Daft Punk's Random Access Memories

>I'm of the opinion that what made them unique was the particular things/images they were referencing

not just your opinion -- the whole point of this band is theft. I initially hated them for it. now that they've moved on from cloning Hardfloor records & sample mashup to cloning the production, session player lineups and album fonts of their favorite 70s/80s records, the whole thing has become a Stereolab-level meta-music project that I see no reason to resist. the sight of that robot swaying his head as he and Nile keep the beat -- nope not a guilty pleasure, that's art

if you want tougher robots, that can be arranged -- I like the Pantera & Motorhead covers

http://compressorheadband.com/media/

I do hear what you're saying overall, I have never made it all the way through a Daft Punk album, even in the car. But the pleasure here isn't as much about home listening.

http://www.amazon.com/Tb-Resuscitation-Hardfloor/dp/B00000E2IO

Yeah Dom I always associated Daft Punk with "fashion over music". They've certainly had their watershed moments - "Around the World" and "HFBS" both feel like cultural landmarks, and "Digital Love" is damn near perfect. I don't consider them to be in the same class as Orbital, or Underworld, or even the Chemical Brothers (all of whom have released great albums in the last 3 years, by the way), but Daft Punk albums feel so much more like events. They have that mystique.

it's semi bewildering to me that people rate Daft Punk so highly over those three acts

then I go back to "Salmon Dance" and, even though I'm cool with it, I get the argument against the Chems

It's almost as if they're one of the defining pop acts of all time.

Madonna, Michael Jackson, Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, Daft Punk

people would like daft punk less if they weren't french, just like most french movies

I like them more than all those above bands regardless but people just love french stuff and french people, it's terrible

Madonna, Michael Jackson, Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, Daft Punk

You forgot Chic.

There is no comparison between Daft Punk and Underworld or Orbital, or the Chemical Brothers, or whatever, and that's not a criticism of anyone. Just because other acts happen to have success within the sphere of "electronic music" doesn't mean they are in direct competition with each other at all times.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daft_punk_discography#Albums
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_brothers_discography#Albums

clearly there's no comparison point here

I get being a fan but come on

Michael Jackson > Orbital =>Aphex > Madonna > Underworld > Daft Punk > Whitney Houston > Mariah Carey > Chemical Brothers
have fun with that

(i will cop to maybe needing to move whitney around a bit)

chemical brothers have aged really badly to my ears

Galvanize is all time imo, but the 90s stuff? Have no inclination to touch it anymore. Was never a big Aphex or Orbital person to begin with so *shrug*.

IMO Exit Planet Dust and Dig Your Own Hole remain incredible examples of big beat swagger and contain a lot of the swagger/bravado that I wish more of the contemporary acts celebrated around here had. (I was never a Surrender fan aside from "Hey Boy Hey Girl")

hell, even though I'm not a big fan of Discovery I would never say it wasn't a strong statement of a type of exuberance I rarely see people go for anymore, between the ways the sounds are chosen/put together and the tempos of the tracks

Orbital, or Underworld, or even the Chemical Brothers

I've never really cared about any of these people (ok maybe very, very briefly the Chem Bros)

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Take it to the big beat nostalgia thread guys

otm

huge fan of all the above bands and even i dont give a shit

I've loved and been disappointed by all of those acts over the years.

Except Orbital. Who is Orbital?

it was a popular drink in the 90s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnYFyXDSJT4

Why is there a Deadmau5 head in that graphic?

why is there a zelda triforce in that graphic?

Why is Orbital in that graphic?

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― cacao nibs (Eric H.), Thursday, April 18, 2013 2:35 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

clearly we got another 500 posts to go on a 128 kbps crappy single edit

i spy, with my little eye, a CYLON

lol @ carly rae

the other electronic acts that emerged in the mid-90s didn't have nearly as huge of a resurgence throughout the 2000's.

I mean, I love Underworld and all that stuff, but Daft Punk is simply beloved on the same level as the aforementioned plus Stevie Wonder and Prince and the Beach Boys etc etc.

Chemical Brothers are simply not beloved on the same level. None of their previous releases have been met with nearly as much enthusiasm as Random Access Memories, or seem as implanted within popular culture as Discovery. In 1999/2000, Chem Bros were seen more as the defining artists within their genre, but hindsight has changed a few things. "Get Lucky" has a serious shot of receiving massive airplay on stateside Top 40, whereas the last time Chem Bros might have been considered for this was probably "Block Rockin' Beats."

Galvanize was pretty huge though wasn't it?

I don't think "Galvanize" got much airplay in the states. "One More Time" still manages to sneak in though.

I don't know what overseas radio currently sounds like, so I can't really speak outside of what I'm familiar with.

Galvanize's biggest footprint in the US was a Budweiser ad and in tv shows. Don't think it moved on radio at all.

I still hear it a lot at basketball games and such. Actually a lot of newer Chems stuff seems to have gotten airplay; nothing from Further but from that 2003 singles collection on I'd hear them all over the place. I agree that it's not quite on the Daft Punk level. They get lumped into the broad 90's electro spectrum of everything when they probably shouldn't. I mean Homework, maybe (and even then, there's a mountain of difference between Homework and say, Second Toughest) but Discovery was really THE electronic album of 2001, in a time when that genre was kind of dying. To their credit you still hear the footprints of Discovery all over the place. Still I dunno how this makes them as beloved as Stevie freakin' Wonder.

Further was dope. Better than anything Daft Punk has done in a long time.

the Chems never got mainstream US radio play AFAIK; they were a staple of alternative/modern rock/college radio

"One More Time" started getting mainstream radio play in Boston around 2003/2004 during the pop station's mix show

I can't speak for UK reception because I don't live there but US fans itt are grossly overstating Daft Punk's influence/ubiquity; outside of "One More Time" I would wager money on them being known more by musicians than by the public, and that their biggest US successes have come off of being sampled by other artists.

Harder, Faster, Better, Stronger and Around the World are pretty well known too. But yeah for me it wasn't until Alive 2007 that I actually heard people outside of the usual electroheads talking about them.

yeah the 2007 tour seemed like a big event, not sure how many people they actually drew though

alive 1997 >> alive 2007

not sure we need to look to the US to gauge the success of european dance acts, although it is kind of curious. i see fatboy slim failed to make waves over there.

simpler times

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4M-fulZStKY#!

Harder, Faster, Better, Stronger and Around the World are pretty well known too. But yeah for me it wasn't until Alive 2007 that I actually heard people outside of the usual electroheads talking about them.

those songs may be "known" but they aren't massive household name songs unless you live your life in a specific bubble (and HFBS is better known as "Stronger")

I am not arguing that Daft Punk isn't more famous now than they were when Homework came out but the idea that they are a full-on pop phenomenon when they've had zero top 40 US hits and 3 UK top 10 hits, the most recent one being over a decade ago, is ridiculous.

not sure we need to look to the US to gauge the success of european dance acts, although it is kind of curious. i see fatboy slim failed to make waves over there.

It is when looking at the hype wave currently being ridden by US posters; again, I'm not saying that Daft Punk are nobodies, particularly not in Europe, but they are not dominating pop here, they have never dominated pop here, and assuming the chart performance listed on Wikipedia is accurate they haven't dominated pop anywhere since 2001.

yeah daft punk fandom in the US seems to be a slowburner.gif; weirdly enough their arc in the US reminds me of radiohead, although radiohead did a lil' better on the charts

"I am not arguing that Daft Punk isn't more famous now than they were"

i will never understand this language

i never really thought they were any bigger than Basement Jaxx or the Chems until just a few years ago

daft punk doesn't have to have chart hits to be pretty well known at this point. they've been in big commercials, had a huge tour, were in a kanye video. they're about as famous as the flaming lips, and the flaming lips are famous enough to be in super bowl commercials.

My argument isn't that no one knows anything about Daft Punk, it's that describing them as game-changing pop giants in the mold of Madonna/Janet/Michael/Mariah/Whitney/Justin/Adele/Katy/Gaga/etc is ludicrous. They have nowhere near that level of cultural penetration.

so what's the question we're trying to answer here?

*farts*