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What are you listening to?

Listening to Teen Dream by Beach House thinking: how have I not listened to this before?! It's right up my street, and I'm really impressed with the first few songs. To be fair, it's been on my list of things to listen to for ages, and I'm glad I am listening now.
 
Plastic Person said:
Meat Pie said:
Terrible?! :eek: Human After All is a masterpiece and artistic triumph!
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Human After All is a bit of a mishmash of the gritter, housier sounds of Homework and the pop side of Discovery. It's easily my least favourite of the three, and like the first Justice LP and much of the post-electroclash ilk of the time, the noisier end of it has dated very badly, whilst Homework still has the funk fifteen years on. I must admit, I've never seen anyone declare HAF a masterpiece before, but horses for courses.

Similarly, Meat Pie, there is tonnes of absolutely amazing dance music out there at the moment, I don't think clubs have been quite so strong since Daft Punk had their first outing. Daft Punk have ultimately sort of transcended being a dance act now, I personally see them as more of an innovative pop group.
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The thing about 'Human After All' is that it is so much more than the sum of it's parts. It's an album with something to say about the industrialisation of culture and the failings of doing so. In some ways, and this will probably be considered heresy by many, HAA is The Man Machine of our time. Kraftwerk's TMM, was a review of modern technological advances and how society continually became like the machines that serviced it. HAA is a critique of how technology has affected the human experience.

Let's look at the mindlessly repeated riff of 'Robot Rock'. It sounds distinctly unrock and that is a purposeful joke at the expense of the dying unoriginal machine that is the music industry. What about the album's cold final track which wistfully repeats the word 'emotion' whilst backed with big industrial beats that almost sound akin to hammering pistons? It is commentary on the capitalist take on art and culture where emotion is a function, a product, it is forced and it is fake. It's laughing at the utilitarian culture created for money, not for art.

We see themes of this industrialised culture take a turn for the more totalitarian with Television Rules the Nation and Brainwasher, and the damaging effect of media expectations on youth come through on the album's most ominous track of all, 'Prime Time of Your Life'. PTOFY is a track which hits home about the damaging effect of culture that treats youth as a demographic, starting with oppressive media voices demanding that you make the most of the 'Prime Time Of Your Life', only to spin out of control and to destruction by the end of the track.

And then there's the pièce de résistance of the album, Technologic which touches on a similar subject. Much like the advert for a child's toy, where you would find mindless statements like 'shoot it!', 'play it', 'throw it'' or whatever maybe relevant, the track is composed of a continuous stream of demands, but in this case relating to technology. It's saying that although we have all these advances through technology, we are also being treated like children, where we are convinced that we are being sold something we want, but actually we are actually being marketed to and told what to want. Is it 'Technologic' or 'Tech No Logic'? I also think it's worthy to mention the albums softest track, 'Make Love' which amongst the loud, brash, electronic madness, comes in as refreshing humanistic sounding track. This is the human trying to break free through it's self-created prison. It is the muffled and melancholic sound of us all in this confusing media-visual age.

Human After All is to music what Charlie Brooker's Black Mirror is to drama, and that is no bad thing. No, in fact that is a brilliant thing. I can appreciate that there will be those who do not like the sound of the music on an aesthetic level, but it was undoubtedly artistically ambitious, undoubtedly bold and undoubtedly very unique (at the time). It doesn't get the credit it deserves.

'Get Lucky' on the other hand kind of feels like Daft Punk have been swallowed and overwhelmed by their disco influences, rather than interpreted it into something interesting to listen to. I hope they don't turn into a generic 'pop' act. They have shown not only their ability to create fantastic edgy music, but also contribute to arty end of the music spectrum in a way that few are able. If they do go down that route, I will just have to let go and accept.

Sorry for the long post guys, I know it's not what this topic is really about, but I feel strongly enough to defend Human After All's position amongst the greatest albums. So to compensate for this, here's some music I like at the moment:

One of the most beautiful songs I know:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptxZwwfQj9c#

One of the most disturbing and unnerving song I've heard in a long time:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xUFjl8LzmY#
 
Meat Pie said:
Plastic Person said:
Meat Pie said:
Terrible?! :eek: Human After All is a masterpiece and artistic triumph!
Click to expand...

Human After All is a bit of a mishmash of the gritter, housier sounds of Homework and the pop side of Discovery. It's easily my least favourite of the three, and like the first Justice LP and much of the post-electroclash ilk of the time, the noisier end of it has dated very badly, whilst Homework still has the funk fifteen years on. I must admit, I've never seen anyone declare HAF a masterpiece before, but horses for courses.

Similarly, Meat Pie, there is tonnes of absolutely amazing dance music out there at the moment, I don't think clubs have been quite so strong since Daft Punk had their first outing. Daft Punk have ultimately sort of transcended being a dance act now, I personally see them as more of an innovative pop group.
Click to expand...

The thing about 'Human After All' is that it is so much more than the sum of it's parts. It's an album with something to say about the industrialisation of culture and the failings of doing so. In some ways, and this will probably be considered heresy by many, HAA is The Man Machine of our time. Kraftwerk's TMM, was a review of modern technological advances and how society continually became like the machines that serviced it. HAA is a critique of how technology has affected the human experience.

And then there's the pièce de résistance of the album, Technologic which touches on a similar subject. Much like the advert for a child's toy, where you would find mindless statements like 'shoot it!', 'play it', 'throw it'' or whatever maybe relevant, the track is composed of a continuous stream of demands, but in this case relating to technology. It's saying that although we have all these advances through technology, we are also being treated like children, where we are convinced that we are being sold something we want, but actually we are actually being marketed to and told what to want. Is it 'Technologic' or 'Tech No Logic'?
Click to expand...

That's an interesting reading of HAF, Meat Pie, although it's not one I'm entirely on board with. Daft Punk, are smart, sure, super smart. But I actually think you're overstating their satirical bite. I don't hate HAF by any means, but I think the notion that Daft Punk are challenging the consumer are somewhat undermined by the fact that the pair licensed it to endless commercial content for gadgets and so on. Also, the whole point of Robot Rock is that it does sound like a weird interpretation of rock music! They even play guitars in the video!

Just because Daft Punk are putting out a record that seems less concerned with dystopia, doesn't mean that it's fluffier, or that it means less. I don't know if you've ever been out of your head in a sweaty club when a DJ decides to drop Da Funk, but that's a moment when you appreciate them as something for the body as well as the mind. As I said, I disagree with them and think they sound like old men when they state that dance music is stale, as I think it's in a top state in the hands of people who would likely cite DP themselves as huge influences. Nonetheless, I appreciate the irony and ambition in their determination to move Random Access Memories out of the bedroom as it were. The robotic feel of Daft Punk once made them stand out. Now that the likes of Guetta and such have amplified and bastardised their sound to the point of saturation, what better than to move into fresh air so to speak?

Not to mention, some of the session musicians on the new LP are some of the greatest who've ever lived, and they're managing to not only collaborate with the man responsible for all of the best pop songs of all time, but also, the lead singer of flipping Animal Collective! You can make a broadly appealing record without it being 'safe', is my point, basically.
 
Ah... But that's the thing with Daft Punk, I've always felt that they have had a love/hate relationship with popular industrialised culture.Pointing out flaws in aspects of a commercial driven music scene isn't a criticism of everything that it produces, there are things to celebrate also.

I see Discovery and Human After All as counterwieghts to each other. One is an unapologetic celebration of the excitement of pop culture, and the other, the dark underbelly and side-effects of it. Both albums are right. To say that industrialised culture has contributed nothing positive would be false. They are ying and yang, polar opposites, and yet both co-exist and are both right. This is how I feel that Daft Punk have both been able to criticise and be part of the commercial industry.

I disagree with you on Robot Rock, I think they are taking a leaf out of Kraftwerk's book. In Kraftwerk's 'The Robots' there is purposefully two ways to interpret the song. When they say 'we are the robots', it can be understood in the literalistic sense to mean that Kraftwerk are declaring themselves to be machinery, or that 'we' is representative of humans and that a comparison is being drawn between the behaviour of machinery and that of people in the modern world. In Robot Rock, Daft Punk allows for a literalistic interpretation and the satirical one.

And of course just because they are not putting out a record concerned with less serious and more fun matters does not make it worth less, but it depends on what you are looking for in music. I love most of Daft Punk's output, but my favourite stuff is that which takes on artistic notions grander than itself, and I simply don't feel that 'Get Lucky' does that. That's purely a subjective preference of which anyone is free to disagree.

And I don't disagree that moving to live instrumentation is an interesting prospect, but from what I've observed so far, there has been very little done with it that excites me. What I found exciting about Daft Punk's first foray into Disco, is that they were taking a flavour of a genre and channelling it through a modern electronic music process. That was fresh and new. However what has been done here seemingly feels like the reverse. A flavour of electronic music has been channelled through Disco to a very underwhelming effect. This was already done in the late 70s.

However, that arguably doesn't make it bad, just dated. I feel like I've heard this song a million times before through many different artists. For me, it not only doesn't have the artistic symbolism that I enjoy, it doesn't sound fresh, it doesn't sound uniquely Daft punk, unlike all of their previous releases. I'm sure it is broadly appealing, but it is also definitely safe. That's not to say the whole album is a write-off. I could just dislike this single and everything else be wonderful, but I'm just not feeling it at the moment.
 
14 versions of Rammstein's Sonne:

Sonne from Mutter by Rammstein
Sonne from Made In Germany by Rammstein
Sonne live from Rock Am Ring by Rammstein
Sonne live in Nimes (Volkerball) by Rammstein
Sonne remix by Clawfinger
Sonne cover from Coverfield EP by Caliban
Sonne cover from I Am Nemesis by Caliban
Sonne cover by the Children's Medieval Band
Sonne cover by Ultraliviano
Sonne cover by Silenzium
Sonne cover by Versagen
Sonne cover by At The Lake
Sonne cover by Project Adyton
Sonne cover by Rammstein Orchestra

Can you tell it is my favourite song? :p
 
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