Homework

by

Daft Punk

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I remember first seeing the music videos for "Da Funk" and "Around the World" on MTV (believe it or not) several years ago and just being completely blown away by the infectious dance beats. "Around the World" in particular really grabbed me by the jugular. It is by far the catchiest dance song I have heard in the past decade, next to Kylie Minogue's "Can't Get You Out of My Head". The bass-heavy beat is incredible. Listening to "Around the World" brings back memories of me dancing (drunkenly) to this song in the nightclubs back in my college days. "Da Funk" was and still is equally cool in its own right. It is extremely catchy. I just love the synthesized beats. Just like "Around the World", "Da Funk" has that incredible deep bass hook that gets you on the dancefloor. As much as I love Daft Punk's follow up "Discovery", "Homework" has to be my favorite of the two cds. Granted that "Homework" lacks the warmth of "Discovery", "Homework" has a raw, live feel that its predecessor lacked. "Revolution 909" reminds me of something I have heard during my journeys to Chicago back in the day and my friends and I would be cruising to our favorite nightclub with the radio cranked up, and this song would be on the airwaves (more like a song with the same beat). I also love the shimmering techno track "Indo Silver Club" as well. Despite being seven years old, "Homework" still holds up to this very day which is not an easy task to do because trends comes and goes in dance music but "Homework" is an exception to that rule and it still sounds fresh and new to me.

Perhaps to figure out how any listener would react to owning this album, it's important to gauge how and why you play most of your albums. Homework is a breakthrough and a true original, bringing the DJ dancehall spirit into an everything-and-the-kitchen-sink experiment in sonic trailblazing. Still, in the six years or so I've owned Homework, I've listened to it only a handful of times. I think it lacks the essential qualities of the other great records of the techno explosion in the late 90's - the grand drama of DJ Shadow's Endtroducing..., the spunky accessibility of Chemical Brother's Dig Your Own Hole, or, to go a bit later, the go for broke propulsion of Basement Jaxx's Remedy. If the originality of the music is enough for you, it certainly is here in spades, but it's hard to deny this record is distancing at best and forgettable at worst.