Review: Discovery by Daft Punk

 

Released in March 2001 - Daft Punk's sophomore album is nothing short of incredible - and to me, it is not just my favourite French house record of all time - it's my favourite record ever (period) for so, so many reasons. Across the album's fourteen tracks, the French duo go through multiple genres and influences - in the process creating an extremely memorable masterpiece that weaves between mainstream pop, filter house, plunderphonics (looking at you, Face to Face!) and even some slow jams and fun synth based experiments, while capturing the innocence and playful fun of childhood - and creating an album that continues to influence producers and musicians twenty four years after release.

I think most people that know Discovery are aware of hits such as One More Time, Harder Better Faster Stronger and Something About Us - these three tracks are brilliant in their own ways - even though they are played almost too often (but for good reason!)

 One More Time is a joyous, celebratory track which borrows from Eddie Johns' disco classic More Spell on You - with some wonderful vocal contributions from R&B vocalist Romanthony.

Harder Better Faster Stronger is a bouncy, fun track - which heavily embodies the robotic personalities which Daft Punk took up in autumn 1999, and a lot of people will know it from being sampled by Kanye West in Stronger (we don't talk about that here, though...) and Something About Us is a somber, delicate song with some beautiful vocals and lush production - borrowing from R&B and slower disco records of the late 70s, creating a sentimental, yet hopeful piece.

In short - this shows the amount of variation that this album has to offer - and this is just a small part of why Discovery is my favourite record ever.

Aside from the more popular outings featured on the album, there are lots of fantastic filter house tracks with some excellent sampling (I mean, come on, it's Bangalter and Guy-Man - great sampling is in their BLOOD.) - I adore tracks such as High Life, Crescendolls and Superheroes, as these tracks still have immense power to get clubs jumping through their funk filled nature and upbeat tonality - and these tracks hold up extremely well today for any occasion - whether that's to play on days out with friends, to squeeze into DJ sets or even to remix (the ON POINT remix of High Life is absolute gold, by the way - that's one to check out)

My personal favourite sample based track on the album though, has to be Face to Face. A production masterclass from Guy-Man, Bangalter and garage king Todd Edwards - Face to Face borrows heavily from the sounds of post-disco, and uses tens of samples to create a beautiful song. Everyone from Alan Parsons to The Electric Light Orchestra were sampled - and it took around 22 years (2001-2023) for fans to find all of the samples for this legendary piece of work - I'd consider it to be my favourite song of all time - as it's funky, upbeat, and perfect for the near closing of an incredible album.

The lesser known tracks on the album, to me are just as incredible - Digital Love is a true classic in my eyes, with some fantastic instrumentation, some great writing (you can thank DJ Sneak for that one!) and a wonderful hook. Aerodynamic is an incredible sample based track with a great keyboard solo (you might think it's a guitar) - and it has just the right amount of energy to get you pumped up. Short Circuit is a very fun track with some very jittery and playful synth work (it's origins date back to 1997!) and Too Long is a great closer to the album, once again featuring producer and vocalist Romanthony - with some great production, a very fun chorus and hook, and it's 10 minutes. Too long for some, but not for me!

Overall, to me, this album is such a fantastic record. It's fun, playful, exciting, joyous, sentimental and in short - a perfect album that should be listened to by all, in my eyes. This is why, for the first time in history on at the discotheque - it will be awarded a flawless 10/10 rating.

Rating: 10/10

Thanks for reading this post everyone! I wanted to try and give Discovery the praise it deserves, as it's such a fantastic record, and I have to admit - I started this review three times before settling on this, as I wasn't really sure what to say! This album means a lot to me and I wanted to try and bring some of that joy I feel whenever I listen to it to this post - I hope I did a good job.

As always, keep enjoying your stay at the discotheque.