Why I've lost all respect for Daft Punk

jimi_t

http://palmsout.blogspot.com/2007/02/sample-wednesday-27-daft-punk.html

Click the link, listen to the samples....
It's like finding santa dead on your living room floor

cheesemaker

imagine, sample'n old records,to make new ones.......crazy or what!

jimi_t

cheesemaker wrote:

imagine, sample'n old records,to make new ones.......crazy or what!

I'm all for sampling - in the DJ Shadow sense of the word - but some of these are more akin to (licenced) plaguirism; Robot Rock for example. It's left me that bit disillusioned with a band that I truely believed were doing most everything from scratch - maybe it was the liner note that said "All guitars played by Daft Punk". It's nearly like doing cover versions. Nearly.

damiennolan

I agree with jimi_t!
I have no problems with sampling...its been the backbone of dance/electronic music since day one however Robot Rock aka Breakwater - "Release The Beast" is shocking, outrageous plagiarism! Until the vocals actually kick in, it could actually be Robot Rock!

The other samples are somewhat more subtle which is A.OK with me.

I lost faith in Daft Punk with the release of Human After All and after hearing Breakwater, it just serves to confirm what I already thought.

However, Homework and Discovery will remain (hopefully untarnished) in my top 5 albums of all time!

tman

Wasn't the 10 minutes of funk mix of Da Funk by Armand Van Helden?
Interesting blog anyways...

/edit
the way they nicked that little riff from evil woman for face to face is pretty cool actually

BaZmO*

Haha that's mental. I'm all for sampling but some of those are just straight cover versions. Although I finding it hard to see the Around the World connection.

electro.ie

Nice one! :mad:
Some things we should just not know, nice cut from the Barry Manilow but my god some of the rest are ridiculous. Robot Cock

Executive Steve

*DANCE MUSIC ARTIST IN SAMPLING SHOCKER!!!!!*


:eek:

electro.ie

[cm]tyranny wrote:

*DANCE MUSIC ARTIST IN SAMPLING SHOCKER!!!!!*


:eek:

:rolleyes:

Anima

I don't get some of them at all but yeah some of them are rip offs.

PeakOutput

what makes you think they want your respect?????





sounds harsh but woth thinking about giving the stage they are at in their career.............

electro.ie

PeakOutput wrote:

what makes you think they want your respect?????

No respect=no sales, I bet they still want his money tho.

F@ck it tho. Wish I had of got some of them samples first

jimi_t

PeakOutput wrote:

what makes you think they want your respect?????

sounds harsh but woth thinking about giving the stage they are at in their career.............

No offence, but what are you on about? I'm just expressing my dismay over what I perceive to be a bit of a cop out in terms of originality and artistic integrity - I think you're just trying to be controversial for the sake of it, and not really making a whole lot of sense while doing it; maybe the hour of the morning that was in it :rolleyes:

PeakOutput

jimi_t wrote:

No offence, but what are you on about? I'm just expressing my dismay over what I perceive to be a bit of a cop out in terms of originality and artistic integrity - I think you're just trying to be controversial for the sake of it, and not really making a whole lot of sense while doing it; maybe the hour of the morning that was in it :rolleyes:

ye sry i was kinda drunk at the time so maybe i was a bit blunter than i should of been

daft punk are a dance music act and dance music acts sample .....alot. if you dont agree/like that then you should probably listen to a different genre.

i dont particularly like daft punk neway but they are amazing live.

no respect = no sales is bollox coz 90% of their fan bas imo wouldnt know or care how much they sample or how strong their artistic integrity is if they like a tune and its marketed properly it will still sell

electro.ie

PeakOutput wrote:

ye sry i was kinda drunk at the time so maybe i was a bit blunter than i should of been

daft punk are a dance music act and dance music acts sample .....alot. if you dont agree/like that then you should probably listen to a different genre.

i dont particularly like daft punk neway but they are amazing live.

no respect = no sales is bollox coz 90% of their fan bas imo wouldnt know or care how much they sample or how strong their artistic integrity is if they like a tune and its marketed properly it will still sell

Really? I've lost respect therefore I wont buy their stuff
THerefore
No respect = no sales

don't care about anyone else.

Go buy a Milli Vanilli CD. Daft Punk have the cheek to ponce around in the Robot Rock video Jamming on Guitars and Drums. And in their album credits it says 'all guitars by Daft Punk' As a producer I would care more about what the 10% of better informed people thought. And Daft punk Live? Exact same set no matter where they played.... Download any of their live sets this year. Live My bollox.

electro.ie

popbitch carried this today

>> Human after all <<
The greatest rock'n roll swindle

So, you're a reclusive but legendary dance
act. You decide to do a few gigs. Your
agent contacts the big European festivals
and tells them you are prepared to do three
dates only - to the highest bidders. Bidding
reaches 300,000 euros, so you agree. And
then your agent rings more festivals and says
- ok, you'll do ten dates only, at 300k a
pop. You then do these festivals dressed as
robots. Except, you don't even bother going on
stage for every gig, you get two replacements
to work the pre-programmed synths etc.

Congratulations - you are Daft Punk!

looks like a lot of people have been had

PeakOutput

electro.ie wrote:

popbitch carried this today

>> Human after all <<
The greatest rock'n roll swindle

So, you're a reclusive but legendary dance
act. You decide to do a few gigs. Your
agent contacts the big European festivals
and tells them you are prepared to do three
dates only - to the highest bidders. Bidding
reaches 300,000 euros, so you agree. And
then your agent rings more festivals and says
- ok, you'll do ten dates only, at 300k a
pop. You then do these festivals dressed as
robots. Except, you don't even bother going on
stage for every gig, you get two replacements
to work the pre-programmed synths etc.

Congratulations - you are Daft Punk!

looks like a lot of people have been had

that little paragraph off wisdom is a little old at this stage


the bit about the gigs........thats just good business

the bit about them not actually being their......i dont personally believe anyone would give up the opportunity to be in front of however many thousands of screaming fans.

wheather they play the songs live or not they put on a great show and when i go see a gig thats wat matters

PeakOutput

electro.ie wrote:

Go buy a Milli Vanilli CD. Daft Punk have the cheek to ponce around in the Robot Rock video Jamming on Guitars and Drums. And in their album credits it says 'all guitars by Daft Punk'

whats your point?????

are you saying they did not actually play the guitars??? if they sampled them instead of playing them themselves they have to give alot more money in royalties to the original composer. if they play them themselves its considered a cover so they dont have to give as much if any of their money to the original artist. so weather they did it for money or artisitic reasons it is very likely they did play the guitars

electro.ie

No about the artist royalties that's not true. Some friends on the Label I'm on covered a blondie track (Complete reconstruction, Nat leonard instead of Blondie's vocals) and believe me it doesn't matter if it's a cover etc. Blondie's label get's it all. Look I think it more boils down to an individuals taste and opinions. Can't see much point in continuing this really. Have you listened to the Robot Rock original (Breakwater- Release the beast). Pull it into Ableton Live, loop it and put DP's version on another channel, now close your eyes and crossfade and tell me if they did a reconstructuion!

Personally I'd have to agree with the original poster, I've lost a lot of respect for them, that's just me. Maybe you feel differently. That's your perogative and you're entitled to it. No hard feelings

PeakOutput

electro.ie wrote:

No about the artist royalties that's not true. Some friends on the Label I'm on covered a blondie track (Complete reconstruction, Nat leonard instead of Blondie's vocals) and believe me it doesn't matter if it's a cover etc. Blondie's label get's it all. Look I think it more boils down to an individuals taste and opinions. Can't see much point in continuing this really. Have you listened to the Robot Rock original (Breakwater- Release the beast). Pull it into Ableton Live, loop it and put DP's version on another channel, now close your eyes and crossfade and tell me if they did a reconstructuion!

Personally I'd have to agree with the original poster, I've lost a lot of respect for them, that's just me. Maybe you feel differently. That's your perogative and you're entitled to it. No hard feelings

absolutely no hard feelings its just a friendly debate...........

personally my view is that if a track sounds good i dont care how its made. i care as in i want to know so i can possibly do it myself but i wont look down on anyone coz of their methods if the product is good

i know who your talking about doing that cover and it was their own institution that thought me the royalty thing not them personally but a guest lecturer so if it is wrong i apologise

electro.ie

Cool...

It's unfortunate in one way that the rules and guidelines to sampling/covering are very ambiguous. It's just a matter of artists/labels coming to an agreement. Talk soon

Makaveli

Sure 9th Wonder sampled that Breakwater track for a Murs track (Intro on 3:16 the 9th Edition) before Daft Punk did. The difference being 9th sampled part of it, Daft Punk basically took the whole thing.

pmk19

thank you jimi_t for finding this!

I've shown this to so many people and we are all simply flabbergasted! I dont have a problem with sampling but the length of some of the samples is unreal...that coupled with the fact that daft punk deliberately decieved us and tried to pass the beats off as their own just infuriates me..(all guitars by daft punk - getta grip

because the samples are so untouched by daft punk..you are so familiar with the songs that when u actually listen to the original songs your brain keeps thinkin that somebody is remixing daft punks song..

i agree there is an art to sampling and that it takes skill to recognise a good sample and doing something with it however, as it turns out the daft punk sound that ive grown to love isnt even their own..i cant even describe their sound...vocoders come to mind..but just look at the barry manilow sample...

jtsuited

I speak as both a producer and a big Daft Punk fan(probably former fan since hearing those samples). I genuinely cannot get over the out and out plagiarism that is the SOLE reason they have become so successful.

There's nothing wrong with sampling things in new and original ways as a lot of house acts do. But this is a joke. Daft Punk specifically and intentionally make themselves out to be anything but sample based artists.

I just looked at the liner notes of Homework, Discovery and Human After All, and while there are a few mentions of the odd sample being used, it is quite clear they are attempting to imply they are the songwriters etc.

They really seem like a pair of guys who have cynically disguised themselves as 'real' musical artists as opposed to remixers (who do fcuk all actual remixing) with a penchant for really tacky vocoder hooks.

As for the live issue. To even use the word 'live' is completely ridiculous. Every set I've heard have clearly been the same. I know it's always been difficult for dance artists in the past to pull off a 'live' show but with technology where it is these days(the arrival of Ableton obviously makes a huge difference), it just seems lazy and cheeky to just let a pre-programmed set play continuously and without any sort of improvisation.
Granted they are enjoyable live, but you can't feel like you're not being ripped off when you spend extortionate amounts of money to get into a gig where the guys on stage may as well be standing there drinking tea and staring into space.

Hearing these samples really has put everything Daft Punk have done into a very uncomplimentary context. It's not whether what they're doing is good or bad, it's what they're pretending to be is where the problem is.

jimi_t

Musicthing are in on the act

A visual aid - best thing to show people who you're trying to explain the argument to.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJPdVVOmbz4&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fmusicthing%2Eblogspot%2Ecom%2F

cornbb

Wow.

I've absolutely nothing against sampling but that is absolutely taking the piss to the extreme.

I've lost the remainder of what little respect I had for Daft Punk.

Zascar

Quite incredible alright. How come no one noticed / talked about this before now?

voltamadan

I've nothing against sampling but....

But nothing. You are for it or against it. Support rule breaking methods of making new music or go hang out with the rock beards that got into such a spin when the hip-hoppers started 'stealing' their licks to create wonderful astoundingly new music.

Human After All wasn't a very good album. Simple as that. It feels unimaginative, rushed and just not very interesting at all. So tear them to pieces for that, by all means. But how they went about creating it should not be up for discussion. Otherwise you may as well start saying things like 'its not 'real' music' etc.

'All guitars by Daft Punk'? If you can't see the self-effacing humour in that...

cornbb

voltamadan wrote:

But nothing. You are for it or against it. Support rule breaking methods of making new music or go hang out with the rock beards that got into such a spin when the hip-hoppers started 'stealing' their licks to create wonderful astoundingly new music.

Daft Punk haven't exactly been following the lines of creating "wonderful astoundingly new music" though, have they? They've sampled very significant chunks of other people's work without even bothering to embellish it with their own macroscopic musical structures. The spirit of sampling is to take someone else's material and integrate it into your own musical creation, not to simply license someone else's work, put minimal effort into transforming it into an original creation and then remarket it as your own creation, which is what Daft Punk have essentially done. No one here has an issue with sampling, its an issue of creativity and plagiarism.

P.S. I'm the last person around here you'll hear saying "its not 'real' music" about anything.

beans

Now I haven't really been into what Daft Punk have done after Homework, so the fact that they have used some samples in a less than subtle fashion doesn't really detract from them for me...

I think they may have become tied too closely to their label's release schedule to continue Homework's quality through their later albums. Some articles I've read over the years seem to confirm this, sorry forget the details... but I don't think 'Discovery' and 'Human After All' are very artistically solid anyway, so who cares if they've done some sloppy work sampling tbh. Takes nothing away from them for me.

And that live show, however they make it happen, is awesome. Just my 2c.

I love listening to the originals though. Some quality tunes ('Hot Shot' esp )

voltamadan

cornbb wrote:

Daft Punk haven't exactly been following the lines of creating "wonderful astoundingly new music" though, have they? They've sampled very significant chunks of other people's work without even bothering to embellish it with their own macroscopic musical structures. The spirit of sampling is to take someone else's material and integrate it into your own musical creation, not to simply license someone else's work, put minimal effort into transforming it into an original creation and then remarket it as your own creation, which is what Daft Punk have essentially done. No one here has an issue with sampling, its an issue of creativity and plagiarism.

P.S. I'm the last person around here you'll hear saying "its not 'real' music" about anything.

yea but, this thing we call house music started out with DJ's doing nothing more than taking disco basslines wholesale, speeding things up a little and sticking a steady beat underneath it all i.e they took old sounds and made them new for a current dancefloor. this is essentially what Daft Punk have been doing their entire career.

LaMoose

The bollox spouted on this topic is unbelievable. Having heard the breakwater tune before I was expecting FAR worse of the rest. I gave a mate a cd of the songs and although he's not an avid fan he has all the albums-he could only pick the really obvious ones-Robot Rock, Crescendolls, Harder Better Faster.

Robot Rock is hardly a tune youd use to illustrate the 'genius' of DP in the first place-it's the same riff for 5 minutes. The other songs in my opinion only serve to show their ability to pick out a quality sample and build a tune around it.

What people need to remember is that Daft Punk are a DANCE act-the object of their music is to move your feet, not stimulate your brain-and Daft Punk are gods in that respect. I personally don't care how they achieve that goal.

I also think people need to get over Homework. I love it as much as the next man but i'd hardly descibe it as a masterpiece-it's got a template and it doesn't stray from it. Again, back to the dance argument-it sounds great so it's technical merits don't matter.

And the show last year was the most outstanding live spectacle i've ever witnessed-regardless of how they managed it

In other news...the originals are quality-anyone know of any decent compilation of that kinda stuff?

beans

That Tata Vega track appears on 'After the Playboy Mansion', which is pretty solid.

donal66

I agree fully with JIMI_T. Sampling is one thing but that is just downright robbery.

Anima

Who else would of even heard of the breakwater song if it wasn't for Daft Punk?

I think some people need to shut the f*ck up rather fast. Far too much bullsh*t going around from pretty much everyone. Homework for me is the best Daft Punk album and there are barely any "over" sampled pieces on that, so for me thats enough to show they can do there own thing when required.

With such a decent debut album brings obvious high standards for a second and even third album. Just look at the work that Tomas Bangalter has produced and you can see the quality that he can bring. You can't say that Daft Punk only have their name because of the songs they have sampled. Half of the tracks which most people think are "good", I just think are just gimmicky bollacks tbh and I know most decent fans of dance/electronic think the same.

Who wouldn't go nuts for a bit of "Rollin' and Scratchin'" when played in a club? I'd go ****in retarded thats for sure.

condra

Im over it.

Blisterman

The ELO sample was very well done. I love both songs, and never noticed it before.

Helix

Anima wrote:

Who wouldn't go nuts for a bit of "Rollin' and Scratchin'" when played in a club? I'd go ****in retarded thats for sure.

i can hand on heart say ive never seen why people like that track, its absolutely awful

goods

its a classic track .

Helix

does absolutely nothing for me

boring, mindless, grooveless, soulless rubbish like so much of their other stuff

when they were good they were very very good, but when theyre bad, theyre abysmal

Zascar

Looks like Daft Punk are not the only ones to be outed on this website - Basement Jaxx have got the same treatment. If you go to the Sample Wednesday section of the blog there are loads of them. Outkast, DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, The Fugees, De La Soul and many more. However none of them seem to be as blatant as daft punks 'sampling'

BloodBath

I have lost some respect for Daft Punk after checking this out but I think a lot of the sampling is top notch and well done. Even the long samples are pretty decent. If a sample isn't broke don't fix it tbh and most of us would never have heard them if it wasn't for the heavy sampling daft punk did.

sturgo

why is everyone so supprised? theres not a damn thing wrong with sampling. it's a totally valid form of creativity. artists have been doing it in various forms for years.

human afterall is a pile of ****e though. it sounds like a really bad demo by a daft punk cover band.

Zascar

Spamming like that in more than one thread with content unrelated to the topic is asking for a banning....

sturgo

Zascar wrote:

Spamming like that in more than one thread with content unrelated to the topic is asking for a banning....

???

Zascar

sturgo wrote:

???

No, not you Sturgo hehehe, there was another post after yours that was pure spem that was obviously deleted...

sturgo

Zascar wrote:

No, not you Sturgo hehehe, there was another post after yours that was pure spem that was obviously deleted...

cool. i thought i was loosin it!

BaZmO*

Yeah, Spemming is bad!

justfortherecor

Human after all was a bit of a mess alright.

I think the song that exemplifies this is 'The Prime Time of Your Life'.
Starts out so promising with really grungy type music and the vocals develop nicely. Then it completely loses the run of itself towards the end and culminates in a horrible mash up of rapid notes.
Its obvious they rushed it and the song suffers hugely as a result.

Dont even get me started on 'Robot Rock'!

However, their live set is simply unbelievable and their talent is undeniable. Just appears as though they are maybe enjoying the good life too much at the moment and not focusing on new tunes.

Still, I love them.

Executive Steve

his thread is one of the funniest things i have ever ****ing read!

OMG A DANCE MUSIC ARTISTS SAMPLED SOMEBODY!!111!!!1 zomgwtf111!!!1!ONE


sampling is as old as the ****ing hills lads, the problem is that when samplers were in their infancy in the late 80's early nineties and you were lucky to get 6 seconds worth of sample memory to play with you were pretty much forced to hide the origins of your samples because you didn't have the processing power to lift a whole hook... as a result, tunes would be built up out of **** loads of different samples and vibes, breaks etc that all had to be mashed together from various different sources to make a coherent piece of music.

dj shadow, danny breaks, dj premier, calibre, rza, - all ****ing masters of the sampled hook and the sampled drumloop...

i suppose all you trance and hard house people who are so wired into the idea that "writing" music involves playing a one finger piano loop and whacking it through an arpeggiator, copy and pasting a kickdrum / off beat bassline with a snare roll every 128 bars have no concept of what "crate digging" is... the hunt for the perfect sample, the hunt through dusty crates of 7" records looking for a breakbeat that hasn't been used a million and one times before...

not to mention the fact that every time you hear an amen in a tune, or an apache, or a god-made-me-funky, or a bad sister, a tighten up tighter, that there's a whole history to know about the break, the history of the break, where and when it was recorded, what album it came off; did you buy it on a compilation? then you're a faker, 7" or stfu, crate digging gets to be an obsession, and the beautiful thing about it is that the crate digger, who wants to make new and interesting music, can't do so without having a rich, deep and encyclopedic knowledge of the history of old and often forgotten music...

i remember meeting some eejit techno dude once... he claimed that there was an inherent superiority in using a 909 to punch in ****ing step programmed drum patterns because that was "being creative" and "writing the music HIMSELF, maan" and that a 909 was a "tool that inspired creativity" - so the entire history of recorded sound to **** with juxtapose and bend to will and shape according to your imagination is obviously nothing against a little grey box that goes *boom boom boom* the same 8 sounds over the same 16 steps and the same old same old same old...

daft punk are irrelevant ***** of course - they're french first of all, but secondly their tunes, while incredibly catchy and often superficially enjoyable, are clearly cobbled together from records you'd never heard till you saw this thread.

big ****ing deal - granted, it looks like they're lazy bolloxes with little to no musical imagination when it comes to using their samples, but hey, they haven't done anything that hasn't made me want to leave the club since homework so i couldn't really give a rat's arse anyway

justfortherecor

WTF?! Are you a fan of Daft Punk or not? I found it pretty hard to follow that piece!