Daft Punks's "Discovery" : Classic or Dud

It isn't my favorite music, but it's a real, real good listen. Also, the term 'classic' implies they're timeless, which I really think they are. It's the proper mix of emotion, kitsch, musicality, and spirit that will never get old.

Actually... I shouldn't say that, considering the album is probably too long. The point is, even though it might not be my favorite record this year, it'll make this year easier to come back to when I'm old/gray.

"Digital Love" is a great song. Cool 'guitar solo'.

Try downloading just one track, look for one that says retail, or has different filesizes from the one you have.

I just bought this album last week, btw. I am still trying to figure out how I feel about it.

I think I probably prefer Discovery, and in a way the live album is amazing too, but fuck it I'm completely unreliable as regards Daft Punk.

FWIW my favourite Bangalter/Daft related thing is probably the Bangalter/Falcon stuff or "Music Sounds Better With You". And I think Carnival by Archigram is better than all of the above and anything on either Daft Punk album. And yes I could talk about this ALL DAY!

just think what your life would have been like if you had told her, "yeah, daft punk rules"!

vocoders are like anything else, they can be employed poorly or well.

I nearly bought a vocoder last month.

Wait - Techno?! Okay, whatever. I dunno, I heard Discovery and was blown away and then I bought Homework thinking it was just as lush but instead was greeted with maybe a couple of good (but overlong) tracks mixed with nothing but "Whump whump whump whump". Sometimes the whumping goes on for a good five minutes without actually doing anything. Sometimes DP treat us to a 303 noise for the last two minutes of the track. But yeh, I can never see why a lot of people prize this so much and then say that Discovery is rubbish.

Just relax and feel the groove, dl.

dan to thread

it is dance music, afterall.

He was always good with genre.

no, ronan, i think it's your mom who says that OH MY GOD OH NO PFFT

I just realized the potentially disasterous implications of this acronym in this phrase.

it is dance music, afterall.

Who said dance music had to be so deadly dull though? Surely dance is all about build ups and break downs and cheeky little bits that make you sit up and take notice. Granted, Discovery is perhaps more of a rock album compared to Homework but it is testament to the way dance can make you feel exhilarated and keep you bouncing around, new ideas hitting you at every turn.

Homework may have harder beats but they're really unpleasant to listen to (and I like Gabba). It's this kind of depressed mid-tempo whumping noise. It doesn't do anything to improve my life.

Okay, Morrissey.

Yeh, me too. Maybe I ought to forget about Discovery and try Homework out seperately. I still don't think I'll like it. Every time I've put it on, track one starts...

WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP
"Hmmm...."
WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP
"...When's that melody gonna kick in?"
WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP
"S'pose they're just being DJ friendly or something"
WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP
"Aw, c'mon DO SOMETHING!"
WHUMP SQUELCHY WHUMP SQUELCHY WHUMP
"Ah, that's more like it... I-I think"
WHUMP SQUELCHY WHUMP SQUELCHY WHUMP
"This is testing my patience more than an Autechre album..."
WHUMP SQUELCHY WHUMP SQUELCHY CROWD NOISE
(TRACK ENDS)
"Was that it?"
(TRACK TWO BEGINS)
WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP
"Oh for crap's sake".

I like repetitive loops and beats as much as the next man but these don't equal genius, they equal knob twiddling, and not very exciting knob twiddling at that.

why don't they just break out the organically grown guitars!

Wow. Abandon all hope, dude.

This is the line that makes me bubble with inappropriate laughter.

Hang on hang on. I know that on ILX I like to play devil's advocate a lot but you know that this is not what I'm saying. If you read my posts you'll know that I enjoy producing, mixing and dancing to dance music. Don't want to get up on this now but I've noticed that you will get pretty aggressive about certain subjects and I could see you were going to play the "you are a rockist" a long way off.
This is rubbish really. If you've read my comments above, I was not having a go at any particular style of music, I was talking about Homework and how most of the tracks are average-speed whumpers with little or no variation to them. Maybe I'll admit that I think a good dance track should have build ups, breakdowns, stops, starts, and in most cases some kind of hook. Homework doesn't make me feel anything at all. It doesn't move me because it's all the same speed and more or less the same sounds the way through. It becomes a chore. I can't dance to something that is that predictable. Ironically I reckon "So Much Love to Give" is ace but that's because it really is one big massive build up. I dunno, it's just a drag.

nobody would say "it's just guitar playing" about a rock band.

also how "homework" is hookless remains a mystery to me, most of the haters would complain it's too full of hooks and not loopy enough, and let's face it in comparison to so so so much ace dance music it really is full of hooks.

personally i find how harsh and abrasive daft punk were kind of amazing given they used to be in a mimsy indie band.

anyone ever think 'short circuit' may have been recorded before 'homework' was released? could easily have been on it...

Skipped tracks 1 & 2 because I've heard them a million times on other attempts to get into the album. Revolution 909 starts, and yes there's some typical French loopy whumping. Er... Look I'm trying to get into this but it's the same French loopy whumping being faded in and out! The beat changes slightly every 16 bars or so I guess.
Oh well, at least Da Funk is on next. This is a lot slower than I remember - almost like it's being played at entirely the wrong speed. I think I'd find it hard to dance to this in a club. A very loud nasty kick drum being played at 110bpm just seems pointless to me. It does drop out, but then it comes back in in exactly the same way. The 303 gets slightly more manic on each loop but eventually fades out without reaching any kind of peak or conclusion. Damn, I thought I liked this track.
I've always enjoyed Phoenix more than any other track on this album because of that kicking bassline. Also it's a bit less ploddy than the rest of the tunes - the cut up sample is actually upbeat for a change. I'd like to hear a drum'n'bass remix of this tune. Mind you, much as I quite like it, I'm ready for the "next" button after about 3 minutes.
Slish slosh, Fresh comes in. Haha, the intro reminds me of "Texas Never Whispers" by Pavement, but that's an irrelevant rockist comment. It's alright. I still don't see it going off in a club - for once the bass drum isn't loud enough, but I think people would nod their heads to it a little while they go off to the bar. 3 minutes... okay come on when's it going to kick in? 4 minutes -wtf?!
Around The World, well I know this one by heart. I think I quite liked it at the time, though house wasn't really my oeuvre in 1996. I think it was this that gave me my first impression of Daft Punk and then "One More Time" which solidified them in my mind as a slightly cheesy but fun house band. It wasn't till someone played me the rest of Discovery that I realised there was a lot more to them than that. Maybe that's why I don't like Homework. Discovery is something else entirely while Homework is definitely a House album. Maybe at the time it was regarded as groundbreaking because it was French and it had that filter thing on it, but to new ears there's nothing more to it than that.
Oh God! Rollin and Scratchin's intro is exactly what I mean about nasty whumping. This is really horrible. The noise is so intrusive and monotonous it manages to sound out of time. That said, I could imagine this going off in a club if mixed in with the right kind of stuff. That track "Superheroes" on Discovery is like a pisstake of tracks like this in a way except they actually manage to make it sound incredible. That synth noise is incredibly nasty too. Without wanting to sound like Ronan's dad, I must say it sounds like a broken tumble dryer. And then the beats stop but it carries on. And then they fucking start again in exactly the same way PLOD PLOD PLOD PLOD PLOD PLOD. ADD ANOTHER SNARE OR A CYMBAL OR A HIHAT OR SOMETHING YOU BASTARDS IT'S NOT DIFFICULT!!!! Ah, finally, the 6minute mark rolls around and the drums get a bit more mental but then someone fixes the tumble dryer which was just about to get really good and all we're left with is the whumping again. This would probably make me want to leave the club with the way it's wasted my time and anticipation.
I really don't like Teachers. Someone I know DJ-ed it once and it bombed out like fuck. Tribute Schmibute - he double pitched vocal is especially annoying "Blahblahblah is in der haus yeh". Sounds like even Daft Punk are having a bad time and can't wait to leave. It's about this time that the whumping is really getting on my bastard tits. You'd think that after 7 tracks I'd have become desensitised to tedious plod but it's starting to grate even more.
Hey, High Fidelity just came in. It's not awful. At least the whump is nice and bouncy. The cut up vocal is a little stuck-record but not too bad. I do have the feeling this track may go the way of the others - a loop fading in and out and never really going anywhere or getting to any kind of peak or conclusion. It's entertaining trying to work out what the samples are saying. "Dancing Dancing Dancing Dancing, DJ Greenspun, Dancing, Dancing, DJ Greenspun, Move It Up Bah, Move It Up Bah" etc... FFWD!!
CLomp Clomp Clomp Rock'n'Roll here we go. Hmmm... This is a bit like Rollin' & Scratchin' innit? The synth drone noise is cool but the drums are sequenced in possibly the worst way I've heard so far. Maybe I should shut up about the whumping or you'll never hear the end of it but jeez this is CRAP! Okay no I've just gone back and spellchecked some of what I've just written and the whumping's EVEN WORSE! Plus they've added a noise like someone making balloon toys. I refuse to press FFWD though. I can handle this. I think.... Oh God make it end!
Oh Yeah - this is good! Thank God the whumping's stopped for a while and DP are actually doing something a bit more interesting. It's like really slow glitchy electro. Big-arsed bass noise too! Shame it's only two minutes long - that could've been the best track on the album.
Burnin is zip-up jumper core. It takes a little while to build up but it's got a nice funky bassline and the drumming's at least a bit more interesting than on some other tracks. Yeh, this track is good.
Indo Silver Club is good too. I like the heavily compressed stuff going on that makes you feel like you're jumping up and down. There's proper action going on in this track, unlike many of the others. Sadly once again, it doesn't do a whole lot throughout.
Alive is pretty hardcore, even for Daft Punk. An almost industrial beat pervades everything and then the synths filter in. This track is pretty evil and at last they've added some reverb to some of the synths and drums. I think maybe this was what was missing - a lot of the tracks on Homework sound like they're being played in a tiny tiny box whereas this sounds like the same tracks in a massive aircraft hangar. I still don't know if I'd want to jump around to this in a club though, much as I like it. The beats just filter bigger and bigger and then fade out.
For something to be able to move people about, this style of music is ever so linear and static. Get from point A to B via very slow manipulation of sounds. A lot of the time I wait for up to five or six minutes for the track to blossom into something amazing and it just doesn't. Perhaps I'm listening to Homework and trying to imagine hands-in-the-air anthems when really it's not about that at all. I could imagine people break-dancing to it maybe as it's a steady beat with a bassline. I dunno. Look, I gave it a try and most of it annoyed me. Sorry guys.

On Steve's request - here's a mix cd I did in Acid Pro.

disc 1
01 ill cosby - one of the family
02 paul hardcastle - 19
03 lcd soundsystem - losing my edge
04 lfo - lfo
05 mory kante - yeke yeke (hardfloor mix)
06 electrotheque - everyone's a winner (electrochocolate mix)
07 si futures - we are not a rock band
08 imatran voima - in-out
09 infected mushroom - bust a move
10 hennes & cold - the second trip (nick sentience mix)
11 dk - murder was the bass

disc 2
01 dk - murder was the bass
02 headroom - ride the threshold
03 thomas krome - wood carver (adam beyer mix)
04 dave the drummer - one night in hackney
05 pragha khan - injected with the poison (bk & nick sentience mix)
06 drugface - fill me with drugs (the crow mix)
07 dj tim vs lock n load - access ya mind
08 deepack - prophecy (luna mix)
09 marc smith vs safe n sound - identify the beat
10 john b - blandwagon poos
11 adam f - brand new funk
12 andy c - body rock

It's a bit eclectic and there isn't a whole lot of house on there, but that's kind of ultimate for me in the way of dance.

Cambridge Corn EXchangXor (hell yeah)
November 1997 sometime
BASSMENT JAXXXXXXoR
DAFTENPUNK

I can't believe I haven't got the DP live album.

i was reminiscing over 'Brand New Funk' the other day - absolute bomb at the time

it's called "house" ; )

... unless they were on ILM

This only applies to Black Box lyrics, otherwise, I don't get it.

Mix ain't on slsk at present but if peeps give me an email I may be able to find the time to send you it on CD.

I think maybe my dislike for Homework and Advance might be Geirist to be very honest. I love melodies and cheeky hooks and memorable samples and stuff in most of my music (eg I love metal bands like Sigh because they experiment a lot whereas Darkthrone et al just refuse to budge from the mold). Homework and Advance are all about, well beats and maybe a bit of a squirky noise or something and it doesn't move me. Maybe I'm anti-subtlist or something heheh - although it does bother me that I'm not feeling what everyone else is.

Redundant though, no? given these guys now?

http://web.archive.org/web/20020610034412/www.daftclub.com/musique.php

TS: Franz Ferdinand - "Take Me Out" (Daft Punk remix) vs. Chemical Brothers - "Life Is Sweet" (Daft Punk remix)

classic, obv.

if so, how many of you are going to be at EMP?

Grammys, ahead of the curve as usual, just now nominated "Harder Better Faster Stronger."

http://www.grammy.com/GRAMMY_Awards/51st_Show/list.aspx

hahahaha, i love the grammys, i have never encountered anything more disconnected from basically the entire world

Record Of The Year
(Award to the Artist and to the Producer(s), Recording Engineer(s) and/or Mixer(s), if other than the artist.)

Chasing Pavements
Adele
Eg White, producer; Tom Elmhirst & Steve Price, engineers/mixers
Track from: 19
[XL Recordings/Columbia]

Viva La Vida
Coldplay
Markus Dravs, Brian Eno & Rik Simpson, producers; Michael Brauer & Rik Simpson, engineers/mixers
Track from: Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends
[Capitol Records]

Bleeding Love
Leona Lewis
Simon Cowell, Clive Davis & Ryan "Alias" Tedder, producers; Craig Durrance, Phil Tan & Ryan "Alias" Tedder, engineers/mixers
[J Records/SYCO Music]

Paper Planes
M.I.A
Diplo, producer; Switch, engineer/mixer
Track from: Kala
[Interscope]

Please Read The Letter
Robert Plant & Alison Krauss
T Bone Burnett, producer; Mike Piersante, engineer/mixer
Track from: Raising Sand
[Rounder]

lolololol its like jackie harvey but real life

Grammys, ahead of the curve as usual, just now nominated "Harder Better Faster Stronger."

From the 2007 live album, obviously.

Record Of The Year noms all Brits (bar Krauss) WTF

One of those albums that literally makes me shrink back, tense up, and want to smash my speakers and cover my ears.
― Melissa W, Sunday, May 27, 2001 1:00 AM (11 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh je.

does anyone still express this opinion in public?

"music sounds better with you" is the single most romantic phrase i can imagine! daft punk wish they could evoke a hundredth of that emotion, indeed a hundredth of that sonic pleasure

― lex pretend, Thursday, April 12, 2007 8:31 AM Bookmark

:D :D :D :D :D

Are you agreeing with the sentiment or smiling at the category error that underlies it?

the latter

151 feva gang "kush groove" is better than all daft punk songs tho, let's not front

truu

still have trouble with everything after "Crescendolls" outside of "Too Long" which is fucking class

yeah alright jordan, lol

lots of this record still stands up well. something like "face 2 face" is secretly one of the best songs ever made.

"face to face" even, not sure why i assumed it was a 2.

still one of my favourite records IMO

don't know why I wrote IMO just there, of course my favourite records are my opinion ;-)

go in through the air go in through the air go in through the air go in through the air go in through the air go in through the air go in through the air go in through the air go in through the air go inthrzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

i thought that song was golf in the air

love in the air?

gophers

up into the air

oh wait no

alright i'm gonna give this puppy another spinarooney, stay tuned folxxx

Here's Barry Manilow to clarify.

"face to face" is still the best thing on this - Crescentdolls, Short Circuit, etc are the secret keepers once you get past the frontloaded singles

151 feva gang "kush groove" is better than all daft punk songs tho, let's not front

― J0rdan S., Sunday, March 3, 2013 10:05 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

truu

― kendrick delmar - good kid, f.U.C.k. you (The Reverend), Sunday, March 3, 2013 10:06 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

smdh get outta here

Dukkadukka-Duh-Duh-Duh
Zoo oh!
Dukkadukka-Duh-Duh-Duh
Mr Pendergrass

high life is killer. this album is very special.

smdh get outta here

― rap steve gadd (D-40), Monday, March 4, 2013 8:47 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'm sure our tongues were nowhere near our cheeks

cosign j0rd and rev

"veridis quo" is my favorite on this.
I always prefer their more moody pieces ("emotion", "make love", many tracks on Tron...).

"light it up and get groovy baby" is the single most romantic phrase i can imagine! daft punk wish they could evoke a hundredth of that emotion, indeed a hundredth of that sonic pleasure

"alright i'm gonna give this puppy another spinarooney, stay tuned folxxx" is the single most romantic phrase i can imagine! daft punk wish they could evoke a hundredth of that emotion, indeed a hundredth of that sonic pleasure

oh je.

does anyone still express this opinion in public?

Yes.

Meantime

https://soundcloud.com/ck303/theprequel96

Why do you hate it so much Melissa?

I like bits of Discovery but I can totally get in the headspace of people who don't like Discovery. It's repetitive. When there is musical development, it's predictable. It sounds like a digital nightmare. There's side-chain compression everywhere. Unless you're already totally 100% on board with the Daft Punk retro-futurist stripped-down space-disco aesthetic, you won't like Daft Punk.

I enjoy that description of the album but don't know if the conclusion's fair because IMWOYP Daft Punk were a huge gateway electronica 'band' thing

I like bits of Discovery but I can totally get in the headspace of people who don't like Discovery. It's repetitive. When there is musical development, it's predictable. It sounds like a digital nightmare. There's side-chain compression everywhere. Unless you're already totally 100% on board with the Daft Punk retro-futurist stripped-down space-disco aesthetic, you won't like Daft Punk.

― C: (crüt), Saturday, March 9, 2013 1:42 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's way less repetitive than most of its house music influences. How do you mean 'repetitive'?

that's some bullshit. daft punk was awesome when i was a kid and 'repetitive' wasn't even in my musical vocabulary, much less any kind of familiarity with a retro-futurist stripped-down space-disco aesthetic.

daft punk was repetitive to me when I was a kid

lots of music is repetitive

some people don't like music that is too repetitive for them

i hope you're taking notes

your posts are repetitive

:-p

Discovery is way less repetitive than Daft Punk's other albums tho.

xp haaa

Anyway the last sentence of that post was a little off mark, yeah. I was mostly just rattling off some things that characterize Daft Punk's sound/aesthetic that could be divisive. The repetition definitely isn't as heavy on Discovery as their other albums, although I'd still say there are a LOT of repetitive/minimal elements. That's just my perception tho & certainly not something I'd expect e.g. house music heads to agree with.

I just remember getting Discovery in 2001, when I was 13 & not familiar with many different kinds of music, and to me things like "Crescendolls" and "Superheroes" were super repetitive because I wasn't used to music where unrelenting 1-2 bar loops were right at the front of the mix.

n.b. I still thought those songs were cool and exciting. especially "Superheroes" because of the ending.

i think crut's post applies a lot more to Homework which was the first DP album I got. this was like 2003 but I was really into Underworld and Orbital and upon hearing DP my first reaction was "these guys really don't know how to build up a track". of course that is my 17 year old self saying this. I think the truth is that there are certain aspects of DP's house that you really have to buy into and ultimately I don't think they have the talent that Underworld has. Discovery is even more stylized (and to be honest I find it hard to think of a more influential album from the decade - the Discovery sound is everywhere right now), but the good vibes are a lot more front and center. I don't really consider it "repetitive" - at least not in comparison to their other albums! I loved Alive 2007 so much because it injected that sound into the other material.

a lot of people just don't like house music at all

and they will be first against the wall...

lol they're already against the wall

"high life" 4Ever.

ha touche xp

I have found myself against the wall at quite a few house clubs.

the idea of repetition as a negative thing, or something specific to (dance) (music) any one form, is an alien idea to me. to even isolate it in that way just feels so strange.

By the way, I've always found that this track (released 2000) kinda beat DP at their own game and predicts the Discovery sound quite well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTAqMhUb2Fo

is the chord progression in Digital Love really unresolved? in my brain it resolves on the fourth chord. what am i missing

go in through the air go in through the air go in through the air go in through the air go in through the air go in through the air go in through the air go in through the air go in through the air go inthrzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

― Mr. Snrub, Monday, 4 March 2013 13:50 (five years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i thought that song was golf in the air

― dog latin, Monday, 4 March 2013 14:16 (five years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

love in the air?

― Tioc Norris (LocalGarda), Monday, 4 March 2013 14:31 (five years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

gophers

― ledge, Monday, 4 March 2013 14:33 (five years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

up into the air

― þjóðaratkvæðagreiðsla (clouds), Monday, 4 March 2013 14:39 (five years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh wait no

― þjóðaratkvæðagreiðsla (clouds), Monday, 4 March 2013 14:40 (five years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

dolphins in the air. not gophers.

we're up a Mexican monkey

Get your boopy on

Did anyone else listen to "Something About Us" on repeat for like two hours after that episode of I May Destroy You or just me

I mean, I just do that periodically. While sitting in the dark. Weeping.

I have most def cried while listening to "Superheroes." That 'un and "Face to Face" are my favorites…

yeah I feel oceans of emotion from “something”. And the cut ups in “face to faces...

Watched Interstella 5555 again and it's just overwhelming how good this record is on so many levels, and how perfectly executed the videos were as an accompaniment. Even the more simple, repetitive tracks somehow feel maximal and huge and memorable. Not a single track feels like it wears out its welcome (despite Too Long's self referential nature towards this), and it also boasts two of my favorite guitar solos/recordings of all time with Aerodynamic and Digital Love

I think I found the most essential 10-hour loop video on youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8E6cpNRn8eY

"Too Long" definitely not too long, maybe my favorite track on the album

Who’s playing the guitar solos on Discovery btw? Or are those sampled too?

I don’t know if I suck at looking for credits but I haven’t seem evidence of the solos being sampled but there’s no guitar credits either.

Mostly Guy-Man:

de Homem-Christo estimates that half of the sampled material on Discovery was actually played live originally. “I play more guitar usually,” he says, “and Thomas plays more keyboards and bass.” But they both play all three instruments. “There's no ego involved. We don't argue about who's playing what. You can get the sound of a guitar with a keyboard, or the opposite. We don't really care about who's doing what as long as it's well-done. At the same time, when you use samples, you don't have this problem. When you use a sampler, nobody plays on it, so the problem of the ego of the musician is not really there. For everything that we do, no matter how you get to the results, the important thing is the result.”

Discovery includes only four outside samples — not much for a contemporary dance record. “Around this, we play all the instruments, which are mainly vintage keyboards and guitars, so it's a mixture of a few samples and us playing around it. We don't always use the original sounds of the keyboards or the guitars, because we put on so many effects or distortions so that sometimes you think it's a guitar but maybe it's not.”

The French twosome also like to alter their original source material to create something new, whether it's a synth or a guitar. “We don't use too much of the original sound of the instruments; it's really more about how we put effects on it after that,” he explains. “It's not like we're making a track and saying, ‘Oh yes, I need a Flying V on this one.’ We take a guitar we have {usually a Fender Stratocaster} and then try to make it sound different with the effects.”

also

“On ‘Digital Love,’ you get this Supertramp vibe on the bridge,” remarks de Homem-Christo. “We didn't sample Supertramp, but we had the original Wurlitzer piano they used, so we thought it would be more fun to have the original instrument and mess around with it."

why don't you play the gaaaaaaaaame

only four outside samples

Uhh

lol yeah I haven't heard the record in a decade and I can already think of about seven

There’s only 4 credited samples on Discovery: Barry Manilow, Edwin Birdsong, George Duke and The Imperials.

From wikipedia:

A significant amount of sampling is present on the album. Rather than creating new music using only the samples, Daft Punk worked with them by writing and performing additional parts. The Discovery liner notes specify permitted use of samples for four tracks on the album: Part of George Duke's "I Love You More" is featured in "Digital Love"; Edwin Birdsong's "Cola Bottle Baby" was sampled for "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger"; The Imperials' song "Can You Imagine" is used for "Crescendolls"; Barry Manilow's "Who's Been Sleeping in My Bed" is credited for "Superheroes". It is believed that "One More Time" contains a sample of Eddie Johns' song "More Spell on You", which was reported to be officially cleared despite it being uncredited in the Discovery liner notes.

Several websites list many other samples present on the album, but Bangalter has stated that half of the samples he had seen listed are not true. He also stated the sampling they do is legitimately done, not something they try to hide. Bangalter elaborated that the newly recorded elements were implemented in a way that was equivalent to "creating fake samples ... where people think there are samples from disco records or funk records." Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo estimated that half of the sampled material on Discovery was played live and re-recorded by the duo, and emphasized that the resulting quality of the music was more important than the ego of who played which instruments.

theres a part that sounds like get down saturday night by oliver cheatham but its not sampled

I guess that means that besides those 4 samples, they deny the rest? I guess they’re avoiding a lawsuit, because even if they were recreating live a sample it still needs credit no?

The One More Time sample is 100% Eddie Johns and it has been proved in numerous youtube recreations.

I guess that means that besides those 4 samples, they deny the rest? I guess they’re avoiding a lawsuit, because even if they were recreating live a sample it still needs credit no?

― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Tuesday, February 23, 2021 10:24 PM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

only if its a melody, not a texture or a particular wirlitzer or a rhythmic feel

Yeah I didn't mean the soundalike stuff like the Supertramp Wurlitzer, but actual samples audio. Like, there's no way the "High Life" sample was recreated. "Face to Face" also has some less obvious samples

“high life” is sped up tavares

One More Time's sample is a fifth that was cleared, but the deal apparently didn't require credit.

Bangalter suggested in 2007 that Sister Sledge, ELO and Cerrone on this list were not correct. It's possible that they were thinking in terms of a chunk of melody large enough to count for composition, or that inspired the track, rather than half a second of percussion.

i'm guessing they did just recreate most of the samples they did use and a lot of those "samples" are just tiny fragments so they could either get away with the recreation (because they aren't melodic content as deej said) or managed to negotiate deals where they didn't need to formally credit the samples or give writing credits like they did for the four they did credit. probably a mix of both. some of them are so obvious i figure they surely would have gotten sued by now if they hadn't done things properly

i know jens lekman managed to get away with the same sort of thing for night falls over kortedala, he talked in interviews about recreating most of the small samples he wanted to use to avoid having to pay for them and people have dug up a lot more than are credited, though they're generally small textural things. the biggest ones that form the backbones of songs etc. were all credited there

That’s true... I don’t know much about laws regarding samples but iirc if it’s tranformed in a way it doesn’t sound similar to the original or the sample is too short to be substantial you don’t even need clearance - the argument being that you’re not really doing any financial harm to the original artist.

That used to be years ago though, I’ve seen artists nowadays giving credit for even a second of sampling so I guess the rules could have changed in the past 20 years since Discovery was released.

The denying of samples is 1000% bullshit and they are trying to cover their asses. Dozens of youtubers with ++ abelton skills have recreated much of the album from the original samples.

wgaf

Dozens of youtubers with ++ abelton skills have recreated much of the album from the original samples

link some good ones?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I85DUucY_ek

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mofmkEmcsxE

etc.

the first one is only the one, known, apparently cleared sample from one song and sounds like dogshit* rather than a dazzling recreation

(*no shade on the ableton kid, who notes in the description that it is just the main beat and that it sounds bad and he used the wrong settings. this tweet is cool though)

second one is very well built but, if anything, seems like a stronger indication that they did replay and then sample the parts themselves :)

Man, Veridis Quo is so good. I love this whole album

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecv1AbcHvbM

here's a shitty full album recreation someone put on youtube and at least some of the youtube comments didn't realise that's what it was lol. kinda fascinating as a project though

I'd relistened to Discovery a month ago for the first time in full in nearly 20 years and jesus does it hold up well. Non stop bangers.

The only "sample" on Discovery that wasn't actually a sample that I can think of, was when multiple sources back in the day cited that Voyager sampled Oliver Cheatham's "Get Down Saturday Night". That one I'm pretty sure was merely influenced by it.

Supertramp example is another one cited just upthread

my local shop had a copy of this for $19.99 and now they're listed on Discogs for $170 fuck offfffffff

I still have the CD I bought in 2001 <3

Here’s a better recreation for One More Time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sdtOpE_3aQ

Here’s a recreation of Face to Face using Evil Woman:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iWl8n9wxlA

Also using Alan Parsons and Kenny Loggins in there.

Those are new to me I had no idea those were sampled in there too, but it sounds legit when you hear the result

High Life sample is also Tavares and it does sound sampled not replayed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5uMctGxJwI

They’re pretty ingenious samples I’ll give them that.

I have no idea how people even found them if not confirmed by DP themselves.

Face To Face video is great, ta

I love that they got Todd edwards to do straight ahead vocals over the dreamiest Todd edwards pastiche

High Life sample is also Tavares and it does sound sampled not replayed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5uMctGxJwI

― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Wednesday, February 24, 2021 11:15 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

If they weren’t cleared they weren’t samples. They would have been sued into oblivion ages ago if someone else’s master recordings were included

Maybe they did some in the dark clearances but I’d suggest they recreated specific moments

As someone who owns a recording of Guy-Manuel and Thomas playing straight-forward rock instruments with extremely sub- to average talent, I'm rather amazed at these "oh if they said so then they must have replayed these complicated funk and disco licks that they purposely obscured heavily via cut-up then pitched/phased and reassembled" takes.

They were 18 years old when Darlin' was around, if that's what you're alluding to/humblebragging about. They could have learned more skills than that afterwards, surely.

just look at what time and success has done for maron's guitar playing

*have done. i went back and added time to acknowledge it has taken some time.

^^ human after all

As someone who owns a recording of Guy-Manuel and Thomas playing straight-forward rock instruments with extremely sub- to average talent, I'm rather amazed at these "oh if they said so then they must have replayed these complicated funk and disco licks that they purposely obscured heavily via cut-up then pitched/phased and reassembled" takes.

― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli)

This is my take too. I don’t doubt there are recreations in here but judging by some of the videos above I think those are just samples that are so heavily chopped and edited that they got away with it.

what d-40 is saying is that they recreated the samples and chopped them up but I mean who cares imo

The process of finding the samples, cutting them up, then recreating them perfectly so they can be cut up again just to skip out on some sampling royalties would have been one hell of a task.

I'm sure the majority of these are samples and most of them got cleared. Perhaps some licensers stipulated they needed crediting while others didn't.

When did sample lawyering really come into play? It's not like Paul's Boutique comes with a big long list of tracks the Dust Brothers sampled. But I seem to remember the 2ManyDJs album (which I think came out a year after Discovery) causing a bit of a stir in that sphere of music law, with a whole lot of things being very difficult if not impossible to clear.

I mean, if I'm correct (and it's just vaguely remembered half-conjecture here), it would be no coincidence that sample-based music peaked in the late-90s, with much fewer artists mining the vaults for sounds to reconstruct from roughly the 2000s onwards

Transmitting Live From Mars was 1989, same year as Paul's Boutique, and I Need A Haircut was 1991. Sample Some of Disc, Sample Some of D.A.T. came out in 1993, and could have set a great precedent if actually done well.

There are or were producers who would recreate (or attempt to recreate) samples as a service. No idea if that's what they did here. I suppose it depends on how visible your record is, and who owns the copyright. That album by Ptak1 is made almost entirely from samples but it's all Polish / East European pop and prog records and probably didn't sell enough to be worth chasing up royalties.

As someone who owns a recording of Guy-Manuel and Thomas playing straight-forward rock instruments with extremely sub- to average talent, I'm rather amazed at these "oh if they said so then they must have replayed these complicated funk and disco licks that they purposely obscured heavily via cut-up then pitched/phased and reassembled" takes.

― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Wednesday, February 24, 2021 1:10 PM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

what 'complicated funk and disco licks' lol they're mostly not very complicated

The process of finding the samples, cutting them up, then recreating them perfectly so they can be cut up again just to skip out on some sampling royalties would have been one hell of a task.

record labels do this w/ rapper mixtape beats every single day

Not new, either - Rapper’s Delight had Positive Force playing the Chic Good Times backing in a reasonable facsimile rather than editing a loop, after which Sugarhill assembled a house band to back their rappers. The Tackhead players pulled off a total soundalike of the Incredible Bongo Band’s cover of Apache without any Ableton filters. Dr Dre had a stable of session dudes to replay sources in his heyday, sometimes to save on mechanical royalties, sometimes for ease of getting a clean backing to work with.

if they said so then they must have replayed these complicated funk and disco licks that they purposely obscured heavily via cut-up then pitched/phased and reassembled

I’m agnostic on whether they did or not, but “the samples have been so heavily treated that you can’t tell what they are” is also not a strong argument that they weren’t replayed!

I love that they got Todd edwards to do straight ahead vocals over the dreamiest Todd edwards pastiche

pretty sure he was involved in the production on said pastiche too

he's credited for additional production but maybe that's just to do with recording and toddifying his vocal

hmm maybe it is! for some reason I thought he was just credited for the vocals

https://64.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mbym1c4JMR1rrlrnjo1_500.gif

if anyone here hasn't seen interstella 5555 before... you should.... here it is https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3pj0fa

ooh thanks, can't believe I haven't. I was obsessed with Discovery and remember the "we're gonna do a video for every song" claim, which seemed ridiculous, and then never knew til more recently they'd pulled it off!

I don’t know much about the law behind it but, regardless of royalties I don’t understand how replicating a sample instead of sampling directly gets some sort of free pass on having to clear or credit the original artist. A cover still needs to be credited, and if the argument is that in such small snippets credit doesn’t matter then why not sample directly?

I don’t get it. Either you don’t give credit to heavily altered samples - direct or replicas - or you give credit to both.

As an artist I’d be offended if I heard a replica of a thing I made without credit, than if I did get a credit even if I get no pay at all.

I know there’s some weird “don’t snitch on samples” culture but it’s 2021 now. No matter how obscure or modified your sample if you’re a mildly popular artist someone on the internet will id it in less than a week after your album is out.

the argument is that in such small snippets credit doesn’t matter then why not sample directly

iirc if you directly use the original recording you're still supposed to pay for it even it's a small enough sample where you wouldn't have to pay for using part of the 'songwriting' because it's just melodies that are really copyrightable in that way, so if you replicate those instead that means you can avoid having to pay anything

something like that anyway

like there's two issues with copyright & sampling: using parts of someone else's recording, and using parts of someone else's songwriting. with samples that are just small fragments the second doesn't really apply but the first still does

If they weren’t cleared they weren’t samples. They would have been sued into oblivion ages ago if someone else’s master recordings were included

Maybe they did some in the dark clearances but I’d suggest they recreated specific moments

― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Wednesday, February 24, 2021 12:56 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

In the Clubhouse discussion that got posted on one of these threads, Todd Edwards talks about the recording process of “Face to Face,” and he talks about stringing together samples from a bunch of different records but doesn’t mention anything being re-recorded. They may have layered on top of samples in some instances to thicken the parts in the mix but I don’t think it was possible for Daft Punk to fully recreate these samples so faithfully. They don’t have ‘70s session chops and they were working out of a home studio.

In the air / Golf / In the air / Golf / In the air

I'm guessing crut is right. You're not good ng to assemble a whole seventies funk revue to recreate 0.3 seconds of music. I mean, maybe people do this, but I just can't see it happening with DP at that time

going. This phone

this record is hugely open hearted…no amount of gallic chin-stroking crate digger machinations truly affects that…since Monday, my four year old and I have been listening to it while driving to day care, and she loves it…although she thinks Romananthony sounds very tired on "One More Time," I guess because of some of the exhalation audible on the recording…

I think One More Time is the only weak link on the whole thing. Other than that, it's just a hoot from start to finish (and I take it back about Too Long, it's perfect)

Actually think it opens with the two weakest tracks - I didn't even bother to check out the album until "Digital Love" got released. I've grown to enjoy "One More Time" and "Aerodynamic" more, but the other 12 tracks are still better

alright, maybe not "Nightvision"

weak????

"One More Time" is just too real for a lot of people

when I first heard "One More Time" as a kid I could barely tell it apart from Eiffel 65 or Fatboy Slim but now I love it

"One More Time," "Blue (Da Ba Dee)" and "The Rockafeller Skank" are all equally great

"nightvision"... low key the best track

i'm kidding, it's "voyager," but "nightvision" is amazing

There's certainly a sense in which "One More Time" was 'late', arriving at the end of 2000 quite a bit of time after filter / french house had been thoroughly codified - it even sounds a bit like Phats & Small's "Turnaround" from 1999, and that's probably the archetypal 'generic' vocal filter house track.

But, of course, that was entirely deliberate. The song is literally about the decadence of extending the party a bit longer than it ought to run, and at less specific level I feel like it acts as a tribute to the feeling of succumbing (of allowing yourself) to the familiar and the obvious.

I already thought that at the time, but that sense felt affirmed when subsequently Kylie released "Love at First Sight", a song which functions very much in the same way, both in the sense of trucking with the same aesthetic preoccupations and in the sense of summoning up a similar vibe or feeling.

I wouldn't call either track weak now, to be clear. The extended break in "One More Time" used to be a momentum killer for me, but I appreciate it now. It's just that this is an amazing album and some track has to be the weakest!

One More Time was love at first sound. I recall the first time I heard it, out getting some fast food and it was on the radio inside. Just felt like utopian party music.

"love at first sight" is even closer in feeling to "music sounds better with you"

I’m shaking my head at people not liking “one more time”

one of the very best things about Discovery is that it has a enormous influence upon Kylie's Fever…

I've never enjoyed One More Time. I know the enervated sound is the point, but I don't have to like it.

I'm sure I have my Interstella 5555 DVD somewhere (will need to remember how to hook up my DVD player to the TV, will be worth it for Face To Face at least)

I'm similar to other posters in lumping "One More Time" in with a lot of other fodder they used to play at the student club nights I used to go to around the time. I was familiar with their earlier stuff but not yet a fan and "One More Time" just reminds me of £1 Smirnoff Ices and bad times dancing. It wasn't until I started working in a bar after uni that someone played me the whole of Discovery and I fell in love with it and went back to reassess everything else they'd done. I still don't like OMT though

Dakadakada-da-da / Zoo-whoa / Dakadakada-da-da / Mister Ferdinand

“one more time” doesn’t sound like the other fodder though, for starters it spends two and a half minutes (or, half of the song) doing that acapella build-up which I don’t remember any other song from the era doing.

how many dance or pop songs from any era do you remember that do 2 full minutes without beat.

It's a good question (should be noted that the drums and main sample drop out but the organ never drops out and the tambourine comes in and out).

It also ties it to the space disco concept. Having a breakdown of 2 minutes with nothing but vocals and a synth both drenched in reverb gives a feeling of floating in outer space.

they’re horns

the breakdown is definitely the best part of "one more time," won't hear any arguments to the contrary i'm sorry

In the breakdown!?

It sounds like some synth organ with heavy reverb to me not like horns but what do I know. Whatever it is, my point stands: that elongated breakdown makes it stand out from the rest. I can understand maybe not liking the song, but saying it’s fodder is unfair.

oh the breakdown. sorry.

no it is unfair, it's just that i came to it being played alongside a lot of stuff i just couldn't connect to at the time

In the Clubhouse discussion that got posted on one of these threads, Todd Edwards talks about the recording process of “Face to Face,” and he talks about stringing together samples from a bunch of different records but doesn’t mention anything being re-recorded. They may have layered on top of samples in some instances to thicken the parts in the mix but I don’t think it was possible for Daft Punk to fully recreate these samples so faithfully. They don’t have ‘70s session chops and they were working out of a home studio.

― eisimpleir (crüt), Thursday, February 25, 2021 7:58 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I’ll admit I forgot about “face to face” of course Todd Edwards style is to distort samples beyond recognition and clip them to short instances of unrecognizable-ness

But I’m still questioning the idea that the songs that ie seem to interpolate “get down Saturday night” for example actually sample get down Saturday night

oh I didn't realize you were talking about that one! I don't think Voyager is a sample tbf, I've heard the comparison before but it sounds very different to me

After getting texted random opinions about Discovery, I have decided to rewatch Interstella 5555, and I'm already feeling that same anxiety I felt during Aerodynamic!

On the topic of sampling / acknowledgement on the album - an LA Times subscriber-exclusive story about Eddie Johns, whose "More Spell On You" was sampled for One More Time (but uncredited), living in homeless situations for years... while DP have been paying royalties, to a local company that swallowed some catalogue in 1995.

Still so so f***ing good. All of it. Hard to believe I now have co-workers as old as this record!

Rundgren/Buggles/ZTT comparison way upthread in the halcyon days is very otm.

Yeah. Absolutely loved Homework at the time as was massively into techno back then but this is definitely my favourite of theirs now.

Cherished memory: taking the train across Chicago on a class break to Gramophone Records to pick up the (one-sided) 12" of this the day it came out. Returning for classes, training home and then playing it later that night at a pretty good-sized warehouse party where I would imagine 95% of the dancers had no idea what it was.

Lovely memory, I have since lost it but the Daft Club credit card had a spot in my wallet for many years

Great memory! Reminds me of a night Basement Jaxx dj'ed in NYC to a packed room. A phenomenal set of house and dancey post punk classics which slowly morphed into an unannounced preview for "Rooty". The crowd went bananas (no pun) with each new tune.

That sounds amazing, Psychocandles