Tag: Daft Punk

Daft Punk feat. Julian Casablancas – Instant Crush

“I was pretty much just waiting for it to finish.”

Tom: The next single off Random Access Memories, and a new video. And hey – it’s a good three minute track!

Tom: …stretched out to five and a half minutes.

Tim: Yeahhh… after about three and a half minutes I was pretty much just waiting for it to finish. And then when it did, it was in a very dull manner indeed.

Tom: The extreme effects applied to the voice make it sound like a Hot Chip record — and why you’d get the lead vocalist of the Strokes in and then cover his voice in so much distortion, I’ve no idea.

Tim: Only reason I can think is: just for the name. Which is surely only necessary if you’re not already a big name, but then Daft Punk are arguably bigger than he is.

Tom: And I don’t know if the video was meant to be actually tear-jerking or just mawkish or melodramatic: I certainly got the latter.

Tim: I’ll be honest: I kind of stopped paying attention the first time, and I can’t be bothered to sit through the song again just to see the video.

Tom: The chorus is absolutely brilliant, the rest of the track a bit plodding: and even that’d be okay if it didn’t outstay its welcome. But it really, really does.

Tim: I’m actually not that enthused about the chorus, but I can’t disagree with the rest of that.

Daft Punk – Lose Yourself To Dance

Is it any better than Get Lucky?

Tim: We didn’t originally review Get Lucky because we both found it a bit dull and uninspirational. Let’s see if the same applies to this next one.

Tim: Yes. Yes it does. It is just as monotonous, just as repetitive, just as mathematically calculated to get stuck in your head, and just as, essentially, dull.

Tom: Which is a great shame, because – for once – it was the intro and first verse that I found the best bit of the song. After that, yes, it just keeps going. Still, at least there’s an actual video this time… even it does go on a bit.

Tim: Does it really only last four minutes eleven?

Tom: I don’t know, I sort of lost track after three.

Saturday Flashback: Daft Punk feat. Pharrell Williams – Get Lucky

“A confession.”

Tom: Our reader, Isabella, writes in and notes that we never actually covered this, the song of the summer.

Tim: True.

Tom: She likes it, as – evidently – do most of the record-downloading public: “the only criticism I can find for it,” she writes, “is that it’s more of a Pharrell track produced by Daft Punk than a Daft Punk track featuring Pharrell and Nile Rodgers.”

Tom: So, a confession: I disliked it on first listen; it seemed monotonous and not particularly inspired. And then, as it became the soundtrack to everything this summer, it grew on me.

Tim: See, I never even got to the growing on me part of it. I just don’t get it – I find it, well, dull. Their last album, the Tron: Legacy soundtrack, was fantastic (and the remix album even more so), but this is just boring.

Tom: And I find myself agreeing. Because now the glow has faded; the mists of autumn aren’t far away; and I find that it’s started to irritate me again. It doesn’t go anywhere. It doesn’t do anything. It could be two minutes long or ten minutes long, it’s all the bloody same. It’s impeccably produced, incredibly catchy, but I’m just bloody sick of it.

Tim: You’re right – it doesn’t go anywhere at all. The underlying beat – that eight second, four bar loop – just doesn’t change. Throughout the entirety of the song, it’s there. I don’t want to call it cynical, but it’s perfectly mastered to get stuck in your head and never ever leave, and to keep you listening in the subconscious hope that it’ll break out of its minor-key loop and do something interesting.

Tom: Is it possible to review something properly when it’s been burned into your brain?

Tim: There’s an argument that that’s the only time when you should review something – you’ve had time to digest it, tracked your enjoyment of it, can provide a thorough description of your thoughts, as we’ve done. Unfortunately, they’re not positive thoughts.

Tom: PS: Ed Balls.

Tim: Of course.