Wednesday, July 2, 2008

"One More Time" / Daft Punk / Discovery

Let it never be said that I don't enjoy a great dance tune every now and then. Daft Punk is a duo that specializes in club hits, and they take pride in their anonymous nature (much like Kraftwerk, another electronic based dance band from the 70's and Daft Punk's spiritual forefathers), always performing publicly in space helmets. Of course, they are French.

I think I first heard these guys watching MTV late one night and seeing the awesome, sad, heartwarming story of Dog Head Guy with Broken Leg in their video "Da Funk". Does he know he's got a dog head? Does anyone tell him? Does he care? It was all very intriguing to me.

Seriously. This video breaks my heart


Something strange happened along the way, and these guys got to be pretty popular. There was the Juliette Lewis Gap commercial they did:


And then Kanye tabs one of their songs as the backing track to his hit "Stronger"

They are a pretty unlikely American hit, if you ask me. Still the boys make a damn catchy song, don't they?

"One More Time" is a bit different, it all starts with those lush keyboards that give it a 70's feel right off the bat. The lyrics go a little something like this:

One more time
We're gonna celebrate
Oh yeah.
Alright.
Don't stop the dancing.


Repeat for six minutes. I realize that lyrics are hardly the key to any good dance tune, in fact, any attempt to be serious or put a message in a dance song is sort of missing the point. But, and here's the key, they use robot voice for the singer. I'm fully convinced, and may examine this in more detail later, that robot voice increases the awesomeness of any song tenfold. Plus, the video is in anime, and you can't really beat that either.

My favorite part of this song is the "Breakdown" at 2:06. They slow the tempo down, and just riff over the keybords. It's taking the piss out of songs that do that, I believe, but it's fun anyway. I mean, they actually sing, "Music's got me feelin' so free". I honestly can't decide if singing lines like that is cooler if you really mean it, or if you're being cheeky.



Here's the song, 'cause I know you want it for your next house party:
http://www.mediafire.com/?koy9emguzpz

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

You are 1000% right about robot voice. It really seems to me you cannot go wrong using it. Robot voice has never, ever, done me wrong, and I can't say that about pretty much anything else.
I also like the slow part, although it seems like it lasted too long, I especially like the part where he goes "we don't stop-ah, you can't stop-ah" Hilarious.

The dog video was much better than the anime video. That guy has obviously had a dog head his whole life. That chick woulda said something once he identified himself. "Soooooo.......what's with the rubber dog head thing?" Perfectly polite and reasonable question.

Ralph Dilliard said...

You disturb me to the point of insanity. There. I am insane now. Now is the time on Sprockets vhen ve dance.

THE MERKIN MAN said...

Serves doggy style right. He could have bought another radio from the flea market dude. Instead he kept that piece of shit that doesn't even have a functional volume knob instead of getting with Jenny from the Block.

I don't feel bad for him at all.

B. Mo said...

Mike, the thing with the chick that gets me (and I agree - he's had it his whole life - did you catch the old picture with his Dad when he pulls out his wallet?) is that she doesn't recognize him right off. How many Dog faced people does she know? Is it not obvious right away that the fonkin' talking dog that knows her is the dog faced guy she grew up "next door" to?

Merk - you gotta admire the guy's commitment to the music, though.

y'shua said...

So this is a band with a dog in it and japanese cartoons and a robot? God, I'm so confused. Daft bastards.

Ve dance.

Anonymous said...

Yep, robot voice is great -- i seem to remember it making some godawful cher song tolerable not too long ago. The dog video was great. Not as good as robot voice, but it employed one of my favorite devices -- the slow-motion walk. Everyone looks cool walking in slow motion, even a guy with a doghead on crutches. Hated the song.

Ralph Dilliard said...

HA! The Eej invokes Cales "It's Cher" clause.

B. Mo said...

Darrell wins the comments for a Cale reference. Nice