Hi-Fi Sci-Fi: Five Favorite Daft Punk Moments

Formed in 1993, Daft Punk consists of the French duo, Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, who have continued to don dapper futuristic personas, shielding their faces from the public by wearing gleaming robot-inspired helmets. In one sense, this allows a focus toward the sci-fi sound of their music, while, in turn, it works as an inventive marketing strategy that balances professional familiarity with personal anonymity.

“Around the World,” from their 1997 debut album, Homework, celebrates the cyclical, from the song title itself (the track’s only lyrics on a synthesized loop) to its therefore mostly instrumental, intentionally repetitive retro-funk sound. Even its video embraced spherical visuals: dancers, assigned to designated riffs, beats and blips, moving on a concentric circular stage, plus there’s colorful backdrop of porthole lighting. Daft Punk made going around in circles more desirable than dizzying:

Four years later, they released, Discovery, which featured the fitting “One More Time”; “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger,” which would later be heavily sampled by Kanye West on his 2007 track, “Stronger”; and “Digital Love.” Remember this commercial for the GAP, with the actress and singer, Juliette Lewis? (The jeans—and the video quality itself—are shall we say, vintage.)

From Madison Avenue to the movies: In 2010, they created the 24-track score for the film, Tron: Legacy, creating a mood to match the gloom-and-doom world that exists inside a cutthroat video game, with “Recognizer” starting out as intensely ominous, then suddenly becoming one of the most hauntingly beautiful tracks:

On 2013’s electro-disco, Random Access Memories, it was filled with inspired collaborations, most notably with Pharrell Williams and Chic’s Nile Rodgers on “Get Lucky” and “Lose Yourself to Dance.” In 2014, the album won the GRAMMY for Album of the Year:

And finally, their work on the 2016 album, Starboy by The Weeknd, in particular on the synth-R&B title track, and on the sexy, soulful bop of a ballad, “I Feel It Coming.” The bass riff that rolls in before the second verse is something for which to wait:

Will there be more good things from Daft Punk in the future, that sound like the future? I feel that coming too.

The Weeknd: “Secrets”: Lies, Eyes and ‘80s Samples

To anyone who remembers the ‘80s, the latest from The Weeknd, entitled “Secrets,” is a trip down memory lane. Lyrics in its chorus are pulled from The Romantics’ 1983 hit, “Talking in Your Sleep”; the transition from chorus to verse includes a direct pickup from Tears for Fears’ 1983 song, “Pale Shelter,” more specifically Curt Smith’s high-vocal climb of the lyric, “completely in command.”

The video, filmed in part at the Toronto Reference Library, sets a cold, barren tone to match the lyrical content that tells of a relationship full of lies, revealed “every time you close your eyes.” Ominous male figures in capes, which the female lead later runs away from, are perhaps indicative of her past catching up to her. Low-angle camera shots of these suitors, peering over balconies are reminiscent, in part, of the masquerade-ball scene in Stanley Kubrick’s 1999 film, Eyes Wide Shut. Use of deep red and the blossoming white bed that creates various geometric shapes also evoke other Kubrickian imagery.