| Daft Punk - Discovery |
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 Daft
Punk emerged as a wayward yet integral part of the new wave of
French music that emerged seemingly all at once in 1998. Along with
Air’s ‘Moon Safari’, Cassius’ ‘1999’ and Etienne De
Crecy’s ‘Super Discount’ collections their debut
‘Homework’ surprised many with it’s gathering of hardened
grooves and dancefloor fillers sounding both effortlessly classic
and inarguably modern. Something new had arrived. Something that two
French musicians, Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel De Homem-Christo,
had recorded mostly in their bedrooms. Something that would be a
hard act to follow.
Three years on and here it is. Discovery. Disco. Very. My
expectations were admittedly quite high so when I first listened to
it I wasn’t too surprised that it didn’t grab me in the same way
as it’s predecessor had. My initial impression was that where
‘Homework’ had an eclectic mix of old school hip hop, Seventies
funk and hammering Techno ‘Discovery’ was pretty much hitting
just one vibe/genre all the way through. That being (whisper it in
horror) the early Eighties. ‘Discovery’ is the soundtrack to a
time when fluorescent knitwear, tennis visors, big red spectacle
frames, legwarmers and keyboard guitars were somehow taken
seriously. A time that never was and never shall be cool, when Casio
was a god and the meaning of the word tacky was temporarily erased
from the minds of the Western world. These days even the bravest of
post modern commentators would be hard pushed to get away with a
successful homage to those times. Daft Punk, for better or for
worse, succeed and in doing so fail. On the third listen the cheesy
keyboards on tracks such as [enter tracks] passed from being
interestingly retro to just plain retro. The airy Vangelis-like
[enter track] becomes simply Vangelis, other tunes sound like Bruno
from Fame messing about in his old man’s basement and there’s
even a track that could have easily been the follow up to ‘Video
Killed The Radio Star’ by Buggles. I was eventually wondering if I
had in fact mistakenly bought a very dodgy compilation album.
It’s not a particularly bad record but it is uninspired,
uninteresting and quite a bland experience once the initial mild
laughs at the long lost sounds (long lost for a damned good reason)
have worn off. In the wake of ‘Homework’ a significant step into
some seriously innovative territory was warranted but Daft Punk
decided to go in completely the opposite direction. Backwards.
Sometimes it is better to follow expectations than to go against
them, sometimes it is better to not only meet but to exceed those
expectations. Daft Punk have gone a bit Napoleonic and retreated
with this release. Let’s hope they come back fighting next time.
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Rating: 4 out of
10
Reviewed by Gordon Peppard
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