627 Daft Punk - Homework (1997)

Studio album - House

About the Act:

Daft Punk were an Electronic Music Project comprising Parisians Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter.  They formed in 1993, but came to international prominence in the late 90s/early 00s with their funk-inspired synth-pop. They wore ornate helmets and gloves to assume robot personas in most public appearances. They have released four studio albums. Their best-known track is "Get Lucky" which features Pharrell Williams. They ceased to be active in 2021.

About the Album:

This was their first album and was really successful.

My History with this Album:

None

Review:

Ladies and Gentlemen, or at least my one regular reader, please allow me to present the three inviolable rules of electronic dance music.

1. Thou shalt have a beat which is phat, wicked, dirty, vile, and/or kicking. This is non-negotiable, it must be as in your face as you can get. Big. Beats.

2. Thou shalt sweep filters. This means twiddling tone control knobs so that bits of the sound go from sounding muffled and as if they were behind a door, to being clear, possibly then even further to being tinny. This is the bread and butter of dance music.

3. Thou shalt revere the number four. Every four times through a pattern, something must change. Multiples of four are allowed. The world of a dancer is sub-divided into fours, and if you do not respect this expectation, then they will feel out of kilter.

This album does all three of these, a lot. So the beats, I can respect the beats, and there is some variety. They play a bit with the time space, so in some tracks the beats are not 4/4 and not 6/8 but somewhere between. There are lots of bass drum hits and tinny HI hat hits and lots of other bits too. I recognise that these are by and large beats that are danceable.

The sweeping of filters is not neglected. It is definitely the go-to effect. There is another one they use a lot which is an analogue synth sound that goes wee--oow! Sweeping from low to high note and back again very quickly. It's a bit like a beat. And the thing they do is twiddle the intensity of that, if you like how low it starts to how high it goes and back again.

The number four - well at times they break this rule. I was counting. There are lots of fours, but they sometimes use twos, or sixes. Oh dear, but they seem to get away with it.

I recognise that this is dance club music, and I kind of like it a bit, and can respect the purity of it, it really is quite minimalist, pulling back the idea of variation until there hardly is any. These are tracks that you could get lost in in a world of danciness.

But...

As an album, to listen to as an album... nah, sorry. After two tracks I couldn't wait for it to finish. It's relentless, although I possibly might have liked it more if it had been all one track, but maybe not. There is variety here, different beat patterns, and different sounds used. Some tracks are even quite glitchy, and there is one near the end that felt quite broken, which was OK. There's also the occasional nice bass line.

And so, lady or gentleman, I'd like to present to you Dan's three rules for making an electronic dance music album:

1. Respect the journey. An album is 45 minutes or more that is a whole experience. It should flow, have changes and feel like a coherent whole. It's not enough to just bung your tracks together.

2. Keep things interesting. There needs to be stuff for the listener to listen to, which generally means changes. Sweep filters are not enough, thing come in and out. As well as the bread and butter, you need jam. You don't need a lot of jam, but you need enough. Those spoken word samples people use can be great.

3. Don't use too many annoying sound. Sorry, I know this is probably highly subjective, but this is probably the reason I gravitate towards the ambient dub stuff more than the house stuff. Some sounds are just too annoying. 

This album is not devoid of charm, there were bits I enjoyed. I think I can take Daft Punk better in smaller doses.

5.3/10 

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/5uRdvUR7xCnHmUW8n64n9y

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSdoVPM5Wnne3Q2AxosemsThywhraJ0su

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daft_Punk#1997%E2%80%931999:_Homework