Club’s Joshua Klein thought that many of the album’s songs sounded “so resolutely retro that they often prey to the pitfalls that felled disco - namely, banal hedonism at the expense of emotional resonance.” Pitchfork founder Ryan Schreiber, in a now-infamous 6.4 review, dubbed the music the unwanted “Frankenbaby” of prog and disco, writing, “This beast, however grotesque, is relatively harmless.”Įlectronic artists Porter Robinson and Madeon were both pre-teens at the time of Discovery ’s release, and though too young to remember the negative press firsthand, look back on it with bemused derision. “Daft Punk’s speciality is rehabilitating ideas long consigned to the dustbin of history,” wrote The Guardian’s Alexis Petridis. Among complaints about perceived irony and gimmickry, critics attacked the album’s “cheesiness,” especially its flirtations with soft rock sounds of the ‘70s and ‘80s, achieved both by using archaic instruments like the Wurlitzer keyboard and LinnDrum drum machine, and by sampling pointedly unhip artists like Barry Manilow and George Duke.
you’d never guess Discovery was destined to be a cornerstone of the electronic music canon. If you read the early reviews - especially in the U.S.
Destigmatized “cheesiness” in cutting-edge dance and pop music With contributions from 16 artists and industry insiders, here are 10 ways that Daft Punk’s most inconceivable world wonder predicted pop music’s future.ġ. But to get a better sense of the album’s divination of modern trends, Billboard did flip over several of those rocks. Discovery established a unique, definitive “Daft Punk sound” that inspired a generation but never quite returned in the duo’s ensuing releases, which continued to expand outward and swallow up new worlds.Įven before last month’s breakup announcement, you didn’t have to flip over many rocks to find Discovery praise from musicians whose work has defined the 21st Century. Today, in the wake of two decades of electronic music’s infiltration of the mainstream, you’d be hard-pressed to find another 21st Century dance album as globally successful, beloved, and influential. Several of its singles were global hits, particularly lead cut “One More Time” - but initial reviews were mixed, some critics balking at the album’s unabashed earnestness. On their second album, the duo emerged from their more traditional house/techno background and created something that was as poppy as it was reverent of dance music, as retro as it was futuristic. Just like the ancient Wonders of the World, you can pick out building blocks that existed prior to the alien (or, in Daft Punk’s case, robot) visitations - brick-cutting technology, a disco sample, rudimentary pulley systems, the clear influence of Chicago house music - but even experts sputter to explain how any earthly being engineered the final product.ĭespite four distinctive, groundbreaking eras, no Daft Punk release reinvented the wheel quite like 2001’s Discovery, released worldwide 20 years ago today (March 12).
Each of their four studio albums was a Rosetta Stone tossed into the primordial soup, rippling outward, sending aftershock after aftershock through popular music and culture. Instead, they sporadically released game-changing music and spent the rest of their time in the shadows. (Even if there was such drama, we probably wouldn’t have known, as Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter never wavered from their commitment to faceless, robot-masked public presentation and intensely private personal lives.) Their unorthodox career was devoid of the peaks, valleys, prolificacy, and Behind the Music drama that usually accompanies acts of their internationally famous stature. Just this February, French electronic duo Daft Punk abruptly announced their breakup, leaving behind a three-decade legacy littered with cultural monoliths.
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