DISCOVERY  -  DAFT PUNK

YEAR:  2001
LABEL:  Virgin
TRACK LISTING:  One More Time,  Aerodynamic,  Digital Love,  Harder Better Faster Stronger,  Crescendolls,  Nightvision,  Superheroes,  High Life,  Something About Us,  Voyager,  Veridis Quo,  Short Circuit,  Face To Face,  Too Long
IMPRESSIONS:  Don't you just love French musical robots?  Whether they intended it or not (and I think they DID), the album title is always pronounced by me "Disco (pause) Very".  Daft Punk, following up their influential first album (which had a "Chicago House" sounds as opposed to DISCOVERY's synthpop/disco house sound) from four years earlier, reigned at the tippy top of noughties house music.  I was never really into that genre but managed to pick up some of the best house albums through the years and this is definitely one of them.  The thing I enjoy most, apart from the obviously hook-heavy music, is the tremendous sense of humour to all the songs.  I think this album slightly makes up for the French love of Jerry Lewis and proves that sometimes they actually have a good sense of humour.  There is, of course, a load of disco tropes to be heard here as well as other seventies "sounding" musical devices.  The album creates such a particular soundscape that it served as the sole soundtrack of the Japanese anime film "Interstella 555:  The Story of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem" which . . . yes . . . I also own.  Listening to this album is just such a pleasant experience; I think the word "giddiness" has been used.  Thomas Bangalter described the vibe of the album in a Remix magazine interview thusly:  "This album has a lot to do with our childhood and the memories of the state we were in at that stage of our lives. It's about our personal relationship to that time. It's less of a tribute to the music from 1975 to 1985 as an era, and more about focusing on the time when we were zero to ten years old. When you're a child you don't judge or analyze music. You just like it because you like it. You're not concerned with whether it's cool or not. Sometimes you might relate to just one thing in a song, such as the guitar sound. This album takes a playful, fun, and colorful look at music."  Regardless, it's an indispensible album of the noughties.
MY FAVOURITE TRACKS:  One More Time,  Aerodynamic,  Digital Love,  Harder Better Faster Stronger,  Nightvision,  Something About Us,  Voyager,  Veridis Quo,  Face To Face
GUEST ARTISTS:  Romanthony (vocals on "One More Time" and "Too Long",  Todd Edwards (vocals and production on "Face To Face")
FACT SHEET:  DISCOVERY is Daft Punk's second album.  Daft Punk are robots.  Or else they're French electronic music duo Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter.  The album provides the soundtrack to the "INTERSTELLA 555" anime film by Leiji Matsumoto and Toei Animation.  The album's departure from the sound of the previous HOMEWORK album confused and annoyed some fans but critical reception was usually extraordinarily good.  Q Magazine rated it 5 out of 5 stars (a rarity), Resident Advisor rated it the fourth best album of the decade, and Rhapsody as well as Pitchfork Media both rated it #12 of the best albums of the decade.  The album was also nominated for a 2001 Penguin Award as well as both "Something About Us" and "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" were also nominated for Song of the Year.