Daft Punk has ended. They released a wonderful 'Epilogue' that every fan should watch and speculate over. There is no explanation so far as to why they decided to end it, but judging by the video, it's quite final. If you're a fan, put 8 minutes aside to watch. When the music kicks in...oh boy.
When I heard the news on the way to work this morning I immediately watched this epilogue and by the time the music started, I was trying my damndest not to cry as I walked through the metro station about to rendezvous with colleagues. Not out of sadness, but out of appreciation for the beauty of the whole thing.
Needless to say, I am a huge fan of Daft Punk, and although I never sat around waiting for new material, their Discovery album is a frequent flier in my music playlist. Barely a week goes by without at least one song being played.
But why were they so special to me? It's just EDM, right?
Stupendously wrong!
I guess I have known Daft Punk many many years, casually knowing some tracks from Discovery; One more time, Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger, but only because they were played everywhere at the time (and still to this day).
Then I watched their album anime movie; Interstellar 5555, and I realised Daft Punk were not just some EDM band churning out safe tunes to make a quick buck, but a work of art being brought into my world where I can not only appreciate their composition and musical talent, but production and character.
Daft Punk not only survived a mainstream audience, but thrived for 30 years. Since I first got into them, It's hard to pass a week without hearing their music somewhere. And I live in China.
Daft Punk pushed boundaries, used advanced harmony, polyrhythms, obscure production and manipulation of samples you could never make work in any other context. Think about it, Harder Better Faster Stronger is just two lines repeated over and over for 4 minutes. That's it. But they manipulate those lines so creatively that by the end it's not even words anymore, it's just a crazy-ass keyboard solo. Who else does that?
To this day, that album is one of my favourites of all time, and every time I run through it (often), I get visions of the bizarre, and again artistic, movie.
Their other music can be hit or miss for me, but that's understating it. The hits are hits to my face with a baseball bat in all the right ways. The misses are, well... fine. Just somewhat safer.
It is extremely difficult to push boundaries in music while still being seen and accepted as popular, mainstream music. Think Radiohead. Absolute visionaries who became legends in the UK for years by releasing a kind of lame, pandering version of what they normally do, and then dragging that audience with them back into obscurity but with a bit more street cred.
Jacob Collier is likely one of the worlds greatest talents in music alive today, if not of all time, and yet his greatest strength is perhaps his ability to make that talent enjoyable to listen to, by blending the unfamiliar sounds (microtonal melodies, irregular time signatures & rhythms, dense jazz harmonies) with those more base elements of music designed to make us groove with the beat and whistle the tune on our ways to work.
Daft Punk were no different in this success. If you actually listen to much of their music, some of the musical and production choices they make are really quite wacky but more importantly, very 'Daft Punk'. Like Harder Better Faster Stronger, nobody else does what they do. And this means whenever you hear their music, you know it's Daft Punk - It can't be anybody else.
But, you wouldn't think about that on a casual listen. You just enjoy it for what it fundamentally is - a damn good tune. That takes real talent.
'Not Performers'
The final value I find in Daft Punk is their robotic characters. They themselves are quoted as saying 'We are not performers'. They are camera shy. They are introverts. And yet, without the need to show themselves and every intimate detail to the paparazzi, they managed to make a legendary career over decades. I for one know nothing whatsoever about them other than they were manufactured in France. I don't even know their real names.
This instills so much inspiration for artists who are like-minded. Those basement-dwelling producers overflowing with talent and dreams but can't make it without sacrificing their soul to the twitter armies of judgement and offence culture.
They just. make. good. music. Fantastic. Then, there is hope for even the most anxiety-ridden introverts out there. That's a powerful gift to the world!
So, although I will continue to listen in awe, it's Awe Revoir for now, Daft Punk, my EDM superheroes