Review Summary: This cemented Daft Punk as electronic virtuosos that will influence people for generations.
In 2009, I was a dumb pre-teen that listened to dumb pre-teen music. I was browsing around YouTube when I came a across the music video for “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger”. I saw all the comments saying “Oh my god, I love Daft Punk!” I didn’t know who they were, so I looked them up and I found the movie ‘Interstella 5555” playlist in the search results. The music video I watched was part of that movie, which was the album Discovery adapted into an anime film made by Toei Animations. I watched the whole thing and I loved it. Soon, I had the entire album on my mp3 player. So was this just something my 12-year old self was into or do I still enjoy this today? You probably already know
the answer, but let’s move on.
This album was totally different feel than their previous LP, “Homework”. While “Homework” was raw House, this is more of a polished, electro-pop vibe to it. Thankfully, the synth in this album is masterfully used to its max potential. This album also is able to have each track flow into each other like a charm, which it should since Daft Punk said themselves this is a concept album. But even though they make a
great cohesive album, there still some tracks that stand out.
While not as focused on the one concept as “Homework”, “Discovery” still has tons of amazing dance tracks. “One More Time”, considered one of the best dance tracks of all time by some, indeed lives up to the hype. While it’s not the most complex song out there, the pounding drums just get into your gut and makes you want to get up and dance! There’s also “Harder Better Faster Stronger”, my favorite dance track on the album. It’s the most house music oriented song, which is what they were known for. The vocoder in the song is used in ways like no other song in this track. By 3:18, it turns into this sweet high-pitched solo…kinda. Then there is “Face to Face” which has to be one of the pop influenced tracks on the album. While this may turn some people off as pop sort of has a bad rep, don’t fear. The hook is crazy catchy and Todd Williams, who they’d collaborate with later in “Random Access Memories”, bring his best vocal talents to this track. While it’s slower than the previous songs mentioned, “Voyager” is a really great track, especially with the masterfully used synth and one of the funkiest baselines I’ve heard in a while.
As seen in the previously mentioned album “Random Access Memories”, Daft Punk loves their retro music. This can be seen in this record too especially in “Digital Love” having a 80’s keytar throughout almost all the track which I absolutely love. You also got “Something About Us”: the most underrated Daft Punk song ever. It is my favorite track on the album, and one of my favorite songs from them ever. It has an amazingly jazzy feel that will take you to the most serene places you’ll ever go. It’s bass line smooth and sexy, and the vocals, while not sounding human, will move you emotionally more than any other track on the album. Literally brought a tear to my ear when I 1st heard it. If there had to be a single complaint toward the album is that the final track, the ironically named “Too Long”, could’ve been shortened to at least less than ten minutes. But even there, that song is great, just gets a bit overdrawn in the middle.
In the end, Daft Punk struck more than gold. Platinum. they struck platinum.(can you even mine for platinum? I dunno…) “Discovery” was able to strike me with so many emotions: sadness, serenity, but more importantly, joy. I have a blast every time I revisit this album, which is a lot. It taught that you can find musical gold if you look a little instead of taking what you’re given. It brought me into the world of electronic music. This album will hopefully influence future generations. It sure as hell influenced me.
P.S.: If you enjoyed “Discovery”, definitely check out “Interstella 5555”. You can find on YouTube, simple as that.
Recommendations
One More Time
Digital Love
Harder Better Faster Stronger
Something About Us
Voyager
Face To Face
