The Album of the Noughties: Daft Punk’s Discovery

For me an album of a decade must meet some crucial criteria:

It must sound as fresh at the New Year’s Eve party at the end of that decade as it did when it came out.
It should have been ground breaking on its release
It should have easily recognisable songs to the music fan
And it should still make you smile.

Daft Punk’s Discovery, released March 13, 2001, is not just all of these points but also genre defining.

The album gave birth to a new strand of electronic music, as dance was injected with catchy hooks, big bass lines, synths and vocals. The birth of particularly the French electronic or electro scene was born, which has spread across continents and now dominates dance floors and inspires DJs across the world.

The second album from the Parisian duo was in stark contrast to their earlier Homework as they moved towards a more electronic-disco sound.

Justice and other Ed Banger artists have been obviously directly inspired, Chromeo, A-Trak, Gorillaz, Hot Chip and Mylo’s equally important album Destroy Rock and Roll would not have existed as they are without Discovery.

Look at the UK Top 40 Charts towards the end of 2009, pop-princesses Little Boots and La Roux have used the combination of synths and beats begun in Discovery in their electro-pop albums; Calvin Harris, Dizzee Rascal and even Alexandra Burke’s latest track shows touches; and Daft Punk are almost always mentioned in MySpace influences or ‘Top Friends’.

The tracks from Fools Gold’s latest EP –Duck Sauce – which was the sound of Ibiza ’09 could easily fit into the album without standing out to much in sound – highlighting both the importance the album has had to dance music the best part of a decade on and the longevity it has had.

The album can be seen in two parts largely – the first contains the singles, those with catchy lyrics which dominated radio playlists from Radio 1 to student radio; while the second half is perhaps slightly less accessible, though once one has fallen in love with the tracks before they keep on listening, wanting more, and continuing the infatuation with the mysterious DJ/producers.

The opening track ‘One More Time’ will instantly receive a shout of excitement the first time the lyrics are dropped into any DJ set or played at on a stereo at a house party; ‘Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger’ has been remixed, sampled and reused more times than it is possible to keep track of – most famously of late by Kanye West (though they never beat the original); and ‘Digital Love’ could even be seen as a dance ballad – how many times has that happened.

So let’s fast forward a month to this year’s NYE party to bring in the Tens (?). At house parties and work do’s ‘One More Time’ (as mentioned), ‘Digital Love’, Aerodynamic’ and ‘Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger’ will be lapped up.

‘Crescendolls’, ‘Face to Face’ and ‘Superheroes’ will produce the same reaction in clubs, for the more electronically minded music fan.

Daft Punk will often not be known as a band, or their track names will not be recognised by the average person, but play the chorus of one of the opening four tracks from Discovery to your most people between 13 and 50 and they will know, and probably love the song.

I think Discovery matches all the criteria set out at the beginning of this post. Like a good comedy film, every listen makes you pick up an extra little riff which was hiding behind a big bass line, or brings back memories.

The album sounds as fresh today as it did 104 months ago, and will continue to inspire, drive and pleasure bedroom DJs to established producers, dance floors to radios and those looking back at past nights to those about to embark on nightlife for the first time.

Daft Punk’s Discovery, defined a genre, defined an ideology and defines the Noughties.

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