The Vinyl Brew: Daft Punk - Homework

 Shiny Day Brewers,

This week as we soak in all this sunshine and enjoy as much of the summer weather as we possibly can, I thought we’d have a chat about a record that helped put French dance music in the limelight and influenced many of the dance music artists that followed. It’s a little hard to believe that this album turned 25 this year, music isn’t meant to make you feel old right? We are of course talking about French superstars Daft Punk and their debut album Homework.

Daft Punk are French duo, Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem Christo, and are regarded as one of the most influential pairs in dance music. Becoming the target for major labels with their single releases there was initially no plan for an album. The guys had the idea to just release a series of singles but after the sheer volume of tracks they had produced they felt that they were good enough to make an album.

Recording the tracks to cover the four sides of a double LP, Homem-Christo later remarked "There was no intended theme because all the tracks were recorded before we arranged the sequence of the album. The idea was to make the songs better by arranging them the way we did; to make it more even as an album". What we the listener are left we is the pure feeling and thoughts of what the duo wanted the album to be.

As someone who still listens to and still enjoys Daft Punk albums, it is very easy to hear in more recent releases the influence and growth the duo have gone through in their 25 years of producing music. There is that old trope of a raw sound on debut albums and although compared to the polished tunes we get from them today there is still a massively apparent skill base that shines through on Homework.

The sound that Daft Punk produce on the album is an example to anyone who doubts how good dance music can be. With a mix of French disco, synth heavy deliciousness and vocoder futuristic sounds the album could be the most nineties album you’ve ever heard, or it could be something from a future we can all look forward too.

Shying away from the media the duo adopted robot helmets and gloves for all their appearances, a now iconic look that makes them instantly recognisable. With a sound that seems to keep evolving and moving along with the times without ever loosing that clean repetitive beat heavy sound that makes Homework so amazing. If you’ve ever wanted to dip your toe into the world of dance music then I can’t recommend Daft Punk enough, they are a gentle groove that will carry you along and have you tapping along to every beat they produce.

As we draw to a close here and I have to pick our track to play us out, I’m going for an obvious choice. I often try to stay away from the main track for our last tune but today I’m afraid it has to be “Around the World”. It is just everything you want from a dance album and still to this day sits proudly on a lot of my playlists. As always, we would love to hear your thoughts on the album so head over to our Twitter @Vinyl8Records and let us know what you think about this album or any album.

“Around the world, around the world
Around the world, around the world
Around the world, around the world
Around the world, around the world”

Till next time Brewers,
T

Next Week's Brew

Next Sunday's brew is Dusty Springfield's 'Dusty in Memphis'. Why not add this gem to your collection so we can listen together next week!