Daft Punk - Human After All

Rex the Dog should release an album.

I'm not sure there's still the same market appeal for a Discovery-esque vocodered pop house album any more than there was still the same market appeal for a Great Escape-esque Britpop album by the time Blur released their eponymous album. Maybe there won't ever be a dance album that hits in the same way as Discovery or Rooty or anything from the 90s ever again. (Until the revival in five years time, hem hem).

(Possible flaw in this argument = Mylo)

Rex the Dog should just release a cartoon DVD, with a few more records, and comedy skits of all the Kompakt artists.

I dunno, I don't think emotionalist maximalism is entirely absent from the current scene, I mean this is exactly what Jacques Lu Cont is exploiting. And a lot of it's about matching up certain production techniques to certain song techniques - there's a lot about what, say, Get Physical are doing, which could easily be folded back into a really open-hearted pop approach. I think as electroclash's specific influence continues to fade the possibility of this happening will become more distinct.

I've been saying this for ages but there so needs to be an electro-house update of The Blue Nile's "Tinseltown in the Rain".

TS - Daft Punk wrongfooting people and throwing off a lot of the people who loved their last album and didn't 'get' the first one vs (brackets mine) [Chemical Brothers making exactly the album everyone in the world expected them to].

I can understand liking Discovery and disliking the new one [snip]

-- Matt DC (runmd...), January 28th, 2005.

Ronan - I still understand where he's coming from but I still think the analogy is a bit skewed. I think where it falls down (aside from the reasons I've already mentioned) is that DJ Shadow was always a relatively specialist concern whereas Discovery was a big mainstream pop success and the mainstream pop landscape has changed a lot in the four intervening years.

Nice try, Matt, but in spite of market differences, Deadringer did not outsell TPP (which also had 2 top 40 hits in the UK - how's that for mainstream? His profile was also a big part in UNKLE's own mainstream experience way back when), I said ages ago that I don't expect BLNL, or OK Cowboy for that matter, to outsell HAA, and furthermore, the public has not lost their taste for catchy, repetitious day-glo dance samples/hooks to the extent that not only did Eric Prydz go to no.1 for an absurdly long time, but 'Waiting For A Star To Fall' has not only been recently reincarnated similarly twice but the second version beat the chart position of the first just this Sunday.

Oh, and your other reasons didn't extend much beyond "Cut Copy are really an indie band" and "I preferred Deadringer".

Tiefschwarz...may not be all that mindblowing. "Blow" and "Issst" were both heavily based on remixes they'd already done (play the remix of Lopazz's "Blood" and "Issst" back to back to see what I mean), they seem to save their new ideas for other people's songs.

Tim - yes, I initially came back in here to say that the electro-house thread posits a summer Tiefschwarz album, which, along with the Black Strobe tidbit, does negate part of my previous rebuttal to Matt. I think you're on to something here.

Then what are you saying?! That lots of people who also bought DJ Shadow records also bought Deadringer because they were in some way dissatisfied with The Private Press, even thought most of them would have bought it anyway because they are really pretty similar things.

His profile was also a big part in UNKLE's own mainstream experience way back when)

Probably not as big as Messrs Yorke and Ashcroft though.

the public has not lost their taste for catchy, repetitious day-glo dance samples/hooks to the extent that not only did Eric Prydz go to no.1 for an absurdly long time, but 'Waiting For A Star To Fall' has not only been recently reincarnated similarly twice but the second version beat the chart position of the first just this Sunday.

I don't disagree with you here, but this IS the weakest singles market ever so all things are relative. I don't think I've heard these 'Waiting For A Star To Fall' things but am I right in thinking they're ripoffs of 'In My Arms' by Mylo, or are they straight disco covers of the original?

I think what I'm essentially getting at is that even if Daft Punk had released Discovery II this week there is no guarantee at all that the record would sell any better than Human After All, let alone Discovery.

I mean most of them would have bought Deadringer anyway.

x-post Matt otm.

You really don't get it, do you? Last time for real:

While still very popular (for it's "niche" etc), TPP was initially harmed by stylistic comparisons to Endtroducing due to its willingness to deliver something more unexpected, COMPARISONS THAT WERE THEN REFLECTED FAVOURABLY, MOSTLY BY FANS, TO THE DEBUT ALBUM THAT WAS RELEASED IN THE SAME TIME-SPAN BY A HITHERTO-MOSTLY UNKNOWN, LIKE-MINDED ARTIST WHO REFLECTED A LOT OF THE STYLISTIC QUALITIES OF THE OTHER ARTIST'S PREVIOUS ALBUM AND THEREBY EXCEEDING THE SALES AND PROFILE EXPECTATIONS FOR DEADRINGER THAN WAS EVEN EXPECTED.

Now, either you get it now or you never will.

Probably not as big as Messrs Yorke and Ashcroft though.

Or the huge marketing campaign, the usual Mo' Wax collectability shenanigans, the touring, the increasing profile of the label and their star find...

I don't disagree with you here, but this IS the weakest singles market ever so all things are relative.

Right, so this - the mainstream pop landscape has changed a lot in the four intervening years - is in fact so relative an occurence it's not a major issue then? Or it is? Which is it? I didn't see 'One More Time' at no.1. And for all the change you're citing, these singles are doing a lot better than 'Plug It In' or 'Stupidisco' (irregardless of quality, overreacters).

I think what I'm essentially getting at is that even if Daft Punk had released Discovery II this week there is no guarantee at all that the record would sell any better than Human After All, let alone Discovery.

Well, Discovery II would by definition contain some enjoyable populist dance tunes. Think that'd help any?

x-p: Ro, the only people making that big a deal out of it are you and Matt, and that comes with your (continuing) cluelessness anyway.

(xpost - I still wuv Barima though)

Superpitcher, on a very special edition of Cribs

I don't believe the relative fortunes or receptions of these records are linked

Yes, but neither did I, you know?

I don't think most hardcore DP fans really need to be bailed out by some forthcoming album.

Well, surely not - that's not necessarily absolute either, all the hardcore fans buying/loving it, I mean, but the supposition wasn't about them anyway. I'm wondering about the less hardcore, who may also be partly comprised of the Discovery fans, and by that I mean the Discovery fans who don't care for or about Homework (potential Cut Copy buyers). Or! the Homework fans who didn't care for Discovery and may still not be so taken with HAA (potential Vitalic/Black Strobe buyers). I don't claim any of these fan subsets to be vocal majorities and neither do I deny an overlap of fans for all dance outfits included.

OK, I admit it, I gave it a 4/10. Because at least it's better than Palookaville.

(Antipathy not worth noting, really, there's enough going round for DP anyway and there's plenty of BLNL love on the Cut Copy thread)

race you to the bottom!

the reviews and parts of this thread are far more depressing/disappointing than the album itself. they're all falling over themselves to see who can be the first to give it a 1/10 or find the cleverest way to say how gutted they are and we should be at it's tossed-off-ness. i'll be in my room with it cranked and moving my body cuz i can't help it and every few minutes i'll say out loud to thomas and guy-m., "you dudes are fuckin sick! this is some sick shit!"
-- andrew m.

I'm still not feeling this album. And as much as I'd like to have faith in DP, I can't bring myself to buy into the stylus review's angle.

This is the same thing someone was pulling on the MIA thread, though. The whole "You guys don't allow anyone to express an opinion different to yours", as if anyone here is in a position to inhibit anyone else's views being expressed. It's just argument - get over it!

People seem to love the victim vs. mob status so much they seem to fall over themselves claiming it, sometimes people from the opposite camps at the same time, as here.

I still think it's neat, doesn't get boring at all after repeated listenings and I love to spin mad theories about it.

Now as for that falling over to give it bad reviews bit. Someone like Mark has been gutted for months and that's some honest disappointment he writes about. But really some of the newspaper reviews totally read like "oh man I've been waiting for this chance for a long while." Hey, you don't like it, great, but what depresses me is how little effort some make to analyze this album beyond "repetition. boring. they made it in two days. they lost it. insert crap one-liner."

Now THAT'S an interesting new precedent - brand new Daft Punk fans. Cool.

Now as for that falling over to give it bad reviews bit. Someone like Mark has been gutted for months and that's some honest disappointment he writes about. But really some of the newspaper reviews totally read like "oh man I've been waiting for this chance for a long while." Hey, you don't like it, great, but what depresses me is how little effort some make to analyze this album beyond "repetition. boring. they made it in two days. they lost it. insert crap one-liner."

Dude, we're talking about newspaper reviews.

Mind you, I reckon Nate, for example, has made an effort to go beyond that and he still finds HAA wanting. That's a dodgy generalisation to make.

It's true though. Dude.

That's a dodgy generalisation to make.

Talking to me? :) err...just in case, I didn't make any generalisation did I? (I'm going "some this", "some that." )

Some of the reviews I've read do possess a rather boring "so the emperor really DOES have no clothes" air of anti-DP triumphalism - basically by people who think both Discovery and HAA are superficial conceptual jokes, only this time the masses won't be taken in.

I don't need to hear the new album to know that this is wrong obv.

It would be one thing if this came out after Homework, but it just so happened to come out after one of the best pop albums of the decade. Which for tons of people makes HAA's lack of tunes and proper songcraft unacceptable — for me, it makes this intentional. And pretty brave.

(PS: I hope Wolf Eyes' next album sounds like Franz Ferdinand.)