daft punk homework first pressing

Homework is the debut studio album by French electronic music duo Daft Punk , released on 17 January 1997 with Virgin Records . Homework' s success brought worldwide attention to French house music. According to The Village Voice , the album revived house music and departed from the Eurodance formula. The duo produced the tracks without plans to release an album. After working on projects that were intended to be separate singles over five months, they considered the material good enough for an album.

Commercially successful, Homework appeared in 14 national charts, peaking at number 150 on the United States Billboard 200 and at number 37 on the Australian Albums Chart. By February 2001, the album had sold more than two million copies worldwide and received several gold and platinum certifications. Overall Homework received positive critical response. The album features singles that had a significant impact in the French house and global dance music scenes. These include the US Billboard Hot Dance/Club Play number-one singles " Da Funk " and " Around the World ", the latter of which reached number 61 on the Billboard Hot 100.

• 1 Recording history
• 2 Structure
• 3 Track listing
• 4 References

Recording history [ ]

In 1993, Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo presented a demo to Stuart Macmillan of Slam at a rave in EuroDisney. The contents of the cassette eventually saw release on the single " The New Wave ", which was released on April 11, 1994 on Slam's Soma Quality Recordings label. The record also contained the final mix of the track "The New Wave" entitled "Alive".

" Da Funk " and " Rollin' & Scratchin' " were released as a single under the Soma label in 1995. The tracks were then utilized by The Chemical Brothers in DJ sets at The Heavenly Social in London. During the same year, Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons requested that the duo remix their single "Life Is Sweet" and open for The Chemical Brothers' tour in the United Kingdom. The ensuing popularity of Daft Punk's singles led to their signing with Virgin Records in September 1996. Their departure from Soma was noted by Richard Brown of the Glasgow-based label. "We were obviously sad to lose them to Virgin but they had the chance to go big, which they wanted, and it's not very often that a band has that chance after two singles. We're happy for them."

Although Virgin held exclusive distribution rights over Daft Punk’s material, the duo remain the owners of their master recordings through the Daft Trax label. Bangalter expressed that "To be free, we had to be in control. To be in control, we had to finance what we were doing ourselves. The main idea was to be free." [7] Daft Punk discussed their method with Spike Jonze , director of the "Da Funk" music video. He noted that "They were doing everything based on how they wanted to do it. As opposed to, 'oh we got signed to this record company, we gotta use their plan.' They wanted to make sure they never had to do anything that would make them feel bummed on making music." In regards to the duo's creative control and freedom, Bangalter said:

Daft Punk worked to record other tracks, including " Revolution 909 " and " Around the World ". The album was mixed and recorded in their own studio, Daft House in Paris , France. It was mastered by Nilesh Patel at the London studio The Exchange.

Virgin re-released "Da Funk" with the B-side " Musique " in 1996, before the debut of Homework . Bangalter later stated that the B-side "was never intended to be on the album, and in fact, 'Da Funk' as a single has sold more units than Homework , so more people own it anyways than they would if it had been on the album. It is basically used to make the single a double-feature."

Structure [ ]

Daft Punk produced the tracks included in Homework without a plan to release an album. Bangalter stated, "It was supposed to be just a load of singles. But we did so many tracks over a period of five months that we realized that we had a good album." [1] The duo set the order of the tracks to cover the four sides of a two-disc vinyl LP. [2] De Homem-Christo remarked, "There was no intended theme because all the tracks were recorded before we arranged the sequence of the album. The idea was to make the songs better by arranging them the way we did; to make it more even as an album." [2] The name Homework , Bangalter explained, relates to "the fact that we made the record at home, very cheaply, very quickly, and spontaneously, trying to do cool stuff." [3]

"Daftendirekt" is an excerpt of a live performance recorded at the first I Love Techno party in Ghent, Belgium. [4] It served as the introduction to Daft Punk's live shows and was used to begin the album. [2] Janet Jackson sampled "Daftendirekt" on her song "So Much Betta", which was included in her tenth studio album, Discipline , in 2008. [5] Homework' s following track, "WDPK 83.7 FM", is a tribute to FM radio in the US. [6] The next song, " Revolution 909 " is a reflection on the French government's stance on dance music. [2] [7]

"Revolution 909" is followed by " Da Funk ", which carries elements of funk and acid music. [8] According to Andrew Asch of the Boca Raton News , the song's composition "relies on a bouncy funk guitar to communicate its message of dumb fun." [9] Bangalter expressed that "Da Funk"'s theme involved the introduction of a simple, unusual element that becomes acceptable and moving over time. [10] Sal Cinquemani of Slant Magazine complimented the song as "unrelenting", [11] and Bob Gajarsky of Westnet called it "a beautiful meeting of Chic (circa "Good Times", sans vocals) and the 90s form of electronica." [12] The song appeared on the soundtrack for the 1997 film The Saint and was placed at number 18 on Pitchfork Media's "Top 200 Tracks of the 1990s" list. [13] "Phoenix" combines elements of gospel music and house music. [2] The duo considered "Fresh" to be breezy and light with a comical structure. [14] Ian Mathers of Stylus Magazine criticized the song, stating that it "doesn’t feel like the beach just because of the lapping waves heard in the background." [15]

The single " Around the World " carries influences of Gershon Kingsley 's hit "Popcorn". [8] Its music video was directed by the Academy Award-winning French filmmaker Michel Gondry, who compared the track's bassline to that of "Good Times" by Chic. [16] Chris Power of BBC Music named it "one of the decade’s catchiest singles". He stated that it was "a perfect example of Daft Punk’s sound at its most accessible: a post-disco boogie bassline, a minimalist sprinkling of synthetic keyboard melody and a single, naggingly insistent hook." [17] Ian Mathers of Stylus Magazine commented that "there is no way you’d want to have a Homework without 'Around The World'." [15] The track "Teachers" is a tribute to several of Daft Punk's house music influences, including future collaborators Romanthony , DJ Sneak and Todd Edwards . [18] The song "Oh Yeah" features DJ Deelat and DJ Crabbe. "Indo Silver Club" features a sample of "Hot Shot" by Karen Young . [4] Prior to its inclusion on Homework , "Indo Silver Club" was released as a single on the Soma Quality Recordings label in two parts. [19] The single lacked an artist credit in the packaging [19] and was thought to have been created by the nonexistent producers Indo Silver Club. [20] The final track, "Funk Ad", is a reversed clip of "Da Funk". [2]

Track listing

References [ ].

• ↑ James (2003), p. 269.
• ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Warner, Jennifer. "Interview with Daft Punk" . p. 3. DMA . About.com . Retrieved on 30 March 2007.
• ↑ Nickson, Chris (June 1997) Daft Punk: Parlez-vous da funk? . CMJ New Music Monthly (46) (CMJ Network) p. 10. ISSN 1074-6978 . Retrieved 31 January 2013.
• ↑ 4.0 4.1 Homework ( liner notes ). Daft Punk . Virgin Records , a division of EMI Group . 42609. 1997.
• ↑ Discipline (Booklet). Janet Jackson . Island Records , a division of [[wikipedia:The Island Def Jam Music Group]|The Island Def Jam Music Group]]. 2008.
• ↑ Di Perna, Alan (April 2001). "We Are The Robots", Pulse! . pp. 65–69.
• ↑ Warner, Jennifer. "Interview with Daft Punk" . p. 2. DMA . About.com . Retrieved on 10 February 2012.
• ↑ 8.0 8.1 Collin, Matthew (August 1997). "Do You Think You Can Hide From Stardom?" . Mixmag . Retrieved on 6 March 2007.
• ↑ Asch, Andrew (18 December 1997). "Daft Punk smashes charts with simplicity" . Boca Raton News . Retrieved on 1 May 2012.
• ↑ Daft Punk audio commentary for "Da Funk" music video , The Work of Director Spike Jonze (2003).
• ↑ Cinquemani, Sal (2 November 2002). "Daft Punk – Homework" . Slant Magazine . Retrieved on 1 May 2012.
• ↑ Gajarsky, Bob (28 April 1997). "Daft Punk, Homework" . Westnet. Retrieved on 1 May 2012.
• ↑ Ryan Dombal (3 September 2009). "Staff Lists: The Top 200 Tracks of the 1990s: 20-01" . Pitchfork Media . Retrieved on 10 February 2012.
• ↑ D.A.F.T.: A Story About Dogs, Androids, Firemen and Tomatoes . Virgin Records. 1999.
• ↑ 15.0 15.1 Mathers, Ian (9 May 2005). "Daft Punk: Homework – Playing God" . Stylus Magazine . Retrieved on 1 May 2012.
• ↑ Gondry, Michel (2003). The Work of Director Michel Gondry companion book. Palm Pictures . Retrieved on 4 May 2012.
• ↑ Power, Chris (5 January 2010). "Review of Daft Punk – Homework" . BBC Music . British Broadcasting Corporation . Retrieved on 1 May 2012.
• ↑ Gill, Chris (1 May 2001). ROBOPOP . Remix Magazine . Archived from the original on 11 February 2012. Retrieved 18 February 2012.
• ↑ 19.0 19.1 Indo Silver Club (liner notes). Daft Punk. Soma Quality Recordings. SOMA 035.
• ↑ Silcott, Mireille (3 April 1997). "Personality punks" . Montreal Mirror . Archived from the original on 6 June 2011. Retrieved on 3 August 2011.
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909originals

THE STORIES BEHIND THE MUSIC

Daft Punk’s ‘Homework’ – the story behind the album’s iconic cover

On 20 January 1997, French duo Daft Punk released Homework , their devastating, disco-funk infused debut, which would go on to be one of the most influential albums in electronic music history.

The recording of Homework was a straightforward process, as the group’s Thomas Bangalter told CMJ New Music Monthly in 1997 – “we made the record at home, very cheaply, very quickly, and spontaneously, trying to do cool stuff” .

But when it came time to package the collection of tracks into an album, the group were a bit more methodical, as Nicolas Hidiroglou , who photographed both the album’s sleek black cover and inner sleeve, tells 909originals.

Over to you, Nicolas.

“ I had been working with a number of artists, and I was working with The Face and other magazines at the time,” he explains. “ A friend said to me there’s a new band called Daft Punk that is putting together an album, you should check them out.

“I had already done some work with Virgin Records, and Daft Punk had already done a few things with Virgin; compilations with other, more established artists. The public didn’t know them at this stage, but there was a buzz about them. They were just teenagers at the time.”

Hidiroglou was thus invited to meet the duo in and listen to the demo Homework for the first time.

“It sounded so different, and completely new,” he says. “I had never heard anything like it – that mix of disco and funk. They played the vinyl for me in this little room; I had no idea I was listening to history.

“ I remember Thomas was very sure about what was going to happen – Daft Punk were going to tour in the UK, and tour America. They were very sure of themselves, and how everything was going to work out.”

Both Bangalter and compatriot Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo (who had previously designed the now-famous Daft Punk logo) had an idea of what they wanted for the album’s cover and inner sleeve.

“We spent about a week putting it together,” Hidiroglou recalls. “They wanted to try out a number of different fabrics before they found exactly what they wanted – the black satin. We spent a lot of time making everything perfect.

“With the inside cover, that had been all arranged by Thomas at his home. I went to his house and met his father – who had been a big producer in the past – and we went up to Thomas’ room. He had prepared everything on the desk just as it appears on the album.

“It was the first time for me to meet an artist who had so much visibility of what they wanted and where they wanted to be. They knew they would be big, but perhaps not as quickly as it worked out. It took just a few months.”

Following on from the release of Homework (as well as some side work for Bangalter’s side labels Roulé and Scratché), Hidiroglou was again called upon to take some promotional shots of the group.

“I had a little shop close to the Sacré-Cœur , and we shot lots of press pictures in the basement. Thomas did some ‘Daft Punk’ graffiti tags on the wall, so I shot that, and I also took some photos of the two of them.

“Back then, they already had the idea of covering their faces – this was a few years before the ‘robots’ – as they didn’t want to be well-known like other artists. We tried different solutions, putting things on their faces, wearing masks, things like that.

“For me, this was not a big thing – I had worked with lots of famous people, and was used to requests like this. But I remember when Daft Punk became famous, people spoke badly about it – people thought they were ‘too proud’ to show their faces. But really, it was them trying something new.”

While fame came quickly for Daft Punk outside of France, in their home country the duo remained “pretty underground for the first year”, Hidiroglou explains. “People didn’t really see the significance of what they were doing, even music people.

“I didn’t think the cover of Homework was a big project for me at the time, but now, it has appeared in a lot of books and magazines. Today it’s seen as a ‘reference point’, but when I did it, I did’t see the significance of it.

“I still meet Thomas sometimes, he lives close to my house. I saw Guy-Man a month ago. It’s more a friendly relationship now, as opposed to a business relationship.”

[Thanks to Nicolas for the interview. You can view his portfolio of work, which includes photography for a series of international artists, actors and musicians, at hidiro.com ]

Read more : From disco to D.I.S.C.O. – how Thomas Bangalter’s dad helped set the Daft Punk template

For all the latest news on techno, house, and rave culture, features on the hottest nightclubs and interviews with the world’s best DJs, make sure 909originals is your go-to source.  www.909originals.com

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December 2, 2018

Daft Punk ’s Homework is, in its pure existence, a study in contradictions. The debut album from Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo arrived in 1997, right around the proliferation of big-beat and electronica—a twin-headed hydra of dance music fads embraced by the music industry following the commercialization of early ’90s rave culture—but when it came to presumptive contemporaries from those pseudo-movements, Homework shared Sam Goody rack space and not much else. Daft Punk’s introduction to the greater world also came at a time when French electronic music was gaining international recognition, from sturdy discotheque designs to jazzy, downtempo excursions—music that sounded miles away from Homework ’s rude, brutalist house music.

In the 21 years since Homework ’s release, Daft Punk have strayed far from its sound with globe-traversing electronic pop that, even while incorporating other elements of dance music subgenres, has more often than not kept house music’s building blocks at arms’ length. 2001’s Discovery was effectively electronic pop-as-Crayola box, with loads of chunky color and front-and-center vocals that carried massive mainstream appeal. Human After All from 2005 favored dirty guitars and repetitive, Teutonic sloganeering, while the pair took a nostalgia trip through the history of electronic pop itself for 2013’s Random Access Memories . Were it not for a few choice Homework tracks that pop up on 2007’s exhilarating live document Alive 2007 , one might assume that Homework has been lost in the narrative that’s formed since its release—that of Daft Punk as robot-helmeted superstar avatars, rather than as irreverent house savants.

But even as the straightforward and strident club fare on Homework remains singular within Daft Punk’s catalog, the record also set the stage for the duo’s career to this very day—a massively successful and still-going ascent to pop iconography, built on the magic trick-esque ability to twist the shapes of dance music’s past to resemble something seemingly futuristic. Whether you’re talking about Bangalter and Homem-Christo’s predilection for global-kitsch nostalgia, their canny and self-possessed sense of business savvy, or their willingness to wear their influences on their sleeve like ironed-on jean-jacket patches—it all began with Homework .

It couldn’t possibly make more sense that a pair of musicians whose most recent album sounds like a theme park ride through pop and electronic music’s past got their big break at Disneyland. It was 1993, and schoolboy friends Bangalter and Homem-Christo’s rock band with future Phoenix guitarist Laurent Brancowitz, Darlin’—named after a track from the 1967 Beach Boys album Wild Honey that the three shared an affinity for—had disbanded after a year of existence that included a few songs released on Stereolab ’s Duophonic label. (Melody Maker writer Dave Jennings notoriously referred to their songs as possessing “a daft punky thrash,” which led to the pair assuming the Daft Punk moniker.)

While attending a rave in Paris, Bangalter and Homem-Christo had a chance encounter with Glasgow DJ/producer Stuart McMillan, the co-founder of the Soma Recordings dance label; like any aspiring musicians would, they gave him a demo tape of early Daft Punk music. The following year Soma released Daft Punk’s debut single “The New Wave,” a booming and acid-tinged instrumental that would later evolve into Homework cut “Alive.”

A follow-up, “Da Funk” b/w “Rollin’ & Scratchin’,” hit shops in 1995; according to a Muzik profile two years later, its initial 2,000-platter pressing was “virtually ignored” until rave-electronica bridge-gap veterans the Chemical Brothers started airing out its A-side during DJ sets. A major-label bidding war ensued, with Virgin as the victor which re-released “Da Funk” as a proper single in 1996 with non- Homework track “Musique” as its B-side. During this time, Bangalter and Homem-Christo casually worked on the 16 tunes that would make up Homework in the former’s bedroom, utilizing what The Guardian ’s Ben Osborne referred to in 2001 as “ low technology equipment ”—two sequencers, a smattering of samplers, synths, drum machines, and effects, with an IOMEGA zip drive rounding out their setup.

Bangalter and Homem-Christo’s work ethic while assembling the bulk of Homework was of the type that makes sloths appear highly efficient by comparison: no more than eight hours a week, over the course of five months. “We have not spent much time on Homework ,” Bangalter casually bragged to POP . “The main thing is that it sounds good… We have no need to make music every day.” The songs were crafted with the intention of being released as singles (“We do not really want to make albums,” Bangalter claimed in the same interview), Homework ’s eventual sequencing a literal afterthought after the pair realized they had enough material to evenly fill four sides of two vinyl platters. “Balance,” the pair said in unison when asked about Homework ’s format-specific sequencing in Dance Music Authority following the album’s release. “It is done for balance.”

Indeed, Homework is practically built to be consumed in side-long chunks; taking the album in at a single 75-minute listen can feel like running a 5K right after eating an entire pizza. Its A-side kicks off with the patient build of “Daftendirekt”—itself a live-recording excerpt of introductory music used during a Daft Punk set at 1995’s I Love Techno festival in Ghent—and concludes with the euphoric uplift of “Phoenix”; the B-side opens with the literal oceanic washes of “Fresh” before stretching its legs with the loopy, Gershon Kingsley-interpolating “Around the World” and the screeching fist-pump anthem “Rollin’ & Scratchin’.” The third side keeps things light with the flashy, instructional “Teachers” before getting truly twisted on “Rock’n Roll,” and the fourth side takes a few rubbery detours before landing on the full-bodied “Alive”—the thicker and meaner final form of “The New Wave”—and, quixotically, a slight and rewound “Da Funk” return, aptly titled “Funk Ad.”

Bangalter explained to POP that the title of Homework carries a few meanings: “You always do homework in the bedroom,” he stated, referencing the album’s homespun origins before elaborating on the didactic exercise that creating the album represented: “We see it as a training for our upcoming discs. We would as well have been able to call it Lesson or Learning .” That instructional nature is reflexive when it comes to listeners’ presumptive relationship with the album, as Homework practically represents a how-to for understanding and listening to house music.

Nearly every track opens with a single sonic element—more often than not, that steady 4/4 rhythm inextricably tied to house music—adding every successive element of the track patiently, like a played-in-reverse YouTube video showcasing someone taking apart a gadget to see what’s inside. Such a pedagogic approach can have its pitfalls; there’s always a risk of coming across as too rigid, and Daft Punk arguably fell victim to such dull, fussy didacticism later in their careers. But they sidestep such follies on Homework by way of the purely pleasurable music they carefully assembled, piece-by-piece, for whoever was listening.

Under the umbrella of house music, Homework incorporates a variety of sounds snatched from various musical subgenres—G-funk’s pleasing whine, the cut-up vocal-sample style of proto-UK garage made popular by frequent Daft Punk collaborator Todd Edwards , disco’s delicious synths and glittery sweep—to craft a true musical travelogue that also hinted at the widescreen sonic scope they’d take later in their careers. Above all, the album represents a love letter to black American pop music that’s reverberated through Daft Punk’s career to date—from Janet Jackson ’s sample of “Daftendirekt” on her 2008 Discipline track “So Much Betta” to Will.i.am’s failed attempt to remix “Around the World” the year previous, as well as the duo’s continued collaborations with artists ranging from Pharrell to Kanye West and the Weeknd .

The spirit of house music’s Midwestern originators is also literally and musically invoked throughout. Over the winding house-party groove of “Teachers,” Daft Punk pay homage to their formative influences, ranging from George Clinton and Dr. Dre to Black house and techno pioneers like Lil Louis, DJ Slugo, and Parris Mitchell—and in a meta twist, the song’s structure itself is a literal homage to Mitchell’s 1995 Dance Mania! single “Ghetto Shout Out,” an interpolation clearly telegraphed in the middle of Daft Punk’s astounding contribution to BBC’s Essential Mix series in 1997 .

Alongside Daft Punk’s preoccupations with American popular music, Homework also carries a very specific and politically pointed evocation of their native Paris in “Revolution 909,” the fourth and final single released from Homework that doubled as a critique of anti-rave measures taken by the French government after Jacques Chirac assumed power in 1995. “I don’t think it’s the music they’re after—it’s the parties,” Homem-Christo told Dance Music Authority , with Bangalter adding, “They pretend [the issue is] drugs, but I don’t think it’s the only thing. There’s drugs everywhere, but they probably wouldn’t have a problem if the same thing was going on at a rock concert, because that’s what they understand. They don’t understand this music which is really violent and repetitive, which is house; they consider it dumb and stupid.”

“Revolution 909” opens with ambient club noise, followed by the intrusion of police sirens and intimidating megaphone’d orders to “stop the music and go home.” The accompanying Roman Coppola-helmed music video was even more explicit in depicting the frequent clash between ravers and law enforcement that marked dance music’s rise to the mainstream in the early-to-mid-’90s; amidst a kitschy instructional video on making tomato sauce, a pair of cops attempt to disperse a rave, a young woman escaping one of their grasps after he becomes distracted by a tomato sauce stain on his own lapel.

It’s been rumored, but never quite confirmed, that Bangalter himself appears in the video for “Revolution 909”—a slice of speculation gesturing towards the fact that Daft Punk’s Homework era was the time in which the duo began embracing anonymity. The now-iconic robot helmets wouldn’t be conceived of until the Discovery era, and the magazine stories that came during Daft Punk’s pre- Homework days were typically accompanied by a fresh-faced photo of the pair; during Homework ’s promotional cycle, however, they donned a variety of masks to obscure their visages, including frog and pig-themed disguises .

In conversation with Simon Reynolds for The New York Times in 2013, the pair cited Brian De Palma’s glam-rock masterpiece Phantom of the Paradise as artistic inspiration for their decision to retain visual anonymity, and Daft Punk’s press-shy tendencies (since Homework , the interviews they’ve chosen to take part in have been few and far between) are firmly situated in a long tradition of letting the music do the talking in dance culture—from the sci-fi evasiveness of Drexciya and Aphex Twin ’s relative reclusiveness to the preferred reticence of Burial and his contemporaries in the UK bass scene.

But refusing to turn themselves into rock stars upon Homework ’s release also afforded Daft Punk a crucial element that has undoubtedly aided their perpetual ascent to the present-day: control. Retaining a sense of anonymity was but one of the conditions that the pair struck with Virgin upon signing to the label before Homework ’s release; while the music they released under the label (before signing to Columbia in 2013) was licensed exclusively to Virgin, they owned it through their own Daft Trax production and management company.

But Homework proved influential in other, more explicitly musical ways. G-house, an emergent dance subgenre in the mid-2010s dominated by acts like French duo Amine Edge & Dance, borrows liberally from Daft Punk’s own musical mash of hip-hop’s tough sounds and house music’s pounding appeal; the dirty bloghouse bruisers of Parisian collective Ed Banger—founded by Pedro Winter aka Busy P, who acted as the group’s manager until 2008—would literally not exist were it not for Homework , and that goes double for the party-hardy bloghouse micro-movement of the mid-late 2000s, which Ed Banger’s artists practically dominated. Parisian duo Justice , in particular, owe practically the entirety of their 2007 landmark † to the scraping tension of “Rollin’ & Scratchin’.”

It’s tempting, too, to tie a connective thread between Homework and the brash sounds that proliferated during the peak heyday of the financial descriptor-cum-music genre known as EDM; close your eyes while listening to “Alive”’s big-tent sweep and try not to imagine the tune destroying a festival crowd. But for all of Homework ’s aggressive charms, it’s also retained a homespun intimacy in comparison to how positively widescreen Daft Punk’s music became afterwards. “We focus on the illusion because giving away how it’s done instantly shuts down the sense of excitement and innocence,” Bangalter told Pitchfork in 2013, and the fact that two Beach Boys fans fiddling around in their bedroom could conceive of something so generously in-your-face and playful as Homework might still stand as Daft Punk’s greatest illusion yet.

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• 1990s debut albums
• 1990s albums
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Homework is the debut studio album by Daft Punk . The album was released on March 25, 1997.

Track listing [ ]

• Daftendirekt
• WDPK 83.7 FM
• Revolution 909
• Around the World
• Rollin' & Scratchin'
• High Fidelity
• Rock'n Roll
• Indo Silver Club

References [ ]

Daft Punk’s Debut Album ‘Homework’ Turns 25 | Anniversary Retrospective

Happy 25th Anniversary to Daft Punk’s debut album Homework , originally released January 20, 1997.

Somewhere in my early 20s, in a parallel universe, a scintillating soundtrack still spins. At its core throbs a perpetual propulsion—the boundless verve of fervent youth. 

With their 1997 debut Homework , a then-unknown French duo managed the unimaginable. At the far end of a decade bustling with blips, glitches, and other electronic etches, Daft Punk divined a head trip of unfettered vision—delectable to raver kids and living-room loungers alike. Perhaps even more impressive, the creators—nascent adults themselves—cultivated a powerful digital vernacular, galvanizing something fundamentally human that taps into our primal, spiritual, and musical tendencies and twirls them into one.

In terms of socializing my sophomore and junior years of college, the time of Homework ’s release, my friend circles were among the more jumbled, a web of connections spanning different life phases, schools, and backgrounds, and invariably diverse musical tastes. The Cure to Madonna to Sleater-Kinney . But, somehow, Homework emerged a unifying principle—a glittering go-to record radiating its machine glow aura in seemingly all friends’ dwellings. The antecedent to everything from weed-lidded, 50-cent-ride evenings at the Santa Cruz boardwalk to crimson-lit cobblestoned late nights in Europe to impromptu house dance parties in LA, Daft Punk became synonymous with fun.

Homework had us all equally rapt—our minds tickled by its taut dichotomies, perhaps themselves trappings intrinsic to any duo: Slick yet gritty, chaotic yet clean, erratic yet predictable. 

Eventually topping charts across Australia, Europe, and North America, Daft Punk had awakened some tacit magic around the world.

And let’s just start there, for those who haven’t yet had the privilege. Meet Homework ’s second single, “Around the World,” in all its axon-activating joy. Indulgently repetitious, echoing the phrase “around the world” precisely 144 times like some soothing vocoded mantra, the song rallies the collective as together we teetered toward the turn of the millennium. 

“Around the World” spooled the energies of our increasingly global, connected society. On the heels of the major-label 1997 rerelease of “Da Funk,” a track that debuted as a 12-inch two years prior, “Around the World” was Daft Punk’s second-consecutive single to sashay to position one on several continents’ dance charts.  

Despite the duo’s unassailable talents, commercial success was a multiyear journey. They’d been steadily amassing a fanbase since 1993, the year Parisians Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo became Daft Punk. Not yet 20 years old, the two long-time friends had abandoned previous indie rock project Darlin’, in favor of turntables, samplers, and drum machines. 

Although inspired by the experimental glamour of club culture, Daft Punk drew from a broad array of influences, including Serge Gainsbourg, Primal Scream , Television, Stevie Wonder , disco, funk, hip-hop, rap, pop and underground house/techno—just to a name few.

In fact, the band’s first single, released in 1994, “The New Wave,” which would later reappear refashioned as “Alive” on Homework, even flirts with an industrial feel that could easily slink its way into a fishnet-laced subterranean den.

Undoubtedly, this confluence of styles lent to Daft Punk’s universal appeal. It wasn’t just the immense variety, but their easy ability to foster immediacy. Despite their synthesized, futuristic robot-faced dynamic, there’s something inherently accessible, even intimate, about their sound, perhaps the byproduct of their preferred home recording setup. 

“We have received faxes from Denmark, Sweden, Spain, Japan, New York whereas we sold 15,000 discs!” Bangalter said in a 1995 interview . “So, it is very funny. But also really shows that, at the same time, there is a public, there are people who are interested in this music everywhere. And we can reach [them] by making things in our bedroom, reach people [at] the other end of the Earth.”

Encouraged by the rising triumph of “Da Funk,” Daft Punk enlisted nightclub DJ and promoter Pedro Winter as their band manager and ultimately signed to Virgin Records, jumping from the smaller Soma Quality Recordings where they’d gotten their start, in hopes of reaching a wider audience.

All parties involved, including the artists themselves, had more than an inkling of Daft Punk’s potential. Homework flowed from them organically—a necessary eruption that had likely been brewing for years. 

Tucked into Bangalter’s modestly outfitted home studio, the two set about making more singles. But, after just five months of casual composition, they’d devised ample material for an album. Without intending to, the young Daft Punk had far surpassed their original goal. Instead of concocting another couple hits—a feat in and of itself—they’d effortlessly minted a 74-minute masterpiece.

Daft Punk had purposefully traded their derivative fuzzy rock sound for electronic expression, and, in dashing off Homework , it quickly became clear they didn’t need to learn this new language—they already owned it. 

Twenty-five years later, the French house breakthrough album still sounds bold, flawless, and compellingly quirky.

For the swelling storm of energy it impels, Daft Punk’s music is focused, lean, and deliberate, deriving its magnetism, at least in part from its repetition. “We could decorate our music with a lot of sounds that do not fulfill any function,” reflected Bangalter in a 2010 interview . “Then people would not complain that it is monotonous. But it is the monotony that gives the songs their power. A ta-ta-ta-tam that is played over and over again never sounds exactly the same. The brain perceives it differently each time. The arrangements that we put effort into do not appear until you have gotten into the rhythm properly.”

These rhythmic properties reveal themselves right from the album’s start. The compact “Daftendirekt” opens Homework , playfully building—similar to “Around the World”—around the sole line: “Da funk back to the punk, c’mon.” Borrowed from a Belgian performance in 1995, the track seems an animated entity. More than just inviting the listener to engage, Daft Punk have an innate ability to conjure living atmosphere—something meant to fuse with human emotion and movement to ultimately engender some greater power. 

“​​Even 15 years ago when we were having our studio on the stage, and all these drum machines and all these synthesizers, I think we were already asking ourselves the relevancy of live music that we’re playing by activating [and] triggering [devices]—where we seemed to be more operators of a system, you know?” remarked Bangalter in a 2009 interview . “Where it’s the machines that play. It’s maybe transforming what seems to be a very mechanical reproduction into an emotional connection. Or a physical one. That maybe puts us into the role of an artist. It’s interesting to see how much emotion you can get out of a machine, in that sense.”

The funky vibrancy of “Daftendirekt” offers a malleable entrance to Homework , paving the way for a variety of freeing feelings and tantalizing tempos. After “WDPK 83.7 FM,” a half-minute sampled bit, the album launches into two exuberant singles, “Revolution 909” and “Da Funk.” The former kicks off with the voices of law enforcement breaking up a party—an all-too-common, highly unwelcome sound of our youth, which serves well to defiantly light the dance floor afire.

From here, Daft Punk offer track after track of hypnotic energy, allowing our minds and bodies to cathartically commingle. And as much as I enjoy the bouncy singles from Homework , with “Around the World” being my unequivocal favorite, I’ve long been partial to the more understated tracks like “Phoenix,” “High Fidelity,” and “Alive,” which boast their own brand of euphoric release. It’s in this dreamier vein, I most acutely feel the liberating invincibility of being 19 and 20. And although life is always moving and I have no desire to return to any past age, I like to picture that parallel universe where my juvenile self still rambles—an unhinged soul electrically charged, hurtling with abandon, chasing the endless beauty of the cosmos. 

Sadly, I must note that Daft Punk dissolved last year in yet another unsettling pandemic-era blow. To officially announce their ending, they released Epilogue , a poignant video featuring lyrics from Random Access Memories (2013) song “Touch”: “Hold on, if love is the answer, you're home.” Though heartbreaking, it’s a fitting conclusion—for as much as Daft Punk urged us to move, they also reminded us to meld.

And, in this eternal spirit, I truly believe Daft Punk are shimmying away in alternate privileged galaxies, delighting new creatures with fresh formulations every bit as persuasive as their gift to us humans on Earth— Homework .

Few records combine sonic innovation with veneration for what came before as succinctly as Daft Punk’s 1997 debut, Homework. The title itself implies this duality: It’s a reference to both the bedroom studio where musicians Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo recorded their early house and techno productions, and a nod to the older artists the duo studied in preparation for their dance music breakthrough. Many of those musical ancestors are name-checked on the Homework track “Teachers,” on which Bangalter and Homem-Christo salute the (mostly) electronic music producers and DJs who inspired their work. That includes plenty of semi-obscure Chicago house music heroes and Detroit and UK techno champions, many of whom predated Daft Punk by a decade—but who were still active in the late-1990s rave scene. By tagging their peers, the members of Daft Punk were expressing solidarity with the many BIPOC artists whom they’d obsessed over for years. It was a declaration of belonging that could have come off as appropriation, had Homework not so fully elevated the genre. Bangalter and Homem-Christo might wear their influences on their sleeve, but their music transcends mere tribute; it’s some of the most unforgettable hook-laden house and techno ever put to wax. When it comes to the dance floor, if a record’s hot, that record is hot. And DJs across the globe pumped Homework’s 16 tracks, which included everything from playful filtered disco (“Revolution 909”) to throttling acid techno (“Rollin’ & Scratchin’”). Meanwhile, radio jocks and MTV programmers on the lookout for format-friendly versions of popular rave sounds swooned over Homework cuts like “Da Funk” and “Around the World,” which became breakout hits, thanks to inventive videos directed, respectively, by Spike Jonez and Michel Gondry. That near-impossible confluence of talent and timing allowed Homework to achieve its position atop every list of 1990s electronic music. As time went on, the members of Daft Punk would prove themselves worthy of every accolade Homework received as they continued to evolve from students to teachers to masters—elevating the state of electronic music every step of the way.

January 20, 1997 16 Songs, 1 hour, 14 minutes Distributed exclusively by Warner Music France / ADA France, ℗ 1997 Daft Life Ltd.

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