Dissect - What is Daft Punk's Best Song Ever? [Season Intermission]

Episode Date: May 12, 2026

We’re taking a brief intermission from our Daft Punk season - but don’t worry, we’re still talking Daft Punk in a special episode of Last Song Standing, the show where Cole and Charles Holmes de...bate an artist’s catalog to determine their single best song. In this episode, Cole and Charles nominate the tracks from Homework and Discovery they believe deserve a spot in the conversation. Then, after the season finale, they’ll return for Part 2 to cover Human After All, Alive 2007, and Random Access Memories - where the final nominees will battle it out until one remains: the last song standing. Connecting Changes Everything.⁠⁠ https://www.att.com/connecttochange/⁠⁠ Visit us in stores and online ⁠⁠https://Warbyparker.com/DISSECT⁠⁠ Follow @dissectpodcast on⁠⁠⁠ Instagram⁠⁠⁠,⁠⁠⁠ TikTok⁠⁠⁠, and⁠⁠⁠ Twitter⁠⁠⁠. Hosts: Cole Cuchna & Charles Holmes Editor: Kevin Pooler Theme: Birocratic Additional Production: Justin Sayles Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript
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Starting point is 00:00:11 Welcome everyone to a special episode of Dysect. I'm your host, Cole Kushna. We are taking a little mid-season break from our Daffpunk season to catch up on production. I will return to cover Human After All, Alive 2007 and Random Access Memories in two weeks. But don't worry, today we're still talking Daft Punk in a very special episode of Last Song Standing, a show I do with my friend Charles Holmes, where we determine a artist's single greatest song of all time by debating our way through their entire catalog, Charles. Welcome back to the show. It's to see you, man. Dog, it's good to see you. And I got to, I was about to text you this today being like, Yo, Cole, you're a genius. Oh, okay. And I'm like, I'll save it for the pod. I am enjoying the fucking season. I'm not all caught up yet. But I'm like, I'm at the harder, better, better, faster, stronger episode at each time. That's how I prepped for this episode. I was just like going through. I'm like, dog, I don't even know what I'm going to bring to this episode. I'm, I am a huge fan. You guys, you and Kevin, everybody, Justin involved is killing him. Well, thank you. That's a great way to start the episode with praise.
Starting point is 00:01:15 I appreciate from the cynic himself. You don't give your praise. I take your praise very seriously because it doesn't come off. No, no, no. This is this season. Because, like, I knew you were doing this season or you had ideas about doing the season before the fans. And I was personally excited because I was like,
Starting point is 00:01:34 oh, this is going to be a new challenge. And it's just you've blossomed into it. This is, dog, you're on a role. Honestly, they're saying Bill Simmons. like re-apex, coal. Okay, I'll take it. You know, like, we gotta finish the season, but. Well, anyone that's listening to the season should know that you are actually solely responsible for it.
Starting point is 00:01:54 Because it was our episode on Last Long Standing last season, last year, on Discovery versus Kidday that converted me to a daft punk. I'm always a fan of Dakpunk, but I rediscovered my love for daft punk through that episode. And they're like, honestly, like, going through this exercise. of doing the season, spending like six months of my life, just studying everything they've done. I've come away, maybe more rewarded than most of the seasons I've done now in almost 10 years of doing dissect. Damn. Where I just, I knew going in that they were great, but I just didn't understand the depth of what
Starting point is 00:02:31 they were doing because we get so caught up in like the glamour of them and like it's fun, dance music. It almost, it's lighthearted a lot of the time, but they were thinking so strategic. and conceptually across their entire arc of their career where they built these true characters that were what I were talking about themes that are becoming more and more more relative with each passing year and they're so ahead on like all great art they're kind of ahead of the curve thematically about where society was going and really getting interested in this relationship of humanity and technology and as we'll talk about at the end of the season really creating this
Starting point is 00:03:09 master work in random access memories that is homage to humanity. And so yeah, it's been super rewarding. I think everyone that's been listening so far and we'll be back in a couple weeks. But this is a show I think that is a little more fun. We talk a little bit more about our personal experience with music. It's not as analytically driven. So anyone that's not familiar with last song standing, I'll kind of give you just a basic run of the show. So we do this once a year on the dissect feed. And the goal of the show is to crown an artist single best song. ever, aka the last song standing. And we do this by debating our way through their entire catalog. Usually this is done over a full season where we go into one album per episode of an artist catalog and then come out the other side of that whole discography deep dive, crowning their last song standing in the season finale. And we've done full seasons on Kendrick Amar, on Frank Ocean, on Outcast. So if you're a friend of those artists, definitely go back and check those seasons out there on the dissecting.
Starting point is 00:04:11 feed. And we will be starting a new season right after the daft punk season on Kevin bleep that out. But that will be starting in this June right after the daft punk season. Hold up. Wait, why aren't you telling the people who the artist is? Because we're going to reveal it at the season finale on the part two of the daft punk last long standing episode. We're going to reveal it there. Hell yeah. So the little mini series of on daft punk or last long standing daft punk, we're going to do this in two parts. So today we're covering homework and discovery. the two albums that I've already covered on Dissect, and then after the season finale of Dissect Proper,
Starting point is 00:04:47 we'll come back, Charles, and we'll do Human After All, we'll do a live 2007 and Random Access Memories, and we'll also crown on that episode, Dap Funk's greatest song of all time. I'm pretty excited for this. This is going to be just fun. I'm just really excited to talk to. No, I'm excited for this.
Starting point is 00:05:04 It's just the fact that you have just re-found Daft Punk, because, you know, not to, we'll probably talk about this more, but like a lot of our history with last song standing is wrapped up at you being like technical, breaking down how a song works and what makes it work and the history of it. And I'm more so shoot from my hip, the heart, the hot take haver. And I think Daft punk we've come together. So, bro, I'm excited.
Starting point is 00:05:33 Should we get into the first album? Yeah, let's take a quick break and then we'll get into homework. This episode is presented by AT&T. At AT&T, the iPhone 17 Pro is your summer essential. Its center stage front camera auto adjusts the frame to fit everyone into group selfies. You don't even have to turn your phone. Right now at AT&T, ask how you can get an iPhone 17 Pro on them with eligible iPhone trade-in any condition. Requires trade-in of iPhone 15 plus or higher, excluding iPhone 16E and 17E.
Starting point is 00:06:04 requires eligible plan. Terms and restrictions apply. Subject to change. Visit ATT.com slash iPhone for details. All right, it is time to talk homework by Daft Punk released on January 20th, 1997. Famously, the project they recorded entirely in Tomah's bedroom home studio came off the heels of a massive hit in defunct. The single that really put Daft Punk on the map.
Starting point is 00:06:53 Produced a couple other singles in Around the World, Revolution 9. 9, Vernon. Charles, we have not really talked about homework together at all. So I'm curious what your relationship, start me off with just your relationship with the album. I think like most kids who came of age in the 2000s, homework is something that I had to go back to, even though obviously I had heard defunc around the world. And I think my appreciation for homework increased the older I got, because shout out my best friend. Elias, he's a great music journalist, worked at Rolling Stone, Billboard, now Wall Street Journal. Super huge househead. Like to this day, we'll go out weekends dance to house music. And I think
Starting point is 00:07:38 homework, my appreciation rose for it because house music is something that can best be understood on the dance floor, the repetition of it, the four on the floor, got some drinks, people are dancing, maybe you take a little something to this and that. And it's just a vibe. Homework to me is a more interesting record because the DNA of who daft punk was and who would they become is all there. You can listen to around the world to funk a lot of other songs
Starting point is 00:08:10 as see precursors of ideas that would be fleshed out and then go on to change all of popular music very soon after this. What was your relationship with homework and has it changed dissecting it? Yeah, I would say coming into the season, I didn't have a strong relationship with it.
Starting point is 00:08:28 Obviously, I knew the hits and I was fans, mostly of the hits and not so much, wasn't familiar as much with the deep cuts. And I think, I mean, it's, you know what it really reminded me of when I was really sitting down with it and studying? One, it was just like, these guys were 18, 19, 20 years old where they were making this music, which is just,
Starting point is 00:08:47 like, one of the most crazy things about learning about their story was like, they got into electronic music and like, overnight, became virtuosos essentially. Like you hear the rough drafts of the early demo of like the new wave, for instance. But that's like their first single
Starting point is 00:09:05 and like only a few months after they discovered and got their own electronic equipment. Like they're just hitting fucking home runs right out the gate. And it reminded me of, but to your point about kind of like containing seeds of ideas that would blossom later in their career, it reminded me a lot of odd future,
Starting point is 00:09:23 to be honest, who we might be talking a lot more about this summer, but, you know, I remember Earl Sweeter saying, like, we got famous off our rough drafts, you know, they were also 17, 18, 19, you know, putting out music. And likewise, you can see the brilliance and odd futures early work. Obviously, it was nothing that, like, what they would eventually become as mature artists, but it was just an interesting exercise of, like, yeah, when artists get famous very quickly, especially early into them, even just making music at all.
Starting point is 00:09:55 You know, you go back to Darling, and it's like those attempts at rock music are rough, like to say the least. Like, it's just not like great, you know, and like you can't blame them. They're high school kids. But then just to see the like just exponential growth as artists and we get to like essentially all of it's documented.
Starting point is 00:10:15 And so homework, I thought was really smart in the way that they framed it even as like always being self-aware, even out of a young age, framing it as homework as studying the greats that they loved and channeling that influence and essentially fusing it with something I think only youth can provide, which is the energy, the innovation. And that's what homework is to me.
Starting point is 00:10:41 It's that fusion of these passionate kids that fell in love with house music, doing their best to replicate their heroes, and infusing the genre with something new that only two kids that are 18, 19, 20 years old can do. So I think it's a great album, but I think I'm more interested in as like an artifact of their career. It reminds me, Dapunk kind of reminds me of the trajectory of like a group like the Beastie Boys, where you have white artists that grow up in a rock scene, that fall in love with a black art form, and where you have to start is, even on homework, you can still
Starting point is 00:11:19 feel them almost being too indebted to their teachers in a way where it's like they're making innovation but they're still very reverential like oh my gosh this is hey we are we are guest in this right and then when you get to something like a discovery or a ram it's like oh we're going to the future it's like a paul's boutique where you go from being the guest in an art form to being leaders to being peers. But that's why I'm excited to get into this project, because I think the songs that we both chose are good examples of them. Just like, you can point to this and be like, already at 18, 19, 20 years old, they were,
Starting point is 00:12:05 their musical minds were still thinking differently than even a lot of their peers in dance music, in house music. You can see the songcraft and you're like, oh, they would become pop stars very quickly after this. Yeah, it's interesting the proximity, too, of like, where house music is an import to France. You know what I mean? I think them coming from not only revering rock music and as we'd come to find out in Discovery and random Xenemeteries, like all types of different music from the 70s, specifically.
Starting point is 00:12:40 But, yeah, being from France and having this kind of foreign take or even experience of this black American art form that kind of just made its way. over to the UK, I think also kind of infused, their take of house could only be something unique, right? It couldn't be of America, of native to the genre. Let's jump into the nomination. So how last song Standing works is with each album, Charles and I nominate the songs off to that album that we think that should be in contention for daft punk's best of all time.
Starting point is 00:13:13 So we're going to each nominate two songs off of homework. And then at the end of this episode, we're going to be forced to pick just one song off the album to take into the finale. And the finale becomes like this royal rumble of all the songs that we have chosen from each album that kind of duke it out elimination style until we whittled down and can agree on the best daft punk song of all time. So, Charles, I'm going to let you go first since you're our guest today. Which is the first song you'd like to nominate off of homework?
Starting point is 00:13:43 So I think it's the best song. It's not the biggest song off this project, but I think to me it is the best. best song. I'm going with defunct. To me, the iconic synthriff was listening to, like, re-listening to it today. And it's so propulsive. To me, it feels like an exploitation movie. You know? And it's like, I think what we were talking about before we got
Starting point is 00:14:14 into the nominations about, tap punk is almost like post-global in a way, because they are French musicians who were first, rock stars who fall in love with house, Chicago House, Detroit House, Black and Brown music that are then, that are also at the same time falling in love with G-Funk. So you have Chicago, Detroit, California, France, and it should not work. It is a bunch of degrees that should not work on paper. And then you listen to DeFunk. And you're like, oh, it washes over you. It makes sense. It's like a spaghetti Western. You're just like, oh, this could only, these genres could only make sense with kids who are at an age where it's almost like their naivete, allow something that, you know,
Starting point is 00:15:08 only youth can provide, I think, to funk, oh, it's so beautiful. There was a moment, I don't mean for you to have to restate it, but I was listening to the season. And when he brought in the Beethoven motif. I was like, oh, that's what I love this. Part of this episode is going to be me being a fan, asking you a lot of questions about crafting this season. But for Defun, specifically, just from an emotional context,
Starting point is 00:15:39 why do you think this song works for you? Like, even when you were dissecting it, were there moments where you're just like, take everything that you're breaking down off when you're listening to it, what to you is hitting? I mean, just the synth tone and the riff itself is just fucking cool. Like, that's, I mean, that's really the essence of it.
Starting point is 00:16:00 I mean, it's just a cool riff, you know, and it's like, everything about the song is simple, you know. And like, what it was really amazed me when I dissected it was like over half the sounds in that song are presets, are sample pack generic sample. Well, not generic, but they were on sample packs. They didn't go take those samples from those records themselves. they were pulling it from these, you know, pre-made CD-ROMs that, you know, producers used to use in the days before computers. And so that was mind-blowing, which is just like, that to me just epitomizes great artists where they, I always think of the, the quote that John Lennon gave on a talk show host or on a talk show one time where he's like, give me a fucking tuba and I'll make you something great out of it. Meaning, I'm a great artist. I'll make anything great.
Starting point is 00:16:49 and it's like, yeah, you hand those CD-ROMs to a thousand producers, and none of them are making defunct. And, you know, so it's like that aspect of it, but just the synth, like, the synth tone itself. It's like it's something I, we broke down and kind of tried our best to recreate it. But even then it's like, that still just doesn't capture the magic of the riff, which is like the in and then I broke down, I compared it to Beethoven. And it's like, which is my way of like honoring a riff that is that good.
Starting point is 00:17:18 let me see if there's any like compositional nuggets I can give you to say like to to give us some idea of why this riff works so well. But there is a unexplainable quality that I just can't really say anything about when you have a riff that fucking good. It's just, it's just magic. You can't really explain it, but you know it when you hear it. I feel like defunct is like the epitome of that. And then like the thing, talk about seeds of something like they would go on to do forever
Starting point is 00:17:46 in their career. when they combine that first riff with the second riff, the busy one, and you're just like, are they going to do it? And they fucking do it. They mash them together. And somehow it works. It's a type, like you're on the,
Starting point is 00:18:02 what do they call it, the high wire or whatever, in a circus, you're just like, they're about to, so much of their music. And you've been kind of breaking this down is like, these two things shouldn't work. And it's about to crash.
Starting point is 00:18:12 And you're getting the feeling of tension being like, are they going to do it? Are they going to do it? And then the explosion, like a lot of people will think of dubstep. Like I know dubstep at this point has a very like, we're building up to the crescendo. You're building up to the drop. And I think what Daft Punk does so well is the tension of their drops are there's no way they can pull off the magic trick and they do it every time. And I even think what defunc kind of teases about where discovery is going to go is that defunc everything from the Spike Jones video to the beginning.
Starting point is 00:18:45 to the beginning where you're hearing the song almost filtered, like they're on a busy 70th Street, and you're hearing the song before it comes in, that's cinematic. Without them overly telling you or like telegraphing that this is going to feel like a movie, it feels like a movie, and you're just like, oh, on records,
Starting point is 00:19:06 like even like around the world, different stuff, you're like, okay, they have this thing that I think, there's no dis, I love electronic music, I love a lot of dance music, but I think a lot of producers fall into like one or, like a few categories where sometimes it's all about the technical aspects of it, where you're going to listen to a producer, they're going to have these presets,
Starting point is 00:19:28 they're going to have these samples, they're going to, or someone who's like, it's just about the dancing. This track works best on the club, four to the floor. What I think daft punk does is their music works on so many different levels. It works on a technical level.
Starting point is 00:19:42 It works on a narrative level. It works on a dance. level, and the more you listen to it, how defunct sounds on a dance floor is not how it looks, how it feels when you're watching the music video is not how it feels when you're just driving in the car. It has so many of those layers. Yeah, that's beautiful point. And it's also very singular in their catalog. Like, you can, we'll talk about, we're going to talk about around the world, obviously, at some point in this episode. And you can see the seeds of that, you know, the base, funky bass line, the looping
Starting point is 00:20:10 aspect of it and the vote quarter, like that goes on to really evolve over the arc of their career. You can't really say that about defunct. Think of their entire catalog. There's not really another song like it. That slow and tempo, that kind of riff-driven structure. Like, you can hear like the same kind of mash-up idea and like a song like aerodynamic. The tone and textures and the energy of that song, it's totally different from defunct. And it's kind of this just, this special singular event in their career very early on in their career. Their second fucking single, by the way, it's just like, it's like crazy. And that the fact that they consciously didn't repeat it, you know, there's an interview.
Starting point is 00:20:54 I can't remember if I played it on, I don't think it made it into the episode, but Gimann was saying there was this moment where after the success of defunct, we had this, we could have made defunct too. And we were tempted to do that. I can't remember if he actually said they started on something that was more defunct. two sequel like, and he said, but we ultimately decided against it and we made Roland and Scratchen instead. And like, that was a very definitive moment for them that would also kind of blossom into their entire approach of their career, which is like they never repeat themselves
Starting point is 00:21:24 twice. Maybe on the same album, they'll have songs that are similar in the similar world, but as I've been trying to highlight and will become more obvious as the season goes on, no one Dap Funk album sounds remotely the same, which is like kind of crazy when you think about it because when I think about daft punk, I do think about a very, there's a sound in my head, but individually when you actually take a look at each album on its own, it's all, it's, it's its own world, its own language. They kind of reinvent themselves every single time. And dafunk, I think, is just like the first seed of that, of like, this is the thing, it is singular, and we're never returning to it. Dap punk are conceptual artists in the same way that Kendrick Lamar is,
Starting point is 00:22:05 where it's like, when you think about Kendrick Lamar, good kid, mad city, what that does. is completely different to what Damn does. Right. But, and we think that we know what the Kendrick Lamar sound is. Like, we both have talked about it. Yeah. But when you actually, in a vacuum, just look at a project, you're just like, oh, no, he's rapping in a different way.
Starting point is 00:22:24 The beats are different. And it's more complex, even though we're like, there are a couple things that Kendra Clomar returns to. I think that book is very, very similar. To me, defunct is like, the jump from, like, something like defunct to you brought up aerodynamic. is similar to Terminator and Terminator 2. Or it's like, Terminator is a very dirt,
Starting point is 00:22:44 like down on the floor, dirty, cheap, horror, sci-fi movie that should almost fall apart. It's all presets. It's like seeing somebody who is, James Cameron does not have all the money or the experience that he will one day have, but he's so technically proficient that you, if you would have given the same script
Starting point is 00:23:07 and the same story to any other director, they would have fucked it up and it just would have been a B movie that never worked. And then you get to somewhere with like discovery and you look at something like aerodynamic where you're like,
Starting point is 00:23:17 oh, this is Terminator 2. This is sleek. The samples are cutting in a certain way and you're like, oh, this is what happens when 18, 19 year old kids are like, okay, we showed you what our influences are. Now we're going to break the bank
Starting point is 00:23:32 and do everything new. We'll talk about that later, but defunc is easily my favorite song on this record. What is your first nomination, though? I think it would have been defunct, but I'm happy to select around the world. I think it's the obvious choice as a number two.
Starting point is 00:23:58 Yeah, I mean, a deceptively simple song with a incredible groove and a now iconic music video. I think I remember the music video more than the song itself. I just remember the Michelle Gondi. Gondry video playing on MTV 2 like all the time.
Starting point is 00:24:14 And just that was kind of like at least my introduction to Michelle Gondry actually now that I'm thinking about it was. And the same with Spike Jones was through these kind of now iconic music videos. Yeah. But yeah, around the world, I mean, I'll save the compositional stuff. I guess I've already covered on the show. But to have a seven minute song that sounds like it's going to that sounds like it's repeating, but it's actually not repeating is just like another one. of these conceptual approaches that you're just like, how and how, like, why and how?
Starting point is 00:24:46 And of course, you pulled it off perfectly. And it's like this unstated thing that probably most people, I didn't even recognize until I really sat down to dissect it. But it's like once I figured that out in the way they're using these loops as like modular units and kind of making new combinations and patterns and really maximizing the potential of the loops is just like, again, early daft punk creating a, hit song, a unthinkable hit song that repeats the refrain a hundred and I forgot exactly how many times, but it's just absurd on paper. Like, all of it is absurd. And yet,
Starting point is 00:25:22 time and time again, they, they just always fucking pull it off. And we haven't actually, are you a fan of this song? I love this song. I think, I think this song is interesting in their catalog where it is undeniably their first pop hit. And even when you go back to it, and I think that's why I'm a little bit like, I don't really go back to around the world anymore. But when I was putting on my thinking cap in preparation for this and listening back to it, I was like, oh, that, and this is going to sound like, oh, duh, most electronic producers are, but I'm like, no, Dat Punk are experts at structure and time.
Starting point is 00:26:05 and repetition in a way where the best music feels effortless, where you listen to it and be like, I could do that. And then when you actually break down the components of the record, you're like, oh, this is so effortless, I did not know how hard this would be to actually put together, where your brain is almost so hypnotized when you're listening to this record that emotionally you're going on a journey, that you don't even remember by the end of the song.
Starting point is 00:26:38 And what I love when you were breaking it down, it's like, yeah, they keep adding things. Like, there are certain things about this that are repeating. Around the world is repeating, but the production of it is taking you on a journey that's not technically. And I was like, oh, that is so fucking fascinating how you can just build something like that. And yeah, I think that is the genius of dat punk
Starting point is 00:27:00 where everybody thinks that they can do it, but not really. because even sometimes during the season where you're showing a technique that Dapun used or popularized, you will show other artists that then did it. And I was like, these songs were hits and they were good, but they're not as good.
Starting point is 00:27:20 Yeah, they don't have the magic. Yeah, it's like, but yeah, to your point, though, like, yeah, that is something that I was really interested in going into the season was like the art of repetition. Because it is incredibly hard to, to, to repeat as much as, I mean, house music is based on repetition, obviously. And there's a craft to repetition. You know, you can't just generically loop something for three minutes, no less seven and a half minutes,
Starting point is 00:27:48 you know, and get away with it. People are just going to tune it out. And I think where more generic house artists kind of rely on the cliches of the genre and really bank on, to your point, about buildup and, you know, release and like, that works obviously that that works but it's also cliche and if you don't do it correctly it will just fall flat or become generic or kind of get washed in the world of you know just become just another song with a drop you know where around the world i think is a really great example of them mass being masters of repetition studying not only you know romanthony or or name your early house artist
Starting point is 00:28:32 but also studying Nile Rogers, you know, or studying Sheik from top to bottom, the drummer, the bassist. And really, you know, what is the heart of these, what is the soul in the, in Sheik? What is the, what are we really trying to do in repetition? We're trying to energize a dance floor. We're trying to have endless momentum. And there is, there's just a certain nuance and craft to sustaining
Starting point is 00:29:02 what feels like repetition and make it interesting and engaging in something that you'd want to dance to and not just, you know, our brains are really good at have it, like once we figured something out, we tune it out. And that was the thing about,
Starting point is 00:29:17 that was the thing about around the world I was trying to unpack was like, why is that not happening with this song? Why am I engaged the entire seven and a half minutes, you know? And then this is the thing about doing dissect is like, oh yeah there is a reason for it it's not repeating that's that's it's literally not repeating and so our brains are always like subconsciously attaching ourselves or you know we just you can't really
Starting point is 00:29:42 figure it out ever and I think that's how we you could to your point about losing yourself in it um you just kind of get your brain gets like sucked into the groove I think the best house music best techno best edm maintains that quality it maintains your intention so um let me ask this though I had a big because we started doing Last Song Standing. A lot of times I'd be like, yo, it's funny. I think Sean Fennessey has actually said something like this where music can be a very passive experience.
Starting point is 00:30:15 And as I've been thinking about daft punk and just music in general, the older I get, but the farther I get away from music, criticism, journalism, I'm like, actually, I think music being a passive experience is a very modern inclination. And what I mean by that is when you listen to gospel, it is music that is soundtracking something. It is amplifying something.
Starting point is 00:30:40 It's worship, but it is helping buoy the worship experience. Same thing with R&B. They call it baby-making music, but when you look at what's happening lyrically, what's happening musically, it's like there's a reason people feel good and feel sexy and in the bones of rhythm and blues. And I think similarly,
Starting point is 00:31:03 Dap Punk to me is not a passive experience. It is like this is music, and we can talk about it with Discovery. This is childlike wonder. Why does a child hear a James Brown song and they just cannot help but start dancing? And what I wanted to ask you is you've obviously dissected Daph Punk
Starting point is 00:31:22 in a very analytical lens. When are you going to have? hit the dance floor, house show. You're not a big dancer, but really just let yourself go and feel, like, feel the dance floor in the same way that that punk, that your inner child. When are we going to get cold dancing? That is a great point, Charles. And I think, to be honest, it gets out something deeper about me in terms of, like, maybe I spend so much time thinking and analyzing music because I'm missing that aspect of it.
Starting point is 00:31:57 I'm missing out because, yeah, don't go out. I never have really... I mean, I used to get that experience on stage a lot. Like, if you saw me perform, you probably hardly recognize me in terms of, like, I used to go, like, pretty wild on stage. But I don't really have that outlet anymore. And it might take a friend like Charles Holmes
Starting point is 00:32:15 to take me to the club. I don't even know where... No, I'm going to take you out. We're going to listen to some dance music. I want you to dance because that's... I think that's the final... level of unlocking daft punk is really just being like I don't care who's watching I don't care who's recording
Starting point is 00:32:31 around the world my brain just get lost in it get lost in the song that's taking me to a place come on all right that's we need the you know what we really need we need the live 2007 tour
Starting point is 00:32:44 I would lose my fucking mind if you're a fan of dissect and you have a show on the west coast where you're just like I will play the perfect house set for Cole and Charles hit us up. I promise I will drag Cole there against his will and we will be answered all night. Sounds actually amazing. I might need a few drinks first. I'm very open to that experience because, yeah, to honor Daft Funk, I do, yeah, I'm missing that quality. I need to do that. Okay, let's get back on track. Second nomination from you,
Starting point is 00:33:17 Charles. I'm very curious where you're going next. So I'm not going to belabor this one. I'm mostly picked it because I think the transcendent songs on Homework are Transcendent and everything else to me is like they are good songs but they are not necessarily fleshed out in the way where I'm like
Starting point is 00:33:38 to me homework is a record like we were just talking about that I would rather dance to than listen to in my car and that doesn't mean it's a lesser record it's just like oh if I was a couple drinks in and there was music playing somewhere I would want to dance to this
Starting point is 00:33:54 I, so for that reason, I picked teachers. And I picked it because I'm like, oh, with teachers, you've already kind of touched upon it when you were talking about kind of like the history and how they became da punk is a song where they shout out 43 influences across just music history. And to me, it's not a song that in the last song Standing Framework where we're like, can you hand this to an animal? alien and they would understand everything about the artist. I don't know if teachers is that, but it would be a great syllabus song. Right. It's a great syllabus.
Starting point is 00:34:42 Like to me, it's a precursor to something like face to face. Teachers, like teachers to me is like them, I already said it, almost bowing down at the altar of house music and, and disco and G-Fung.
Starting point is 00:34:59 They're shouting out. all of these influences that if we're being real, weren't just going to be songs that they were sampling later, but would be actual artists that they're collaborating with very, very soon, which is also crazy where it's like on your first album, you have an entire song devoted to people that very, very quickly, not only would you eclipse in terms of just like the music you're creating from just a commercial standpoint,
Starting point is 00:35:27 but are people that you're bringing along for the ride. which I think is just amazing. But I brought it up because I think maybe one of us might be picking face to face. And it's like, damn, I think the failing of teachers is that it is only, it's a song that is pointing towards something. But it's missing that last 10% of them like, okay, we know your influences. Crank it up to 10. Show me how you're going to use the paintbrushes.
Starting point is 00:35:59 Am I being on, I'm not saying teachers as a bad song. I'm saying it's just like, it's key to understanding Daft Punk then and where they would go. And I more so wanted to talk about it from a framework standpoint of, hey, they're giving us the blueprint. I think it was really important to the arc of their career. Because I think to the conversation we happened earlier about them being white French foreigners adopting this music,
Starting point is 00:36:27 black American art form, I think you can feel in that song and the number of artists that they name and the like the deep cuts of like the artists that they're, you know, they didn't know homework was going to be as big as it was, but they had a sense that they had a platform with defunc. You know what I mean? Yeah. And to very early on shout out these artists that I think you're reading interviews from some of these artists, like that was kind of a big deal for them. You know, these underground producers or artists or musicians that made, had some acclaim within the house scene, but house was still underground, you know. And so to get a shout out on a daf punk record was a big deal. And I think what I love about the song and homework in general and just their approach to house and techno is that they did feel very reverential. They did, it did feel like they were genuinely respectful of the masters that laid the foundation of these genres.
Starting point is 00:37:23 In the same way, I think the best white hip-hop artists always have paid homage. And you had a sense that their connection to the artists and the genre and the culture was real. And it wasn't purely vamp, you know, vampirish or, you know. Your M&Ms, your Macmillers, your BC boys, where it's like, I'm still a guest. At first I have to be like a guest and I have to be humble because I'm in a house that I didn't build. Exactly. And I feel like that for that reason it was very critical that this was on there because it doesn't feel like pandering. It feels like two kids having fun shouting out their influences that were everything to them at that point.
Starting point is 00:38:03 I remember being 1819 and like studying. Who was I studying at that time? Name your artist. But it was like those guys like musicians were gods to me back then. Yeah. I wanted to be exactly like them. I was dressing like fucking when I was high school as Tom DeLong. I'm just studying his every move.
Starting point is 00:38:19 He's a fucking God. And like, you know, you age and your taste gets more mature. But like that aspect of like. honoring these people that have gifted you this genre, I think it was very real, and you can sense it in that song, you can sense it throughout homework. And yeah,
Starting point is 00:38:35 so I think symbolically it's a great choice. I want to point out something that you brought up on the season. You have to, I think what's so interesting about French culture is their relationship to art, you know? It's disco, once again, is something that gets combined. modified very, very quickly.
Starting point is 00:38:58 And to me, it's no, it's not surprising to me that after disco starts getting bashed, a genre that's built people of color are building this. It takes people of culture again, people of color again with house music to really recontextualize it. And then it takes French people to really say like, hey, America might have said, this music is whack now. We love this music. We are going to actually honor it.
Starting point is 00:39:30 I think we can talk about it later, but when you think about the interstellar anime that they made for discovery, to this day, France's relationship to anime culture is so much more nuance and so much more, they honor it. They give it a halo. They're like, this is so cool.
Starting point is 00:39:50 And I think that's something special. the reason daft punk can make this type of music is because you can tell they're not only fans of this, but what you were saying, they're still the high school kids are being like, you guys are gods to us. We are going, like, we don't, we're not sticking our nose being like, disco sucks, how sucks. We're actually like, yo, you don't actually understand globally how much this means to us. We're going to try to blow it off, like blow the hinges off. And I just like, whether it's, they're taking anime, whether it's they're listening to Sheik, whether they're taking g funk or all they're taking all this shit and be like man
Starting point is 00:40:26 y'all don't even appreciate this yeah it's such a weird so i mean it's just a weird song i know it's based on another uh ghetto house song but it's like it's a strange approach you know what i mean like just shouting out 43 artists on a song but it makes sense because it's like if you go back to house music and where it's being created and it's like being in somebody's house. It's just like there is a moment when you're dancing. Like obviously, like this wasn't made whole. But you're thinking about it.
Starting point is 00:40:55 You're just like, yeah, you're shouting out people. You're shouting out DJs on the lineup. You're shouting out the MCs. Like it has that feeling of like, oh, this is the moment in the house party where we're just like, yeah. Shout out my man. Shout out my other man. Shout out my cousin. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:41:12 All right. Beautiful. So I love teachers, but what's your last song that you're going to nominate from homework? Yeah, we don't have to spend too much time on this. I was debating between Revolution 909 and Alive. And I know Revolution 909 is the more popular song. I love the introduction just to the, just to acknowledge it
Starting point is 00:41:31 because I don't think I talked about it on the season, but opening with like the cops coming, like breaking up the house party, I thought is another like little nod to the lineage of house music, which was this underground thing, which was like when early raves, you know, cops were coming and crashing those parties. so it has a little bit of history in the beginning of that song.
Starting point is 00:41:51 But I got to go with my heart and just go with Alive. Alive to me is like just the, it has that, it sounds like justice, but made in 1997. Like the huge synth, the dark kind of undertones to it. And it just feels like humongous. And then when you, like, I try to, what I tried to highlight on the season was like, alive is a, essentially a revamped version of their first single,
Starting point is 00:42:23 the new wave. And a back-to-back comparison really shows you like the difference of like how fast these guys were getting or how good and how fast they were getting good at the mastering their equipment. Because there's a breath. There's a breath to the, there's a, I don't know, it feels massive, you know, and it's like this is 1997 and these synths just sound humongous. And the groove, again, talk about a hypnotic groove that you can just like stay alive inside for, for. you know, eternity, like, I would just want to live inside that song. It has like, I love the darker tones. That's why I love justice. It's because they usually do songs in the minor key and like it has just like a darker sinister quality to it. And I think Alive has some of that. And it just feels like
Starting point is 00:43:10 I just love that it feels alive. You can feel the breadth of the song. I don't think it's going to go far in this exercise, but it's one of my favorite songs. So I wanted to highlight it. Are you Are you a fan of this song? So I don't have a deep connection to a live, but when I was listening to it, we've been talking about, like, in homework, going back to homework, what's so rewarding about it, is like you can almost see in every single song,
Starting point is 00:43:36 point to a moment where I'm like, oh, this song is going to remind me of a future album. To me, a live really helps you unlock human after all. Yeah. Which to me is also a very dark record. But once you get like a cinematic record, but different than discovery, where it's like if homework to me is a very, like, grungy teenage,
Starting point is 00:43:55 we're breaking into these raves, we're going to house parties, we're falling in love with this, and then discovery is like, we're taking you back to the past as children to forecast the future. Human after all is very much like, hey, we're going back to the roots,
Starting point is 00:44:12 and we're saying like, hey, you guys think we're goofy robots? Nah, we've always been human. We've always, like, we're going to, I show you this darkness. And I think Alive has that quality where I'm like, damn, everything in homework is something.
Starting point is 00:44:26 It just shows you that they had the blueprint from day one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We got our two songs each. I got Around the World and Alive, you picked Defunk and Teachers. Yep. At the end of the episode, we're going to force to choose one to take into the finale.
Starting point is 00:44:41 And we're going to take a quick break and then get into Discovery. This episode is brought to you by Warby Parker. A family member of mine was trying to buy glasses online recently and it turned into a whole ordeal. There are so many styles that it's honestly overwhelming and you're just staring at these tiny pictures trying to guess what'll actually look good on your face. Then the price is hit and it feels kind of wild to spend hundreds of dollars on something you're not even sure is going to work. But Warby Parker completely
Starting point is 00:45:07 flipped the experience. They've simplified everything, quality, price, selection, all of it. And their virtual try-on is surprisingly accurate, such a game changer. Right now by one prescription, pair and get 20% off any additional prescription pairs at Warbyparker.com slash dissect. That's 20% off additional prescription pairs when you go to W-A-R-B-Y Parker.com slash dissect. All right, we are back to talk Discovery. Charles. We did an episode on Discovery paired with Kid A in our last season of Last Longstanding last year, where we kind of mix up the format where we were trying to name the best album of the 21st century. so far, and we pitted Kid A, one of my favorite albums of all time with Discovery, one of your favorite albums all the time. I'll say now one of my favorite albums all time.
Starting point is 00:46:17 So we've talked a lot about it together, but for the listeners that don't know your relationship with Discovery, why don't you let them know? It's funny going back and realizing the inspiration behind Discovery. If anyone doesn't know, please go listen to the season. But I, correct me if I'm wrong in the shorthand, is essentially like, both of the guys are essentially like, hey, we want to go back to that moment as children where you're just so in love with music. And it's something where you can't express it, but you can feel it. And they are, they're taking everything from rock music and electronic music, but also old anime that they were watching a TV shows. originally. They wanted to make this as a movie. And even as a kid, even though I didn't have any of that
Starting point is 00:47:10 context, I remember the first time I saw the video for like one more time. I was at when we still had, people still went to malls. My parents were on vacation. We passed to Sam Goody. And I just heard the music and I saw the video and I saw these blue anime people. And I did not have, I had reference, but I have seen anime before. I've heard the song before. But, there was something so innocent about it where I could not help a dance. I could not help a beat. Like, just in trance.
Starting point is 00:47:42 I was transported. And obviously, I chose it for last album standing because I was like, I think going back to the effortless quality of daft punk, sometimes I feel like people are like, well, they're just goofy. They're playing robots. And I'm like, no, no, no, no.
Starting point is 00:47:58 They're not goofy. All of this is intentional. All of this is almost trying to get you back in touch with the innocent part of listening and dancing to music. And that's why I love this record, because that's how I approach music criticism, where even before I start, like, dissecting the lyrics or getting into everything, I'm like, how does this hit me?
Starting point is 00:48:17 Like, if I was a child listening to this, if I played this for my five-year-old self, what would be my first reaction? But for you, what would, like, can we actually go into? Like, what was your relationship with that punk? Like, if we're going back to you, were you above it? Did you like them? Did you understand them? What like what was your actual connection?
Starting point is 00:48:37 Yeah, I was late to the scene. I want to say obviously I knew one more time and I think I've probably made a lot of my judgments just based on knowing that one song and not being familiar with anything else, maybe around the world. But I didn't really get into them until want to say Kanye stronger was, you know, like probably a lot of people. Yeah. You're just kind of reminded of like, oh yeah, daft punk exists. And then I checked out Human After All. And that was actually the album that I really listened to a lot when I first really got into Daft Punk was through Human After All. Ironically enough, it being kind of their least popular work.
Starting point is 00:49:18 But I actually remember really liking that album at the time. I love that album. Yeah. I don't think it's their best album, but it's a great album. I really enjoy it. And so I was like many people kind of returning to their older. music, but I would say even then, like it didn't quite click, especially now how I feel about them now. I think this last year of my life has been, I'm not sure I've developed a deeper
Starting point is 00:49:43 relationship with a band's catalog more than I have daf punks in the last 10, 15 years, you know, because it's exists. I remember random access memories. I remember really listening to that album right when it came out too. But in terms of homework and especially discovery, Yeah, I don't think I've fallen more in love with an older album than Discovery, like, in recent memory for me. Like, to the point where Discovery is, like, in my top 10 of all time albums, which is, like, kind of crazy because it's like a late entry and it was made in 2001. But this album, as I've been trying to convey through the season, is like a fucking masterpiece. Like, yeah. And I think it's like all great albums has just become better with age.
Starting point is 00:50:32 because I can't really speak to the experience of it in the moment. I don't know if you can or if you can remember. But it still sounds so fresh and new. It doesn't sound of its era, which I think we've talked a lot about with some of the classic albums that we've covered on the show where it's like you put on Discovery and it doesn't sound like 2001. It could have been released today and you wouldn't think twice about it. There's nothing that's aging it.
Starting point is 00:50:57 It only still sounds like the future. And it has a moment. after fucking moment on this album is just like, some of the best music I have ever heard in my life. Just I'm not even exaggerating. It is like such an incredible album. Before we get to nominations, I want to ask you something really quick
Starting point is 00:51:17 because listening to the season, listening to a lot of your breakdowns, it was funny where the reason I brought up, a lot of people maybe thinking daft punk is like goofy or childish or hearing like around the world and being like, I get it, you know? Right. I think actually daft punk is very, very good at taking musical moments from history
Starting point is 00:51:40 that have almost been written off. I'm not saying that they heard Cher and we're like, we're using Autotune now. I'm not saying it's that clear of a jump. I'm saying for them, they can hear Autotune and be like, you think that this is a cheesy effect. There's something corny about it. We're actually going to use it in a way that is going to, just open up your mind.
Starting point is 00:52:04 We're going to show you that this is just a tool. I think similarly, you compared the guitarist solo on aerodynamic to like Eddie Van Halen, right? Where I think they did. And I was like, oh, what's funny about that is, yeah, you think about Van Halen, you think about guitar, so it's like,
Starting point is 00:52:23 this is kind of corny. This is kind of like, you get to a point where like this is overused. But there's something about hearing a guitar solo as a kid where you're like, this is the coolest thing. ever. And I think there's a reason why Kanye would sample stronger because I think Kanye to me is also a similar artist where 808 and Heartbreak is a perfect example. He's like, oh, y'all think Autotune is just
Starting point is 00:52:44 T-Pain shit. I'm going to show you that just with a little turn of the dial, I can make this into something that is a lot more refined than you think it is. And I love T-Pain. But yeah, we can get into nominations, but I want to shout out Daft's ability to recontextualize stuff that you would just think. is like corny and beneath you as a music listener. Well, that, but, and I think that speaks to like the punk and daft punk, which is them always going against the grain. Like, we'll talk about it when it gets a random access memory, but it was like, they created that album during the explosion of EDM when everyone in the, everyone in the music business
Starting point is 00:53:20 would have said, come out with your most discovery-like album. This is the time. You're going to be the kings of EDM. Like, you're going to be bigger than fucking Michael Jackson if you do this right. It was all laid out for them. And then what do they do? They do the fucking Tron soundtrack, and they do random access memories,
Starting point is 00:53:36 which is not EDM and all. They deliberately go against making music on computers. Yeah. And it's like, they've done that in their entire career. It's like, we're not making defunct part two. We're not making homework part two. We're not going to make discovery part two. It's like, we're going to take what's in,
Starting point is 00:53:52 like, whether it's something that you think is cheesy, we'll make cool. And what you think is cool, we're going to, we think is cheesy. You know, and I think they've had that punkish quality. in their own way throughout their entire career in the same vein as a Kanye. I think that's a great comp.
Starting point is 00:54:07 Okay, so let's get into the nominations. Again, we're going to do two songs each off the album. I think this is going to be a harder exercise than homework. So I'm curious where you're going first. So I picked one song that is like I had to have it. It's my favorite. But I'm going to start with one where this, it's going to be hard to beat this song just because one more time,
Starting point is 00:54:31 is arguably, I think Get Lucky might be technically on a commercial level bigger, but I still think One More Time is their song. It's a pop masterpiece. I think One More Time to me is just around the world on steroids. It is them fully embracing the pop inclinations that they have. And I don't mean pop as a genre. I mean pop as almost an ethos. where I think what's so important about discussing discovery
Starting point is 00:55:10 is it's artist, this is a lean project. There's so much going on. When you're breaking it down, you're breaking down hundreds of elements. But when you hear it all at once, it's seamless. It's like a samurai drawing a fucking sword. To be one more time is that it is technically perfect. And it also illustrates something to me
Starting point is 00:55:33 where it's like you take more spellings, on you, which to me isn't that genius of a pick for a sample, but it's like they take the most infectious part of the song. The most infectious part. Like as a kid, if you hear this, you're just like, what? Like the dopamine rush you have. And they're almost like, we're going to make the icing the best fucking icing on a cake ever had. But I'm going to, I'm going to fan out right now because I wanted to ask you something. I think it was on this episode, you were talking about the brilliance of dapp punk as samplers. And you said something to the effect of like,
Starting point is 00:56:10 that's almost something that you can't dissect, which is how do, like, the best producers that we know can hear something. And they're just like, oh, I'm going to use that. Jay-Z was recently interviewed by the New York Times for their greatest American songwriters of the 21st century. Jay-Z was saying something to the effect of he's like, yo, Beyonce actually, I, think loves being a producer more than a songwriter. Like, we can be out at dinner and she can hear a song and she can hear the drums.
Starting point is 00:56:44 And months, years later, I will hear her sample it in a way where I was like, oh, she heard something in the song that I would have never, ever picked up on. And to me, that is the brilliance of dapp punk where they're not just hearing the cool part of the song. They're just like, we're going to take this little bit. And you're almost never going to realize what we did with it. So to you, I want to ask, just on an emotional level, what's that like for you when you're listening to an artist where you're like, in a thousand years, I would have never sampled it in this way? That is the magic of Dap Funk.
Starting point is 00:57:20 That is the magic of sampling. I think that's really, you can teach sampling through this song in a lot of ways because the best samples are transformative. And like, you listen to the excerpt that they sampled. and it's cool, but it's cooler when DaFunk use it. It's like, and the best samplers, best producers,
Starting point is 00:57:41 to your point are tastemakers, our curators. There's a curation element of sampling where I'm going to hear something that you don't, in the same way the stylist puts together combinations of clothes that you would never have met,
Starting point is 00:57:53 never even thought to work, right? Yeah. And so there's a reason why DaFunk can hear more spell on you and make one more time. There's also a reason, reason they built a pyramid stage show and made it look so fucking cool.
Starting point is 00:58:08 It's another, it's the same reason that they said, I want to be robots and they made him look like the fucking coolest robots that you could ever have thought of. It's like, anything that we're going to do, we have the taste. We are the curators. We know what's cool. We know how to execute it. And I think that's where the best producers and daf punk among them, they have the taste and they have the technical expertise to execute the vision where.
Starting point is 00:58:33 And I think that's, that's, I wish I had a little bit more information about how they worked because the sense that I get about them, but I can't say it like 100% with authority is that Tomas seems to be clearly like the technical virtuosic. I'm the guy touching the buttons on the sampler. And that's, that's way easier to appreciate and talk about than something that I think Gimon from all the sources that I read brings to the table, which is some technical. expertise, but everyone talks about how good his taste is. And that's the thing where it's like, yeah, when I'm dissecting, I can't just say like, oh, yeah, and then Gimon came in and was like, that sounds good, or like, let's repeat that three times, not four, or whatever he, whatever he does, I don't know. It's much more easier to say, well, Tomah probably did this on the compressor, yada, yada, yada, like, there's a, there's the, and again, all the greatest sample-based
Starting point is 00:59:30 producers have this effect. And I think it comes from Gimon, which is, this taste level and just the ability to say that's cool, that's not, or that could be cool, but we have to do it this way. Maybe I need Toma to help me execute that vision, but I've got the vision in the same way that, again, Akonje maybe doesn't have the technical expertise, but he'll bring in the right people to execute the thing that only he could have saw. I think what makes Daftunk such a great historic combination is it's the same with Lennon McCartney.
Starting point is 01:00:01 It's the same as Johnny Greenwood and Tom York, name your famous duo in history. They compliment each other so well. And I think Toma brings technical execution, giving them the ability to execute at the highest level of their ideas. But I think Geiman brought that ineffable taste quality that you can't quite talk about or define that you hear in a song like one more time, where it's just like, yeah, every time I hear the intro of one more time, it sounds magical. It sounds like it warms me up in my soul.
Starting point is 01:00:30 You know what I mean? I think that's what I came to appreciate about this song that I didn't so much like in the moment because it was overplayed and I didn't have association with who they were or any context around the song at all. And what I've really come to appreciate about the song is that quality of it. You saw it in like, did you see the viral clips that are going around with Toma and Fredigan set? Yes. Where they played one more time as the closer and you just, the whole fucking room lights up and was like the guy, there's a shot of the guy that just like he was about to cry. like this is the best moment of my life and it's like it has that quality even if you don't like the song you like the fucking song
Starting point is 01:01:06 so now I have to ask though one more time I was conflicted because I was like I feel like I have to pick it for the exercise but I could not answer I'm like is one more time still overrated
Starting point is 01:01:22 is it perfectly rated or is it underrated because going back I was like damn Even if this isn't my favorite song off the project, I can understand why this is the one where, to your point, people in 2026 can be listening to it. And it just brings tears your eye,
Starting point is 01:01:44 being surrounded by people. One more. Yeah. You can't deny it. That's the thing. You just can't deny it. And then the breakdown is genius. It's like two-minute breakdown built-in-on.
Starting point is 01:01:57 Oh, you're going to be in a wreck. It's, yeah, and they stretch that out more than you've ever possibly could, should, or, you know, and they pull it off. And it's like, and then to me, it's like, oh, they built in an encore in a song about being an encore. Like, there's a literal encore because they take away the music for so long. So when it comes back, you're like, oh, yeah, this feels really good. It feels like an encore. And then, like, I really love, I talked about on the show, but, like, I got to acknowledge it in this conversation. Like, to have Romantony be the voice of this generational anthem is so cool. cool because he was like still is an underground dude you know and he was one of the innovators of underground house music and really brought that soul and emotion to the genre in a way that no one else was doing at the time and so to hit again to honor that legend to pluck him out of history to bring him on a song like this and then lead lead your your second album your hyped album with that single with that voice like symbolically to me is just like so cool it's it's we're going to talk about it when we talk about RAM,
Starting point is 01:02:59 but it's like, to your point, master curators, where it's like people, you can hear Julian Casablancus on RAM and you're like, what the fuck is the center from the strokes working with tap punk? But when you think about, is this it?
Starting point is 01:03:14 And discovery and them being made in a very, like in a very close vacuum where it's like, I would say the strokes are closer to peers with tap punk. You could see those guys being like, oh, we're going to take Julian, we're going to take Feral. We're going to take people who are contemporaries and we're going to remix them
Starting point is 01:03:32 to show how they're still part of a foundation of music. And I think pulling someone like Romantany in is being like, yo, we know what makes this guy like a god to us. We know what makes him cool.
Starting point is 01:03:48 We're going to prove to the world. You have no idea. Because it's something ineffable. It's something you can't explain about when you honor, I think Ken, like, we bring up Kendrick a lot, Kendrick or Frank or all of these transformate, Beyonce, are very good at this
Starting point is 01:04:03 where it's like, I'm going to collaborate with someone who's a part of the history of this. So even if you're like a white kid growing up in the middle of the country and you don't know that it's authentic, your spirit, you can feel it's authentic. You hear Romantany.
Starting point is 01:04:19 You're like, even if you don't know the history, you're like, this voice is authentic. He is the core of what they're doing. That's why I feel like you just have to honor one more time in this exercise. Yeah, that's a great point about feeling. Because how many like EDM anthems came out in the mid to late 2000s? You know what I mean? And how many of those songs lasted?
Starting point is 01:04:40 Yeah. But one more time was written 2001 and it's the one song that stuck. That's the one. It's not a novelty record. A bunch of those records because it's funny. Like you keep during, I love when you're during the season playing. different songs around the time because I was just like, no, these songs aren't bad,
Starting point is 01:04:59 but a lot of these did become novelty songs. Yeah. Where one more time never did. Yeah. One more time doesn't sound of its era, but it can represent that same era. You know what I mean? Like, it could be that generational EDM anthem,
Starting point is 01:05:12 even though it's technically not. And that's just the magic quality of it. And that's something you can feel. There's an authenticity that you just can't define, but you feel it to your point. So this is great, I'm like more hyped about this song than I thought it would be actually. I was like, yeah, we got to have to choose it.
Starting point is 01:05:29 Like, let's, let's honor it. But like, I kind of talk myself into it a little bit there. All right. So what's your first, what's your first pick? Okay. Well, my favorite song, we have the same favorite song on this, I think, on this project. Yes. And I don't think it was your favorite song when we first talked about it.
Starting point is 01:05:50 I want to say harder, better, faster, stronger was your favorite song. No. No, it never was. Okay. Because are you going to pick that one? Because there's actually the two songs that I think, because we kind of had to game this out a little bit more than past seasons, there's two songs that I actually think
Starting point is 01:06:07 are the best songs on this project. Harder, better, faster, stronger to me is like one more time. And like, we have to talk about it. Even as the years go on, I'm like, this ain't the real joints on this. Well, I'll nominate though, because, yeah, to your point, you picked one more time as kind of like,
Starting point is 01:06:25 we have to talk about it then i'll i'll pick harder better faster stronger brilliant song i prefer this song more than one more time personally um i think it represents everything i mean again it's a singular song that they never returned to there's not another song like it in their catalog it's the introduction of the true daft punk vote quarter voice that we kind of associate with them you know this is the defining moment of that particular vote quarter sound that they do. I think they're the best vote quarter users in history. And I think this song proves that. Like the way technically that they fucking use the song as an instrument and play a solo,
Starting point is 01:07:17 like a funky solo that's like, but they maintain the harder, better, faster, stronger lyrics. But they somehow get like washed out because the technical, you know, what's going on technically, musically, like doesn't fit the syllables anymore, but they're just kind of cramming it in to this, like, brilliant solo, just using it a vocoder in a way
Starting point is 01:07:36 that no one else had to that point. And the way that the song progresses is just so brilliant. I try the highlight on the episode, but just like, the fact that they could think of, like, we're going to create this iconic, memorable melody, but space it out, like, kind of slow play it, where it's like, you're only getting the, the little syllables in the beginning.
Starting point is 01:07:59 And as the song progresses, you're getting a little bit more, and then the pieces start to fit together a little bit more. And by the end, it's like, you prepare the end to the beginning, and, like, they're worlds away from each other. And it's just been this slow evolution from, like, primitive, monotone, robot voice to fully expressive solo, masterful solo over a disco sample. Just like, we've just never heard anything like this.
Starting point is 01:08:24 It's catchy, catchy enough to build a, entire hip-hop anthem on and Kanye's stronger. It has, I don't know, it's a brilliant song. It combines worlds in a way that only Daft Punk do. I don't know if we're going to talk about aerodynamic and why they're going to nominate us, but it's like, it has that quality, the mash-up quality again, where it's like,
Starting point is 01:08:44 it starts out disco, super disco, loop-based, and then by the end, you're in a totally different place where it's like less disco and more robotic, yet the magic trick is how they evolved the song from how they make that change over time, you know. So what do you love about this song?
Starting point is 01:09:04 So I wanted to make sure on this episode we talk about how, I think the reason that we paired discovering KDA was we take for granted how much just the proliferation of computers and the internet rewired how we consume art and how because music was becoming easier to access and all art, so much of it became almost a scrapbook. You know, you get the rise of things like Tumblr, you get the rise of Instagram,
Starting point is 01:09:41 you have people mashing things together that I'm not saying we're never mashed together before. It was just like our consciousness, humanity, I'm getting very, like tin-fold tat, was expanding artistically. And when you listen to something like harder, better, faster, stronger, it is a moment that perfectly to me encapsulates that 21st century feeling of everything is getting harder, better, faster, stronger.
Starting point is 01:10:09 It's like at light speed. And Dapuck is ahead of the curve at this point. They're predicting things that they're not even experiencing yet. And that's why I love this song. But what I want to ask you is the Kanye sample, I think is both one of the best things that happens to daft punk in the second half of the career, but it comes at the expense of Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger as a song, where I think Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger is way better than the Kanye song,
Starting point is 01:10:44 but the Kanye song helps re-contextualize Daft Punk for a new audience. It actually, it's Kanye doing what he does a lot of times where it's just like, hey, I know Daft Punk is huge, and Daft Punk didn't need his co-sign. But I think he was able to be like, hey, Da Punk isn't just huge. Actually, they're like gods. And I'm going to use them in a song and I'm going to make this pop hit.
Starting point is 01:11:06 And then we get everything that happens after with them. But now when I listen to Heart a Better, faster, strong, I'm like, I almost know it too well. It's one of those hits where I'm like, damn, it's not as surprising as it was. Right. Even like 20 years ago to me. Is that, am I making any sense in terms of like
Starting point is 01:11:24 how your relationship to a relationship to a lot? song can change if it gets too big. Yeah, I think, well, for a long time, I couldn't hear Hard, a Better, Faster, Stronger without Stronger, Kanye Stronger looming over it. Yeah. Because that song was so, it's a little better now, but like, that song was everywhere for so long.
Starting point is 01:11:43 And it had the effect of like, sometimes when you hear a, like, a hit song that has a sample and then you go back and you hear where the sample came from. And you can't really experience that song authentic. because the shadow of the hit song that samples it, like looms over it. Like, Notorious is a good example of that, you know, the Biggie song.
Starting point is 01:12:06 You go back to the original Notorious and it's just like, it's always this weird experience of like, oh, that's the hit song and you can't really get out that out of your head. So I, but recently, I would say in my experience of dissecting and I think just with like, you know, Stronger Not being one of Connie's most, it hasn't aged particularly well in terms of, of like being one of his lasting hit songs.
Starting point is 01:12:28 You know, it's not the, it's not the song we think of when we think of Kanye now. So I think I've been able to separate it now from that for multiple reasons and to the point where I really enjoy it. But again, yeah, I do think it has, it just has a weird legacy. It has a just, it's, you can't listen to the song without like kind of experiencing the history of it or thinking about the history of it. And especially when it gets to the actual sample part, still to this day, when it gets to the sampled part, I'm just like, fuck.
Starting point is 01:12:56 I hear is the Kanye song. But what Kanye sample to me is I'm still like, when I go back to the source, I'm like, damn, harder, better, faster, stronger, once again is a perfect song on a perfect album. You're just like, I do get why this was a massive hit. Like the little breakdown shit when it's going crazy, I'm like, these are masters. It's so funny. You keep saying it throughout the season where you're like, I'm not going to even try to recreate everything that they are doing.
Starting point is 01:13:26 It's pointless, yeah. But you're just, to me, even that's a like, you can, a lot of people can pick up a guitar and be like, oh, I can kind of understand what this guitarist was doing. Right. What's genius about dab punk is like, no, we really don't know. Unless they one day come out and are just like, here's actually our secret sauce. Yeah. There is a mystery. Like, fuck.
Starting point is 01:13:53 Yeah. What did they throw on this? How do they do it? How do they do it? That solo at the end is one of those, how the fuck did you do that? Like, who, like, because that's the thing too where I don't have a sense of how good these guys are
Starting point is 01:14:05 at piano or guitar. So it's like, when I hear a guitar part, I'm like, is that them? Are they that good? Or a digital love where it's like, fuck, that is like virtuosic playing to the point where like even the best guitar would struggle with that.
Starting point is 01:14:18 Like, you look on YouTube, and these shredders are like, they can do it, but it's fucking hard. And so I'm just like, okay, so you definitely, like use the computer but not on all of it and like I don't know just like yeah and that's the part where it's like because they're so mysterious because they didn't want to give the secret sauce away they're so elusive about their process most of the time where I'm like I can maybe try to figure
Starting point is 01:14:41 this out but I actually don't really want to because that's what you don't want to know the magic trick you really don't yeah sometimes sometimes it's cool like face to face to me is a perfect example of like okay hearing the little individual elements and how they all come together is really fascinating. Yep. But as I say in the episode, I guess that one just came out. Like,
Starting point is 01:15:01 it still doesn't explain how they did it. No. It doesn't give you, like, I can show you the fucking ingredients, but to make the pie is a totally different thing, right? And like, so,
Starting point is 01:15:13 yeah, there's, there's been a ton of moments on the season like that where I'm like, yeah, let me just, let me just push back. Let me,
Starting point is 01:15:20 let me, let me, let me not put the microphone or the, the, the, the, the microscope too close. because I want to preserve the magic of it a little bit.
Starting point is 01:15:29 Also, but also, by the way, by the way, a lot of those moments, I'm just not good enough. I just frankly not good enough. I don't know how. How many times are in the season are you just like, yeah, I, like, dog, I don't want to be put out on front street because I really cannot create, like recreate that. Because sometimes even in the, I love those moments.
Starting point is 01:15:52 I'm not even going to try to do this right now. No, yeah, I mean, a lot of times it's like, yeah, let me play you this Jimmy Hendricks solo. Like, why? What the fuck is the point? You can play the same notes, but it's not even be close to Jimmy Hendricks version of it. So like, why even try? Okay, so you already brought up the song, like the Titan, like the Titan, which we need to, okay, let's bring it up. But I got to know, do people love this song as much as we love it?
Starting point is 01:16:21 Is my, like, people hit us up because, like, I don't know if it's just like, us that loved this song so dearly, or is it, is this a universal feeling that we're tapping into amongst daft punk fans? Hey, digital love is, digital love is in my personal top 10 songs of all time. I think it is like a top. We could argue, but I would put it anywhere top 15, maybe top 25 of just the 21st century. digital love is every single time I learn something new
Starting point is 01:16:56 I'm transported from the lyrics to the performance to the solo to the I just I mean talk about one more time we talked about hearing the intro every time you hear the intro it makes you feel so good last night I had a cream about you
Starting point is 01:17:17 I'm dancing on me so And it's like to me why I wanted to pick this song is it's one thing to make a concept album that works, which is the hardest thing you can do. Concept albums are so fucking difficult. But I think what might be even harder is making the one song on the project where you're just like, oh, to your point where you're like, there's something about this that feels so good. and then realizing that's Dapunk's mission statement with Discovery. Right. To create something that just like music and healing. What was the quote that you read on this season?
Starting point is 01:18:00 I think was it for homework or was it for Discovery by, was it, you know, who said something about like the perfect thing about music is like feeling like it's like the language of God, you know? Oh, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. that's digital love like this is God's language to me I know what are you talking about Charles but no I want to talk to you though
Starting point is 01:18:24 about your journey because it was like I was listening to the episode and can you like give me and the fans maybe like a behind scenes look into like how you felt about digital love before this season and how your relationship to it changed
Starting point is 01:18:42 the more you dissected it the more you learned about it yeah i think it's like i kind of started the show with uh or that episode with where it's like it is my favorite part of doing the show is like is exactly the experience i had with the song which i loved coming into but it is now just frankly in my top yeah same with you it's like it's my top 10 10 20 songs of all time and it's i don't even even just like thinking about i'm just like getting emotional. And in a way that is like nostalgic, but like
Starting point is 01:19:18 even thinking about like the story of the song, and for me, obviously, I love the technical parts of it where it's like when the music reflects the emotion of the lyrics and you figure out, oh, why does this sound like a dream? Oh, well, they're using the suspended cord and they're orchestrating it
Starting point is 01:19:33 perfectly on the exact perfect synthesizer because they're opening up this dream world and you yeah, you discover it feels like a dream and then they start singing about a dream. And then they talk about, I think, probably experience that we've all had about falling in love with someone so much that it feels like a dream. And then awakening to the reality of it can't be not being that forever or it's not required or whatever the circumstances may be. But where you have this vision of perfection that you can't, you can't reach it, you know?
Starting point is 01:20:07 And it's like it's there, but it's not. And like, so to so to express that through lyrics is one thing. To make a song that both feels as perfect as the thing that they're, they're singing about is another thing. And that it's another thing to also layer within that a chord progression that doesn't resolve that reflects the way in which this unrequited love was experienced. And I, even if you're not that I'm a true believer of like, even if you're not technically aware of that quality of the song, you feel it.
Starting point is 01:20:43 That is one of the reasons why you're saying I'm transported. It's one of the reason why we're getting choked up, just thinking about the song, because it captures that. And I can explain that through harmony, but that's only not even half of it, right? There's something else that we can't define about the song, that where all the elements are working together, lyrics, harmony, instrumentation. It's exactly why music exists. It's like, it is a song in a moment like that.
Starting point is 01:21:08 this where there's a universal feeling that is captured and made timeless through this piece of art. And it's, it's, it's a weird song to talk about in this way because it does feel so like lighthearted. Da da, da, da, da, da. Like, you know, like the, like the, but there's the high and low of it though, where it's like, it's lighthearted and it's soft and it's like, last night, I had a dream about you. And it's mirroring, everything you're saying is mirroring the quality of love. of that thing that, oh my gosh, I'm on a cloud, I'm on a dream, but I can't attain it. And then it's the high and low of like, oh, you got the softness, the guitar solo comes in, and it's giving you that adrenaline rush, almost that aggression of like love feels like that too.
Starting point is 01:21:51 I'm losing my mind. I am on a high, but I'm on a low, and it's soft, but it's hard. And it's just that's what I love about discovery is that child like quality of like, oh, you guys are using music. and lyrics and God's language to put together something about a human experience that I can't really
Starting point is 01:22:14 fully just express with words. And that's why you have to pick digital love. And maybe we're like, I think most people love this song, but easily to me, this is just, it's the best song. Yeah, dude, it's like, it's absolutely incredible.
Starting point is 01:22:35 It's such like fucking play this at my funeral It's like one of those songs You know what I mean Wait so now I also have to ask You know I got to check in on your fam Obviously when you're in When you're in this process
Starting point is 01:22:49 For making these Um Making these seasons Uh your daughters Your wife everybody's probably hearing this music a lot What does that experience been like Are they like pro dat punk Or like turn this off
Starting point is 01:23:01 Like what have you been playing it around them It's been interesting because my daughter, my older daughter is now getting to the age where I'm not cool. So anything that I do, I don't think she wants anything to do with. It's starting to get a little, it's not quite there, but we're getting shades of it.
Starting point is 01:23:19 So she's kind of sick of DAF Punk. I think, I'm trying to think of that in her shoes. Like, Daft Punk to her is probably what I felt about like, I mean, I'm trying to, like the monkeys or something. You know, name, like, the age difference is exactly. kind of that, you know what I mean, to what my parents were listened to when they were kids. So I try to give her the benefit of the doubt there. But my youngest is still young enough to be like, oh, that robot voice is really cool.
Starting point is 01:23:48 Let's play that or that weird synth sound is really cool. Let's like hear that again. And let's make like weird things with our hands like accompanying it. Like we try to like, she always tries to like put into her hand gestures what the song sounds like. So she has just a ton of fun with daf punk. Like she loves like harder, better, faster, stronger. She loves like technologic. She loves all the robot songs.
Starting point is 01:24:10 And that's the part of that book that I also love where it's like, you can play some of these songs for like a young kid. And they're like, yo, that robots, it's like, it's like the Muppets. You're just like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I technically know that there's a human behind this robot, but it does, like it doesn't feel like you. Yeah, yeah. And when you're a kid, it's a robot, you know.
Starting point is 01:24:30 It's just a robot. You're not thinking about the human. And it just sounds like a cool robot. Are we ready? Because the song that you're going to nominate to me is arguably like aerodynamic is probably like my personal favorite after digital love. But the song you have to nominate to me is like the is in the running for the best song off this project, is in the running for one of their best songs ever. To me is my tech on a technical level, the number two song for me on this project. Okay.
Starting point is 01:24:59 Before I get there, though, it was kind of a tough battle between this. what I'm going to nominate in Verdes Quo. Okay. We got to just shout out Verdes Quo because it's a... Perfect song. It's so good. I mean, it's so fucking good. That song is incredible.
Starting point is 01:25:15 It's a hypnotic spell that you just want to live inside forever. It is absolutely perfect in every way. It is like, again, it has the ineffable, like, why does this work? Well, there's some few technical reasons for it, but it's just a master groove with a, like a just a mood that will take you over and take you for a journey. That pairing of Voyager and Veritas Quo is so sick. I love that part of the album. It's such an experience, such a ride. So I had to shout out Veritas Quo, but you know where I'm going. We got to go face to face. Gotta go face to face.
Starting point is 01:26:00 Dude, this song, I mean, I've talked about this song a lot. We've talked about it a lot. This episode is coming off the heels of that episode. So I don't know how much we need to really go into the technicality of it because it's going to be clear to everyone that listen to that episode. The song is a fucking masterpiece. It is an absolute masterclass of sampling. It is the highest degree of sampling. I think that is possible.
Starting point is 01:26:21 And it just sounds good. It's like another one of those things where, yeah, the technical breakdown is fascinating and it's like, yeah, how the fuck did they ever piece this together? But you never think about that really when you're listening to the song because it's just a cool groove that's just super interesting
Starting point is 01:26:37 and infectious, just like any other one of their songs. It doesn't sacrifice listenability for the technicality of it, which is, I think, one of the hardest things you can do. Like, again, like I tried to say on season a lot of the time, on paper, this doesn't work. 42 samples over a house beat
Starting point is 01:26:53 chopped in one one second or less fragments of little these little bites and assembling them. It can work, but it shouldn't be this catchy. It's a thing about face-to-face where it's like, it's so fucking
Starting point is 01:27:09 catchy. And then they pair it with the most human thing ever, the human voice, creating that contrast. Again, it's not as extreme as pairing the disco sample of aerodynamic with a heavy metal finger-tapping guitar solo. But pairing a bare, naked, unaffected human voice with the collage, chaotic collage of all these samples is that same intuition of like, yeah, this doesn't, shouldn't work, but it's going to. And so, and yeah, thematically, I think it's really, really powerful in terms of, like, what Todd Edward says he was singing about is in three layers of like, I'm talking about
Starting point is 01:27:54 relationship, potentially, but more so I'm talking about myself, facing myself, and then also facing God. So having that three, I don't think you've listened to this episode, but that's, that's kind of the level that Todd Edwards said he was working on, because this was supposed to be, like, the climax of the discovery film was supposed to be the robots getting into the climactic battle scene
Starting point is 01:28:20 and then like a cloud of smoke appearing and then a mirror being revealed to reveal the twist ending, which was they were fighting themselves the whole time. So that was the conception of face-to-face. And so understanding that and then everything about this song is just brilliant on every single
Starting point is 01:28:37 level. But, I mean, why do you like it? It's just, you've already touched upon it. Sampling to me is one of my favorite techniques in all of music. It's just something we've been talking about it the whole episode. I just, my brain doesn't necessarily work that way in terms of just like being able to listen. Like, I can listen to a song and tell you what the best part of the song is. It's way different to listen to a song and tell you what the best second of the song was. And it's like, if you listen to to face-to-face, it does not act. Like, the song sounds good. But it is, you already talked about it, it is one of those songs that rewards, like,
Starting point is 01:29:12 actually, if I break this down and listen to every sample, like I would, like, go listen to your episode. This is releasing your face-to-face episode released it on this Tuesday. We're recording this on Thursday. I'm, like, I'm excited to listen to that episode because I've seen the videos of it, but I haven't seen any videos that are actually going
Starting point is 01:29:32 into the technical aspects of, like, okay, these are all the samples in, a vacuum, how do you build a song around it? What are the other techniques under this that is making it once again, the word we keep saying, effortless? Yeah.
Starting point is 01:29:47 But as a fan, was face-to-face the most difficult episode so far the season to put together? Like, what was the process of just like locating the samples and just kind of breaking down the song? Yeah, I mean, it's...
Starting point is 01:30:03 I credited it in the episode itself because I wanted to make sure that I did in terms of like, this has been a decades-long journey of people like me. Yeah. Come in, because Daft Punk didn't credit, officially credit any of these samples. So they're just out there,
Starting point is 01:30:18 and it's incredibly hard to hear a split second of a song and know, oh, that's from face to face. No less actually like happening, like, however you came upon that song is what, you know what I mean? These are like obscure 70s records. So even to know that this, to even recognize where the sample was, or even to know that it would be in a song like this.
Starting point is 01:30:38 It's like, I don't even know how some of these samples were discovered. So it's been like this fan, you know, diehard fans have dedicated themselves to finding these samples. And then a lot of the videos on YouTube are already kind of like showing you, you know, here's where it is in the original song and here's where it is in the, in face to face. And then a lot of people do have done recreations, but haven't really broken it down. It was more like, here's my recreation of it. I'm going to play it for you, not necessarily showing you the puzzle coming together. That's what I try to highlight and contribute to this, which was using the foundation of knowledge that these Dyerd Bat punk fans have accumulated over the past decade, or two decades, really,
Starting point is 01:31:21 and really piecing it together in a way that I hope shows you everything coming together, which was incredibly laborious to do. And I would say shout out to Kevin and Yulia. our editors who also had to splice in all 40 whatever samples and the original sources. So like if you look at the sheet of music excerpts, we'd make a spreadsheet of all the music that's used. It's like hundreds of excerpts in that one episode. I wish you could put up a screen grab of just like the edited episode. You could see the clips.
Starting point is 01:31:59 Maybe Kevin can do that because I think that would be interesting. I just like to maybe show them like a regular. episode of just like, this is usually how many files we have. Yeah. And then showing them the face to face. Yeah, it's crazy. It's crazy. But it was super, I mean, it was so fun. Like, I didn't know, I wasn't sure if it was going to be too much to like actually put the puzzle deep. Because I was like, do I just do it like the YouTube to do? And just like, here's the original. Here's the little fragment. But I had so much fun actually laying it out on the grid and actually recreating it. Because you'll see here in the episode I play,
Starting point is 01:32:33 here's just that one snippet over the drums and then I bring everything else back. So you kind of hear how it comes together with everything. And that process is so cool. Because it's like every time on, there's only a few samples in the song where you're like, oh, that sounds like a sample. I can hear that becoming like the foundation of something.
Starting point is 01:32:53 Most of the time it's just this little like, blip, clap, or whatever the fuck it is. And you're like, how is this going to work? And then you hear how it works. Like, oh, okay, these things are really working together in a way that when separated, like in the true essence of the idea of like
Starting point is 01:33:08 the sum being more than, you know, the individual parts, like it lays that concept out like incredibly in terms of like, yeah, hearing a bleep and then hearing it with everything else. It's like so cool. It's like a true musical mosaic. And I think it is, what I try to also highlight on that episode is like the history of sampling
Starting point is 01:33:28 where we've had this, the idea of like, in classical music, you would quote another classical piece. That was a primitive way of sampling. But composers have had that referential intuition since we've been making music. You know what I mean? And so to hear sampling that same intuition hundreds of years later using technology, but that same intuition of like, yeah, I want to quote this thing. I want to make something new out of something old.
Starting point is 01:33:59 That is something we've been doing as humans. forever. And I think that really comes to like some kind of climax with face to face where it's like daf punk, Todd Edwards coming together. Again, like a Romantany, this, you know, putting a spotlight on a guy that was doing really weird stuff who is the inventor of this kind of micro sampling technique, bringing him into the fold. And also like doing like, again, a Kanye-esque thing where it's like, not only is he going to help create the production of the song with his microsampling technique. Oh, yeah, by the way, you've never sung on a song. song yourself, we're going to actually have you sing. We're not going to, we're not going to affect
Starting point is 01:34:35 your voice at all. You're actually just going to sing. Like, using you in a way that, you know, you've never been used before in the same way DJ Sneak wrote the lyrics to digital love. Like, what, what? Why would you have this DJ that's never written lyrics that we know of? Why did you even think to do that? And then, I wish there was just more, to your point, footage from these like from these like sessions so you could just be like yo to Edwards be like yo what was it like just being in the room
Starting point is 01:35:07 like just or not even act like like getting into like all right sing on the song I'm like what yeah why did you bring me here or DJC be like hey write this you're just like yeah what I didn't think that was why you guys brought here all right yo face to face okay so face of face final nomination for discovery So I went face to face and harder, better,
Starting point is 01:35:26 faster, stronger, you went digital love and one more time. Shout out aerodynamic. Shout out crescendoles. Yeah. Shout out Voyager, Verdesk. I mean, we didn't even talk about something about us. This is a true masterpiece where every,
Starting point is 01:35:39 pretty much 80% of the songs could have a case of being nominated. But let's get to the elimination part of the episode. So now we need to take, whittle our own picks down to one each. So we're going to each get one pick off of each album to take, into the Royal Rumble finale where all our finalists of songs will duke it out until we eliminate and come to an agreement on the last song standing, the greatest daft punk album or daft punk song of all time, excuse me. So let's start with where we are. I think it's going to be easy call for you,
Starting point is 01:36:10 or actually maybe not. Digital love or one more time, is it easy call for you or is there any case to be made? I think you know, I think the fans know it has to be digital love. I thought maybe you, like, I was like, damn, Can we pick digital love? Because I think we always have this conversation of what are we rewarding? Are we rewarding people's most known song, biggest song? How much does that affect? Digital love is a huge song, but it's not the biggest.
Starting point is 01:36:38 But this is our fucking show. It has to be digital love. That's the number one overall pick. For this episode, it's easy to me. Okay, I agree, and I would have picked that to myself. So here's a little bit of predicament, because talk me through this. I'm going to keep one more time on the board because this is a group effort
Starting point is 01:36:57 and I can steal that song if I want if it's the right song. So one more time, harder, better, faster, stronger, face to face. This is the exercise. This is the hardest part of the exercise. What do we honor in an exercise like this? Because one more time feels
Starting point is 01:37:15 symbolically like it should be in the final conversation. I think face to face is a showcase of the virtuosity that makes daft punk great. It also is a great song, but symbolically in this exercise of representing daft punk in a single song, I think it showcases their technical ability in a way that is very unique,
Starting point is 01:37:37 but harder, better, faster, stronger, has that same virtuosic element with the vote quarter and the solo. It's also a huge hit. It is also associated with another big hip-hop crossover hit by one of the best producers of all time and Kanye so I could see that making a case too. I mean, so.
Starting point is 01:37:57 All right, can I tell you? Because it's easy for me. Oh, really? Okay. You know me. Charles is Mr. Billboard. I love a hit. I love a pop song.
Starting point is 01:38:08 I just love it. Every single time I'm like, fuck the deep cut. Give me, like just give me the sugar. But for once I'm going to pivot, it's not even a question face-to-face. Face-to-face. Face-to-face is easy.
Starting point is 01:38:22 Like, it's not just, to me, this isn't just like an, like, you could give it to an alien record. This is a desert island. If you had, like, one daft punk song to take to a deserted island, you could listen to face-to-face and be like, I'm learning something new every day. Like, you could give this to an alien and be like, if you want to understand electronic music, house music, just what makes just humans dance and feel is face-to-face. It's just like, hey, I get it. People are like, you didn't choose hard or better, fats are stronger. One more. I'm like, I don't care.
Starting point is 01:38:52 Face to face, it's easy to me. Okay, so this is interesting because in my gut, that's the song I wanted to take. And what I love about this exercise and what the potential of it is, if we're going to go this route, is picking a song that maybe is not the obvious pick, but when in this conversation with the little influence that this podcast has, we can put a song like face to face on the pedestal. Yes. We could say, no, this song is a masterpiece. it is every bit of the genius of one more time
Starting point is 01:39:23 and harder, better, stronger. Look at this song more closely. So I think because my heart was already leaning towards face to face and I like that idea, fuck it, let's do it. Let's do it. Fuck this. I thought I was going to have to fight you more.
Starting point is 01:39:39 I was like, bro, just pick face to face. They could fucking yell at us. This is not to me, this isn't, if you want to type in on Google best-daft punk songs, you're going to see fucking one more time. You're going to see Harder, Better, fast or stronger. No, we're going face to face. We're going digital love. We're honoring the shit.
Starting point is 01:39:54 It's a great moment to say another little part of the show that we didn't talk about because Justin's not here. But Justin Sayles, our producer, will be sitting on part two of Dap Punk. And he gets every season a coaches challenge. Yes. Which means he can pick one song out of the entire season, a song that we didn't select that he thinks should be in the running. And so I think this might be something he's going to think about in terms of one more time, harder, better, faster, or maybe it's another song off Discovery.
Starting point is 01:40:22 He's going to arrive, he's going to listen to this, and be like, all right, this is what happens when I don't pop into it. You guys go off the fucking preservation. Oh my God. Okay, I love it, though.
Starting point is 01:40:34 Okay, digital love face-to-face. Homework, I mean, do we need to belabor it? It's easy for both the bus. Yeah, I think it is. I'll go around the world. I'm going to go defunct. It's just, that to me was so anticlimactic because it's just like,
Starting point is 01:40:48 we know, we were gonna pick. Like, defunct to me is just like, there's nothing better on that album to me than that riff. There's just nothing. No, defunc is the, I mean, defunct's the one. Around the world has a case, but defunx the one. If we wanted to do something similar,
Starting point is 01:41:05 I think we could have put, I mean, I don't know if teachers deserves to be in the conversation. That was a more symbolic pick. Even a lot, yeah, I don't know. I couldn't have make the case for a live over around the world. Let's not, come on. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Starting point is 01:41:18 We already know what it is. All right. We already know. This is honestly one of my favorite episodes we've ever done. Like usually, like, I love when we're in person. I wish we were in person. Yeah. But it's like, damn, I really got to gush and be a fan of just like not only this season that you're doing,
Starting point is 01:41:34 but just of just like daft punk, the older I get, I'm like, damn, these are my guys. This is like, this is the me going to die on the hill at 80 years old. Daff Punk was the fucking best ever. I'm going to be telling my kids about daft funk more than anyone else, I feel like. Because Radiohead, like, everyone knows my love for Radiohead. But they already have that reverence. And I don't think, I don't think Daft Punk quite is on that level historically yet. Am I wrong in that, you think?
Starting point is 01:42:02 No, I think they're on that level. I just think because, once again, in our culture, because we almost denigrate electronic music, we think it's lesser. We think it's not as complex. I think the work that you're doing on this season is shining a light on, hey, something doesn't have to be lyric driven to have depth, to have quality, to have introspection. It just takes someone like you being like,
Starting point is 01:42:29 hey, let me contextualize the history of this. Let me contextualize who the singer is. Let me contextualize. There might not be a lot of lyrics, but the repetition is also telling you something. Sometimes I think for electronic music, house music, you just need to give it a little bit more time and a little bit more context
Starting point is 01:42:49 so that we talk about it in the same way that we talk about a radio head or a Beyonce or a Kendrake. Right, right, right. All right, beautiful. So we're gonna follow this up at the end of the season. So after the season finale of Dysect, we'll come back for part two,
Starting point is 01:43:03 cover the rest of the albums, and then make our final selection. And then after that, last longstanding proper season, which I'm very excited about. We'll be in studio too, which I'm very excited to see you. see you in person again. We're going to be talking about, you know,
Starting point is 01:43:18 artists that I would say is more controversial than Dapbook, you know, is a little bit more vocal than Dapunk. Not Kanye, though. Let's not get people's up. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I don't want to get people's hopes up or, or fears up. So, all right, Charles, thank you. I'll see you soon.
Starting point is 01:43:36 Yo, thank you.

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