Dissect - E7 - Dissecting "Something About Us" (& More!) by Daft Punk

Episode Date: April 28, 2026

Our deep dive into Daft Punk’s Discovery continues with a sweeping journey through the album’s middle stretch, from the ecstatic genre-collisions of “Crescendolls,” “Superheroes,” and “High Life” to the intimate emotional world of “Something About Us.” Connecting Changes Everything.⁠ https://www.att.com/connecttochange/⁠ Follow @dissectpodcast on⁠ Instagram⁠,⁠ TikTok⁠, and⁠ Twitter⁠. Host/Writer/EP: Cole Cuchna Editors: Kevin Pooler & Iulia Ciobanu Theme Music: Birocratic Additional Production: Justin Sayles Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From the Ringer Podcast Network, this is Dissect, long for our musical analysis, broken into short digestible episodes. Today we continue our deep dive into Dap Punk's 2001 album, Discovery. I'm your host, Cole Kushna. Last time on Dysect, we examined harder, better, faster, stronger, the fourth track on Discovery and the capstone to one of the greatest four song runs this century, one more time, aerodynamic, digital love, and harder, better, faster, stronger. As we discovered in our analysis, each of these tracks feel like its own self-contained world, each with its own sound, its own rules, and its own internal logic. One more time is a groundbreaking crossover that fuses disco, house, and pop, complete with an unorthodox two-minute breakdown and a controversial use of autotune.

Aerodynamic begins like a house track before turning to a finger-tapping hair metal guitar solo and closing with a baroque keyboard passage over a hip-hop beat. Digital love starts as an electro-pop love song, only to abandon its vocals, halfway through in favor of a surreal, extended guitar solo. And harder, better, faster, stronger, uses a vocoder to symbolize the accelerating pace of technological progress, evolving from a primitive, monotone robot into a virtuosic superhuman soloist. Together, these musical worlds orbit each other like planets and a shared solar system,

each one distinct and self-contained, yet clearly part of a larger universal order that is discovery. In today's episode, our journey continues through this vast and varied universe. verse, ambitiously setting our sights on five of its tracks as we move through the album's middle section. Our voyage begins with a stop at one of my personal favorite songs on the album, Discovery's fifth track, Crescendals. The song titled Crescentals is a portmanteau that merges dolls with crescendo, the term for increasing loudness and a piece of music, often resulting in a dynamic climax. The song generally follows this principle, beginning with a hip-hop style

drumbeat that Tomas said evoked breakdancing. The beat is eventually paired with rapid, laser-like 16th notes played on a Roland TB 303, the iconic squelching bass synth, closely associated with Acid House. The vibe of this intro is very much in the style of early 80s electro, resembling the retro futuristic sound of African Babbata. and do after laying out crescendole's electro-inspired intro. They completely subvert our expectations. The drums suddenly drop out and a sample loop enters, one that feels totally outside the soundscape we've heard so far. This loop is created with samples source from Little Anthony and the Imperial's

1977 track Can You Imagine. Dap Punk grabbed three samples from this section of the original track, pitching all of them up one Semi-tone. Sample 1 is the first half of the loop. They combine this sample with two alternating endings. Here's the first, and here's the second. Together, the full loop sounds like this. Relative to what we know Daft Punk are capable of, this is a fairly straightforward sample loop that stays close to the original source material. But what makes it unique is the context in which it's placed. Not only is it prefaced by that electro-hipop drumbeat, but that same beat returns as its backing rhythm, an unusual pairing that you wouldn't typically hear from

Daph Punk or anyone else really. Now what Dap Punk are doing here is pretty clever. For the first time, they've combined all the elements we've heard so far, the electro drums, the sample loop, and the laser sense. And because we've heard these parts introduced one by one, our brains naturally assume this is the main section of the song, the moment where everything finally comes together. But it's not that simple. In fact, what we're hearing is still part of the build. The literal crescendo the song title is hinting at. Dapunk R in reality employing a bit of musical slide of hand here,

leading us to believe we've arrived when actually we're still being set up. And then without warning, the real climax hits as the electro beat suddenly erupts into a punchy, pulsating, bass-heavy four-on-the-floor-house groove. This abrupt shift is jarring in the best way possible, like the volume suddenly cranked to 11, revealing a climax we didn't even know we were waiting for. It's such an exhilarating high, a literal crescendo that lives up to the song's title, made even more impactful by the misdirection that sets it up. But Dapunk actually have more tricks up their sleeve, because for the song's breakdown,

they return to the electro beat, this time fully leaning into its hip-hop breakdancing feel, chopping up the sample loop and adding in turntable scratches as if the track is being remixed by a DJ in real time. Like so many moments on this album, is the kind of idea that sounds quite questionable on paper. I mean, why drop an old school hip-hop breakdown in the middle of a house track? But in the hands of Toma and Gimon, and guided by Discovery's central concept of combining the musical styles they loved as kids, somehow, some way, it works. Perfectly. Now I stopped the breakdown just before my favorite part of the entire song, which is the way Dap Punk transitioned from this breakdown back into the main loop. For it, they grab another

sample from the same source material, the Imperials Can You Imagine? This intense repeated chord is charged with energy, a bright, accelerating burst that will propel whatever part comes after it. And here's the thing, Dap Punk saved this sample for this moment and this moment only, using it just once in the entire song. Most producers would have taken a sample this good and reused it throughout the track, but Daphunk hold it back, reserving it for a single, perfectly timed release. And that moment arrives right here, more than two minutes into the track, unexpectedly trigger at the end of this already unexpected hip-hop breakdown, propelling the song into its euphoric finale. Kershendahl's supercharged finale marks the dynamic high or crescendo of Discovery's first five high-energy tracks. And as if offering a moment to catch our breath, the album continues with its

calmest passage in Night Vision, a brief interlude that Toma once described as, quote, a little bit of night, or a night dream. While Night Vision doesn't contain any samples, it does seem to take heavy inspiration from the English band 10CC and their 1975 number one hit, I'm Not in Love. We'll play the two back to back and notice how both feature the same gently pulsing heartbeat rhythm, the same soft Rhodes keyboard, lush, airy harmonies, and a very similar chord progression. I'm not in love, so don't forget it. It's just a silly face I'm going through.

Released in 1975, I'm Not in Love was a ubiquitous song that found lasting success, almost certainly something Toma and Gimann would have heard often as children. In this sense, Night Vision isn't a direct sample and not quite a cover, but something in between, a kind of hazy echo that fits perfectly within Discovery's nostalgic lens, as if I'm not in love or being heard inside a dream. It's blurry and not exactly right, but close enough to evoke the memory and emotion of the original, while maintaining its own sense of identity and sequential function within Discovery's track list. The respite doesn't last long, however, as Night Vision is succeeded by another burst of sample-charged energy in Superheroes,

a song that literally launches Discovery back into orbit. The first half of Superheroes is centered around a single-measure sample loop pulled from Barry Manilow's 1979 track, Who's Been Sleeping in My Bed? For those unfamiliar, Barry Manilow was one of the biggest pop stars of the 1970s, known for his lush theatrical ballads and easy listening hits like Mandy and Can't Smile Without You. Both because of and in spite of his massive success, Barry Mantelow became shorthand for a certain brand of mainstream musical cornyness. Within early sampling culture, especially

within house music, there were unwritten hierarchies around what was deemed as sample-worthy material. Part of being a respected producer was the curation of your sources. A few artists would have seemed more uncool or more unsamplable than Barry Manilow. Unless, of course, your daft punk. Unless the aim of your album is to indiscriminately blend your childhood loves into a single project, ignoring the unwritten rules of your era, whether that's rock, pop, classical, or in this case, soft rock. It's a less obvious subversion than the hair metal guitar solo on aerodynamic or even the hip-hop breakdown in crescendoes. But Daft Punk's decision to sample Barry Manolo is every bit as radical, something that even had to address in interviews at the time. Geemann told Melody Maker,

quote, We just don't tell lies. We liked Barry Manilow when we were younger. Too many bands want to look cool. They won't admit what they really liked. We like everything. We don't care, unquote. It turns out Daft Punk were cooler than cool. cool, the kind of artists who understood that the rules of taste, even with encounter culture, are still just rules, and that breaking them is how culture evolves. And so while the Barry Mantelow sample itself is somewhat simple, a single bar loop over a house beat, the audacity to sample him was anything but. Like so many songs on Discovery, what makes superheroes special isn't just the sample

loop, is the creative choices dafunk make in developing it. And where a Where Superheroes ends up going, seems to be guided by the lyric Barry Manilow sings over and over. There's something in the air. Typically, this is an idiom used to suggest that something strange is happening. In Manilow's song, he suspects that his partner is cheating. However, in superheroes, Daft Punk reinterpret the phrase more literally, as if something is actually in the sky. And who exactly is in the air is implied in the song's title, Superheroes. As such, Daft Punk developed the track cinematically, starting with this lengthy eight-core progression

played on a synthesizer. We're also going to hear a synth playing a barrage of notes that sound like bullets from a laser gun. Paired with the repeated phrase somethings in the air, these lasers and the rich harmony of the synth suddenly transformed this once straightforward sample loop into something vividly cinematic, where we can very much visualize our superheroes battling in the sky. As we just heard, Daft Punk introduce another prominent synth part. This time it's a busy, fluttering synth that arpaciates the estabstapes.

8-core progression. Arpaio just means to play the notes of the chord individually rather than altogether. So instead of playing all three notes of a major chord at once, you play each note on its own. Most synthesizers have an arpaciator function that automatically arpaciates your chords for you. And you can even customize how the notes are played. They can move up or down. They could also go up and down like this, or move in more complex rhythmic patterns like this. Daft Punk programmed their arpacios to play rapid 16th notes that cascade quickly across two octaves, providing a grand sweeping quality that, to my ears, adds to the heroism of the song's superhero theme. Now, my favorite thing about superhero,

is its ending, because as we just heard about two-thirds of the way into the song, Daft Punk abandoned the Barry Manilow sample altogether, and the original cinematic elements take center stage. And to my ears, that's exactly how the song ends, cinematically. Because not only do they bring in a new heroic synth lead, they also end the song with a chord that almost certainly symbolizes that our superheroes came out victorious. It's an extremely clever and brilliant moment,

and I'll show you exactly how Daft Punk pulled it off, right after the break. This episode is brought to you by AT&T. AT&T believes in connecting people to greater possibilities, and they do that through a network that keeps you meaningfully connected to people who are important to you, friends, family, and more. So the moments that matter feel closer and clearer, because it's not just about being more connected,

it's about being better connected, wherever life takes you. When the connection matters, it has to be AT&T. To find out more, head to ATT.com slash connect to change. AT&T, connecting changes everything. Welcome back to Dysect. Before the break, we approached the ending of superheroes, where Daft Punk first introduced a new synth lead that plays a rising, valiant, almost triumphant melody.

Let's now hear this lead in the context of the song's outro, where it plays atop the arpaciating synth and one last round of laser fire. It's as if we're watching the final battle scene in a movie, where our superheroes finally overcome and defeat the villains. Now I purposefully stopped the song just before its final chord, because we need to understand the significance of what we're about to hear. And to do that, we have to dig a little deeper into the eight chord progression running throughout the song.

Specifically, I want to highlight what happens at the end of the progression, so here are the first six chords. Now the chord I just ended on is an A9-sus-4, which, within the context of the song's key, implies a dominant function. You might recall our discussion of dominant chords from our digital love episode, but to review, dominant chords create tension that sets up a resolution to the home chord. Remember, in digital love, that tension never fully resolves, which we connected to the song's theme of unrequited love. Here in superheroes, we do get resolution. It's just not to the chord we expect.

Traditionally, an A dominant chord resolves to a D major, the chord that gives us that feeling of completion. I'm going to play the sequence again, but this time I'll add a D major after the A dominant, so you can hear that clean resolution. You can feel that sense of completion, right? The D major resolves the tension of the dominant chord that precedes it. This is what's called a cadence. But this isn't what happens in superheroes. Instead, the A dominant resolves into a B minor chord.

Minor chords tend to sound darker and more melancholic. And when we're set up for traditional cadence but get this minor, resolution instead, it's called a deceptive cadence because it pulls the rug out from under us. We're led to believe we're going here, but instead things resolve a bit more somberly. And this is what happens in that eight-core progression. The A dominant resolves into a B minor, a deceptive cadence. Here's the full progression. You can hear how somber this sounds, right? It's certainly not the most victorious of endings. And this happens over and over, throughout superheroes. The progression builds and builds, only to resolve in this slightly disappointing

way, again and again. That is until the very end of the song, when Daftunk finally land on a D major resolution, holding it for a lengthy eight measures. In a way, it's the inverse of digital love, a song whose theme of unrequited love is reflected in a progression that never fully resolves. On superheroes, the resolution does come, but only at the very end of its nearly four-minute runtime. With that in mind, let's go ahead and listen to the ending, now understanding why it feels so triumphant and satisfying. Because it's not just that the track finally lands on the home chord, it's that daft punk spend the entire song building and sustaining tension, saving that major resolution for a single perfect moment at the end of what feels like a cinematic experience

wrapped inside of a house track, marking the moment of our superhero's hard-earned victory. The end of superheroes is another example of daft punk's restraint, saving a single moment so it can land with maximum impact rather than diluting it through repetition. Indeed, we often think of Daft Punk as masters of loop-based repetition, and they are. But Discovery proves time and again that they are also masters of these perfectly timed, expertly executed, singular moments. Now, as the album continues, so too does the theme of Skyward Flight. Because what follows superheroes and its refrain something's in the air is the song High Life. Relatively speaking, Highlife is one of the more straightforward tracks on Discovery, a sample loop-centered track that

sounds as much homework-era daft punk as it does Discovery. However, the song's main loop is more intricate than it might seem at first glance. All of its samples are pulled from the same source, 1980s Breakdown for Love by the R&B group Tavares. There are six total chops taken from Breakdown for Love. And unlike crescentals or superheroes, the chops are taken from different areas of the song rather than one specific measure or two. The first chop is found in this passage at 2 minutes and 47 seconds. Here they grab just that first chord hit. Then they pitch it up three semitones.

The second splice comes 30 seconds into the song. Here they grab the word being and pitch it up. Chop 3 is another quick chord hit, this time pulled at a minute 30. in the original track. And now the sample pitched up. These three chops make up the first half of the loop. Chop 1 is played on its own, while chops 2 and 3 are played simultaneously,

creating this sequence. Now the gaps here are filled with two alternating responses. The first is pulled from this passage of the original sample source. Now here's the pitched up chop. The second response is a combination of two samples, played simultaneously. The first is pulled from this passage at a minute 17. Now let's grab just the word strong and pitch it up. The second layer is grabbed all the way at the end of the song at four minutes and five seconds. Here we grab the word love and pitch it up.

Together these two chops sound like this. And now the full sequence. Now it's unclear to me whether Daft Punk were attempting to communicate through their sample selection here, but it's at least interesting to note that they chose to sample the words survive, strong, and love, as if love were our source of strength for our survival, perhaps a blueprint for living the high life. Developmentally, high life is perhaps Discovery's most basic track. And so, with apologies to any high life super fans out there, we're going to move on to the final stop of today's tour through Discovery's middle section, the absolutely gorgeous

something about us. It might not be the right time But there's something about us I've got to do Some kind of secret I will share with you Something About us is one of four tracks That contains no samples on Discovery Instead, the song is built on an original chord progression

played on a Rhodes keyboard So there's a lot to love about this progression And we're going to spend a good deal of time talking about it It's soft, understated yet emotionally potent, which has a lot to do with the harmonic complexity of the chords themselves. In music theory, the most basic chords are what are called triads, meaning they have three notes. Now you can add notes to this basic triad to create more harmonically rich chords. I'm going to add just one note to the triad we just heard, and listen to how it changes the feeling of the chord. Here's the basic triad again,

and now with an added note. It makes a difference, right? This four-note chord is called a seventh chord, the fundamental chord structure in jazz music. Most of the chords and something about us are seventh chords, but there's a few that are even more complex. For instance, the third chord of the progression is what's called a ninth chord, which adds an additional note to the seventh chord for a total of five notes. Can you feel how rich that chord is? When used correctly, this kind of tonal complexity can create emotionally potent progressions,

precisely like the one used in Something About Us. Daft Punk also employ a technique called common tone, which describes when the same note is played across multiple chords in a row. In something about us, there's a pretty extreme use of common tone, as all eight chords contain this same A-natural. Common tones can create a sense of continuity, especially when the chords themselves fall outside the expected harmony of a key. And when they're sustained over eight chords as they are in something about us, they can also act as a subtle, emotional anchor, giving it a pensive, introspective quality. To highlight this, I'll play the progression while exaggerating that common tone, repeating it between each chord. In the actual song, the effect is much more subtle, but hopefully that helped you feel the kind of meditative,

emotional quality common tones can evoke. Now, the last thing I want to highlight in this progression is the chord sequence itself. While it's a total of eight chords long, it actually pretends to be a four-cord progression in order to create some harmonic surprises. Let me show you. show you what I mean. Here's the first four chords again. Now as the progression continues, the next chord is the same as the first chord. And because four chord progressions are so common, we naturally assume the progression is just going to repeat itself. But this expectation is subverted with the sixth chord, when instead of playing this chord, Daft Punk play this one. Now two of the three notes in this chord are the same. The only difference is that the C-natural is raised

to a C-sharp. Importantly, this changes the chord from a minor to a major, and specifically a major dominant seventh chord, which, if you'll remember from earlier in the episode, is the chord of tension, the one that begs for resolution. And that resolution comes right away in the next chord. This subtle change from minor to dominant major makes a pretty big difference, and because we are set up to expect the minor, that difference is exaggerated because it comes as a surprise. Let's listen to the full eight chord progression again, and hopefully now you can hear how

it poses as a four-cord progression that's going to repeat, only to surprise us with that switch. Now, I know we spent a good amount of time dissecting the nuances of this progression, but I did so to make a larger point, that there are reasons why songs make us feel the way they do, and in something about us, so much of that emotion is carried through the harmony. The extended chords, the common tone, the bait and switch alterations, they all work. together to create a harmonic language that defines the emotional character of the track. This is the essence of good composition, writing that serves the emotional experience of the music, but even the most beautiful chord progression can be ruined by a bad arrangement.

And part of what makes something about us so effective is the world daft punk built around that harmony, where every element is carefully considered, all in service of preserving the intimacy, warmth, and emotional weight of the progression. The drums and bass move in perfect lockstep, providing a gentle but slightly funky groove. There's also some funky guitar plucks with an incredible wawa effect that gives them this wet, almost liquid sound. About a minute into the track, a beautiful, ascending, harmonized synth lead enters on top of the instrumental, a part that seamlessly bridges into Tomaz's sung vocals. I might not be the right.

There's something about us, I want to say, because there's something between us anyway. Thematically, something about us feels like a close relative to the dreamy romanticism of digital love. Using a similar, subtly robotic vocal effect, Tomas sings about something in the air, only this time that something isn't superheroes, but rather the unarticulated feelings between him and an unnamed love interest.

He expresses his desire to formalize those feelings with words despite it not being the perfect time and even admitting up front that he may not be the perfect match. Now the second verse is much like the first with a few subtle changes, the most important of which comes at the end, when Toma sings, but there's something about us I've got to do, some kind of secret I will share with you. This secret is then revealed immediately,

as Tomah expresses his feelings with complete and unmistakable clarity. What we just heard is an emotional leap of faith, a moment of complete and utter vulnerability, where something deeply felt is finally spoken out loud. In doing so, two days, doors open with radically different outcomes, one that could be utterly devastating, and one that can transform your life in the most profound way. This is the inherent risk of vulnerability, the possibility that what you feel won't be returned. But with budding romantic love especially, those feelings are almost impossible to contain. They build and press and demand to be expressed until anything less than honesty becomes unbearable, because ultimately rejection is more

tenable than continuing to live with the weight of what if. And so despite the risk, despite the fear, you let it out. You say the damn thing. Understanding that what may be waiting on the other side are some of the most transformative gifts the human experience has to offer, connection, intimacy, and the rare, extraordinary privilege of loving and being loved in return. After Tomah's romantic admission, the vocals give way to a smooth, perfectly toned electric guitar solo, beginning a minute and a half instrumental outro. And yet the emotional core of the song never fades, a testament to Daft Punk's ability to carry feeling through sound alone, meticulously crafting the music to reflect exactly what the lyrics just revealed. However, narratively, we are left

in a peculiar place, because we never learn how Toma's love interest responds. Do they receive? Dispricate his feelings? Do they pull away? In digital love, we understood that the love was unrequited. It was but a fantasy. Something about us, however, offers no resolution either way, abandoning the story at its emotional peak. One way to think about this is that it opens the song up to interpretation, allowing it to function equally as a romantic tragedy or triumph, depending on which outcome resonates more with your own experiences. But perhaps a more meaningful way to understand the song is that his lack of resolution is the point.

Because in abstaining resolution, the song uniquely occupies the space in between, the fragile, electric tension at the beginning of a relationship, when nothing is certain but emotions are intense and everything feels possible. In this way, something about us honors the ambiguous something in its title, that something could be nothing or it could be everything. And the song frees its time to capture one side of that uncertainty, the fleeting, nerve-racking moment when one person finally defines what that something means to them and risks everything to say it out loud.