The French Touch (Revived)

May 17, 2006 9:53 AM

Relevant after all? Daft Punk are experiencing a renaissance of sorts. Whereas it seemed only a few months ago they were washed up and out of ideas, in danger having run their persona into the ground, they can now claim to have been the undisputed highlight of the Coachella Festival, responsible for one of the most memorable rap hooks of recent years and are on their way to Cannes to attend the premiere of their first self-directed film, 'Electroma'. At the same time, their influence is the driving force behind the new wave of French electronic music. People are even starting to come around to their previously unloved third album. hint: listen to it loud.
posted by setanor (24 comments total)

The only news here for me is that people actually stopped liking Daft Punk! Sacrilege!

And, I would like to point out, they are playing at my house. You are required to set them up. And Jenny's girlfriend will be working the door.
posted by GuyZero at 10:01 AM on May 17, 2006 [1 favorite]

If only I had room for this thing in my house. Whatever, James Murphy probably does by this point.
posted by setanor at 10:02 AM on May 17, 2006

*shrug* I like Daft Punk, and my fiancee loves them. Interstella 5555 gets regular play around our house. This is the first I've heard of Electroma, but I'm looking forward to it now.
posted by Faint of Butt at 10:02 AM on May 17, 2006

Upon review of the three comments above, Daft Punk appears to be playing at all our houses. Excellent.
posted by Faint of Butt at 10:06 AM on May 17, 2006 [1 favorite]

Awesome post. Great band. Superb music. Cool to see another movie is on its way.

Musical highlight from my past: seeing Thomas Bangalter spin on three turntables in a warehouse on the south side of Chicago. Just one red light and dense fog. Truly spiritual experience. I will never forget it.
posted by erebora at 10:13 AM on May 17, 2006

If only they had followed the Cure's advice. Inside the sleeve of Disintegration were the following words: "This music has been mixed to be played loud so turn it up." "
posted by haqspan at 10:21 AM on May 17, 2006

They're the new "it" band everyone's talking about.
posted by martinrebas at 10:29 AM on May 17, 2006

Is that you, Rusty Bottoms?
posted by setanor at 10:30 AM on May 17, 2006

Back in my college radio daze, their first album hit and they did a "Homework contest". The idea was to come up with the best excuse for not doing your homework. I wrote a 20-page story, the Daft Punk guys judged it the tops, and I got to pick 50 selections (including boxed sets) from the Virgin UK catalog. DP obtained my eternal allegiance that day! (Plus their music rules.)
posted by ktoad at 11:00 AM on May 17, 2006

The guy who is Daft Punk did the music for the incredibly-hard-to-watch French movie Irreversible. The music there is worlds apart from the music under the Daft Punk moniker; it's relentless and driving and stark (to fit the please-really-don't-watch-it movie). Kinda messed up my idea of Daft Punk.
posted by xmutex at 11:11 AM on May 17, 2006

Can somebody please post a complete, excellent sounding bootleg of their Coachella set?

Thank you in advance.
posted by dobie at 11:23 AM on May 17, 2006

I'm with dobie. TIA, man.
posted by zpousman at 11:50 AM on May 17, 2006

hint: listen to it loud

And in a non-lossy format. Lots of high frequencies.
posted by Tlogmer at 11:58 AM on May 17, 2006

Their Coachella set was effing incredible. I doubt there's a good sounding bootleg, unless it is directly off the board (which is possible, I suppose), because in the crowd it was L O U D. There are a ton of vids on youtube, but they don't really do the show justice.

xmutex, I am definitely going to check out irreversible. Thanks for the rec.
posted by shoepal at 11:58 AM on May 17, 2006

loud doesn't mean unrecordable. most microphones used by tapers can withstand plenty of dBs. i just doubt there were any tapers at coachella.
posted by StrasbourgSecaucus at 12:38 PM on May 17, 2006

I love the 'punk as much as the next guy, but "Human After All" was so unbelievably horrible its gonna take a lot for them to get back into my good graces. Maybe this is it. And didn't the french-techno/house thing happen about 8 years ago? Motorbass, Le Funk Mob, Cassius, Etienne de Crecy, etc.?
posted by lovejones at 1:48 PM on May 17, 2006

.
posted by eustatic at 2:19 PM on May 17, 2006

I'll remember that night forever. The music and lights show was amazing, putting everyone else that had performed that day to shame. Add to it I was making advances on a girl I had met that weekend, which just intensified the experience. Great time all around.

On the subject of LOUD, there's no alternative. Music is meant to be blasted. I could go on and on, but I'll let you guys do the work.
posted by Mach3avelli at 2:34 PM on May 17, 2006

Yeah, I gotta say that even properly loud, Human After All is awful. (Self link.)
posted by beaucoupkevin at 3:12 PM on May 17, 2006

I know the kid in the black robot suit!

Daft Punk is actually flying him to Cannes to represent the film.
posted by nathancaswell at 3:43 PM on May 17, 2006

After watching the YouTube performance, the album version of "Television Rules the Nation" is annoyingly slow.

IMO, Human After All has some great tracks, but is more uneven that the previous efforts.
posted by jwest at 4:47 PM on May 17, 2006

shoepal: Please do not check out Irreversible, or at least don't blame me if you do.
posted by xmutex at 6:25 PM on May 17, 2006

I have to say, it was a bit of a shock to go from Homework (primal filterama) via Discovery (futurama riffery) to Human After All (meh).

Two classics and one stain on their permanent record.
posted by Blip at 5:15 AM on May 18, 2006

After hearing "Cola Bottle Baby" by Edwin Birdsong (mp3 sample here) and hearing how much of it composed "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger", I stopped listening to Daft Punk and never looked back.
posted by jscott at 3:04 PM on May 21, 2006