Getting to all of my top picks early in the game!
Discovery - Daft Punk (2001)
That write-up Doc posted was so encapsulating and excellent that it doesn't need many, if any, addenda, so I'll say that the disco influence was striking upon first listen but really made sense upon a few more spins (I came to the album rather late in the game—post-Kanye, actually). I'd loved
Homework in the late nineties but any semblance of late night discotheques and any music like that had faded from my life, so it was nearly fifteen years after its release (with
Random Access Memories happening in the interim) until I gave it a full listen. I'd loved the bigger tracks upon release, but never sought it out. Anyway, the song that really got me flying into a reassessment of the album was "Crescendolls," a song from which a fictional band was created by Daft, a band through whom a whole animated movie was made that used
Discovery as its soundtrack. The somewhat woeful-yet-campy movie
Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem was centered around the Crescendolls and is best described here for anybody interested.
en.wikipedia.org
I don't have too much of a preference for which song to pick, but one I wouldn't likely pick would be "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" as it is basically Kanye's now and the rest of Discovery is so unique and such essential dance music that most of the other songs might just be better representatives for the album. More danceable, as it were. "One More Time" is the obvious choice with its memorable vocal by Romanthony, a DJ/producer/performer based in the United States who had teamed with Daft Punk on the album; but if I had to pick, I might pick "Too Long," the album's closer with a guest vocal appearance from the same man. It has the vocal hook, the disco and post-disco vibe, and R&B mentioned in the write-up Doc posted above.
From the Guardian:
"Speaking at the time of their hit in 2001, Daft Punk's Guy Manuel de Homem-Christo said: 'We met him at the 1996 Winter Music Conference and became friends. What's odd is that [he is] not big in the United States at all. [His] music had a big effect on us. The sound of [his] productions – the compression, the sound of the kick-drum and Romanthony's voice, the emotional soul – is part of how we sound today. Because [he means] something to us, it was much more important for us to work with [him] than with other big stars.'"
RIP Romanthony, 1967-2013
But with that in mind, I'll leave the song to consensus among the other three voters. Peace, fellas.
eta* And I can't help but think wikkid would be tearing his hair out with a new wave and modern disco album topping my list in this countdown. Such extrapolation is the legacy he left us, really. What a memorable man. I miss him and miss the chance to browbeat him with this.
