]	70
Denmark (Tracklisten)[33]	15
France (SNEP)[34]	60
Netherlands (Single Top 100)[35]	63
New Zealand (Recorded Music NZ)[36]	33
Sweden (Sverigetopplistan)[37]	53
UK Singles (OCC)[38]	16
UK Dance (OCC)[39]	3
UK Indie (OCC)[40]	4