Picking a Daft Punk song for a list like this might seem like a surprising choice; a bit like choosing Mike Tyson to babysit an infant.
But buried halfway through the dance/house/techno marathon that is their album “Discovery” is this strange little song. Weird.
But then, Daft Punk’s two founding members are no strangers to weird. They are famous for dressing up as robots when playing clubs, and despite being musical superstars, virtually nobody has ever seen their real faces or heard their real voices. Even their names are weird: Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo sound more like characters out of a medieval epic than members of a band.
What makes this a beautiful song:
1. The heart-beat rhythm of the kick drum. I think it might be written into Daft Punk’s mission statement that every song must have a deep kick drum. But they manage to make it sound serene in this song.
2. The yummy synth layers. Daft Punk’s other trademark is big synths. The sound they get here has a bit of a 1960s vibe to it somehow…I could see it being the soundtrack for the Sputnik launch
3. The odd chord progression. Club favourites like Daft Punk usually stick to a maximum of two or three chords per song, so it’s a nice surprise to hear the floaty, unconventional chord changes in this one.
Recommended listening activity:
Making a model of the solar system.