Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

Autobot_ATrac t1_j5pgpz9 wrote

Daft Punk is the weirdest juxtaposition in music history for me.

The creativity that was the robot era from a performance and hype standpoint is music history. I have framed art of their masks from Lemon magazine where they're posing as David Bowie's heroes album. The replica masks go for thousands of dollars, and the pyramid live show is history as well.

But then, even as a pretty hard fan, they've been disappointing in a lot of ways. I think they're ego maniacs beyond what they deserve for the robot concept stuff above. I think when you look at their work, you're talking about 2 classics from their early era, and a pretty solid final album in Randon Access memories. Then you pepper in a couple remix albums, and a fuckin Disney soundtrack in which they really only had a pubic hair of a fingerprint on, and really, I think they end up being a bizarrely overhyped group.

I think they're done because they were done creatively. Collective music society was riding their dicks because they were amazing at marketing and hype, and had a history going back 15 years now, of putting on amazing live shows playing their hits from their first three albums.

Dare I say this ... I think they're more akin to KISS than they are to their ancient electronic music brethren like the Chemical Brothers, Underworld, and countless house DJs that even Daft Punk thanked on their first album on the song Teachers.

All that said, if they toured again and did anything close to the Pyramid thing, I'd buy tickets. But there are better, more consistent, harder working electronic and house artists out there that deserve the praise we keep blindly throwing at Daft Punk.

−8

purrppassion t1_j5pl2uq wrote

Counterpoint: Discovery is the greatest album of all time.

17

Autobot_ATrac t1_j5ppogr wrote

Respect your opinion and you’re entitled to it. I actually think it’s my favorite listen of theirs, especially when paired with interstellar 5555.

But… it’s layered with samples that lay the ground work for most of the songs in their foundations. Including one on one more time that they pretty much refuse to claim is a sample. In fact, the artist behind the song that was sampled hasn’t seen a dime in royalties.

While the album is a beautiful, conceptual work of art and has earned its position in music history, they’re kinda assholes about how they made it, and some of the songs are just Melodies built on stacks of old disco samples.

I can’t give an album like that best album of all time. The only exception being Endtroducing by DJ shadow, but even in that case, he handles samples like Mozart.

3

Vereddit-quo t1_j5qitd2 wrote

Not totally true... Daft Punk have been paying royalties to the company which owns Eddie Johns' catalogue. What happens after is this company's responsibility, not Daft Punk's.

> despite Daft Punk officially licensing the track and paying royalties since its release in 2000, Johns has seen none of that money. "Daft Life LTD. is paying royalties twice a year to the producer and owner of 'More Spell on You'," a representative for Daft Punk told the Los Angeles Times. "We have not heard from [Johns] since the day we acquired in 1995 a catalog from another label that featured this title," GM Musipro founder George Mary said in an email. "We have tried to do research on him, but without any result. For our part, we are going to study his file and do the accounts to his credit.

Source https://djmag.com/news/artist-behind-daft-punk-one-more-time-lead-sample-has-never-been-paid

3

Autobot_ATrac t1_j5ro9e5 wrote

Look at the comment by buckaroobanzai below. Chase those samples down and tell me it doesn’t sour your opinion about Discovery.

1

Vereddit-quo t1_j5sv4kh wrote

I've been a fan of Daft Punk since 2001 so I'm used to seeing arbitrary definitions of "good" and "bad" sampling from people... Also you say that hip hop "at least adds some layers", well yeah, exactly like Daft Punk. And be honest, 90% of boombap hip hop is actually "just a loop", very rare to hear more at least until J Dilla, The Neptunes and others who started adding way more layers, live playing etc.

About Discovery, let's see what is so basic...

Harder Better Faster Stronger: there is a sample, however the rhythm changes and the talkbox are great and completely transform the original mood, ending of course with the great talkbox solo at the end, which is among my favorite things they have done.

Digital Love, well you can't ignore the amount of things they add: the beautiful bridge played on a vintage Wurlitzer keyboard, the vocals, the atmospheric synths and a superb synth solo at the end. Again, they take a small loop and create a completely new mood with many layers and parts added.

Crescendolls, more basic but they still add so much intensity with the production, the little pauses etc. Clearly an example of taking a small loop and doing a lot with it.

Face To Face, coproduced by Todd Edwards, who also sings on it, is a great example of using tens of micro samples to create something completely new.

I only agree for Robot Rock, it is the easiest sampling they have done and anyway the main thing is that the loop is not that good to me, I never listen to it except in the context of Alive 2007. I actually think most of the 3rd album was made while thinking about the future live show, and not with the goal of having polished standalone tracks. It's well known that they did it in a few weeks and didn't give any interviews at the time.

1

Autobot_ATrac t1_j5pjiyl wrote

I love Reddit. Downvoted for spending a few minutes sharing your opinion on a completely, 100% subjective topic. What a time to be alive.

2

SQUIGIES t1_j5q7d1r wrote

Sorry man but you arent going to get upvoted saying Daft Punk is the KISS of electronic music lol. Sure, its subjective but its a horribly hot take

6

Autobot_ATrac t1_j5qml5k wrote

“More akin to kiss…”

Compared to the two continually hardworking humble artists I named, it’s not wrong. Daft Punk has had one great output in 15 years.

2

Autobot_ATrac t1_j5ro4rk wrote

Look at the comment by buckaroobanzai. Then chase those samples down and tell me it doesn’t sour your take about Discovery.

0

Maxi-Minus t1_j5pmbtm wrote

I disagree with you, but have upvoted your comment.

2

BuckaroooBanzai t1_j5rmcvr wrote

I went down a rabbit hole on the ‘who sampled’ website and, with no hyperbole, I was shocked when I realized how much daft punk copied from others. Examples:

Harder better = cola bottle baby by Edwin birdsong

Robot rock = release the beast by breakwater

Crescendolls = can you imagine by the imperials

Digital love = I love you more by George duke

2

Autobot_ATrac t1_j5rnh12 wrote

It’s a brutal rabbit hole and it’s how I ended up in the spot to make my diatribe from above.

If you’re a right brained person with high creative expectations, that kinda “discovery” (ha) can be brutal.

EG the juxtaposition comment. Robots in leather jackets with led lights on their faces playing in a laser light show pyramid? Fuck my face and call me Jenna, I’m in.

But to find out the amount of those songs that are just restructured samples? It no doubt knocks them down a bunch of rungs.

Hip Hop does what Daft Punk did all the time. “It’s a hard knock life… for us…” and a million others. But there’s a history of it, an added layer of the MC on the song, and frankly, some of what I consider to be the best hip hop of all time didn’t do it to the letter like other artists anyways.

Glad you went down the rabbit hole. The blue pill route is boring.

And you said copied. Shit… they just remixed those songs.

1