Daft Punk - Adieu, Au Revoir...

So this is how it ends for Daft Punk. Not with a whimper but a bang. 

I can't think of an act in recent years - if ever - who have raised the profile of French music to such an international level. 

Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter's legacy is incomparable, a swathe of awards, an iconic international hit, and a visual identity that would make Kraftwerk jealous just being some of the high points in a career that covered four albums, a soundtrack and some absolutely classic records.

But 2013's  Random Access Memories looks like their last full album. Work since then has included co-producing Kanye West's Yeezus, an unreleased track featuring Jay-Z,  performing on Pharrell's  G.I.R.L. album and The Weeknd's Starboy and I Feel It Coming hits.

While these were probably the kind of side projects that would be the high point of many artists' careers, it has been a relatively quiet period. No tours, no further soundtracks despite occasional rumours.

Footage from their 2006 Electroma film makes it clear they've reached the end of the road. Thomas Bangalter goes out with a bang. A slow-motion desert explosion that's as cinematic as anything in Zabriskie Point.

Their work as individual producers will no doubt continue, but we'll miss France's favourite metallic headed house robots.

Editorial: January 2020

So it's been a quiet place here for the last few months, I guess what looked initially like a time when I had to focus on other things became a full-on hiatus for this blog.

Time to switch the lights back on and boot up the laptop again.

When I've been away from here there's always a thought that I'll upgrade the blog with some huge improvements, spend some time on a new home page and get some more feature-length pieces ready. But rather than set myself up for a fall I'll just start things with small steps, getting back into regular posts with some fine French music to enjoy, and build from that.

A bit more organic, a bit more achievable.

Why? There's more motivation than ever. The French music scene is vibrant and still remains a secret to far too many. It deserves all the attention we can give it and there's much to cover.

It's a strange time with media becoming more focused and narrow while the torrent of great material is more accessible than ever. I love being able to immerse myself in new music from France - whether punk from Rennes, Paris hip-hop or Provençal psych - online and can investigate new releases by established acts without having to pay my salary directly to Fnac every month. Just don't expect to hear any of it too soon on the radio in the UK.

You'll find it here.

We aim to bring updates about French music, from developing acts to the established names, with an eye on new talent and an awareness of the rich heritage of French music that still remains something of a mystery to the anglophone audience.

As the UK moves towards greater anglophone insularity, we believe entirely in the value of introducing French culture in our own small way as best we can. It enriches us artistically in the UK and helps our many friends in France as well.

We hope some acts that have built a reputation in France get the opportunity to reach a wider international audience. Acts who have an audience already in France can move easily onto an global stage as Christine and the Queens and Daft Punk show, but smaller acts can benefit from establishing themselves in the UK and beyond. A successful indie release or a tour can be a major opportunity for an artist in a new market.

So we aim to do what we've been doing for the last few years, but doing more of it this year. Whether it's brief new articles or longer features, video clips or reviews, we'll be across as much as we can be here. We've got some plans and some new things that we'll hopefully get to but in the meantine, allons y!

Charlotte Gainsbourg: Rest

A new track by Charlotte Gainsbourg is always going to get our attention, especially when it's a track involving Daft Punk's Guy Manuel de Homem-Christo.

The light electro backdrop he creates is a perfect stage for Gainsbourg's distinctive vocals.

The song Rest comes from her forthcoming fifth album, her first since 2011. As well as Daft Punk, the cast of guests includes Paul McCartney, Owen Pallett, and Connan Mockasin.

Her last collection was 2011's Stage Whisper album, a double album that featured out-takes from her IRM album and a live set.

Since then a cover of Hey Joe, for the Nymphomanic soundtrack, is all that she's released since.

Still, given that there was 20 years between her Charlotte For Ever debut and her 5:55 second album, it's really not been that long a wait.


In recent years she's maybe been concentrating more on her acting career than on her musical output. Given the career she's had, you can't blame her. Her father worked with film throughout his career but never attained the level of artistic and critical success that Charlotte has enjoyed, with César and Cannes awards to her name.

The next chapter in her musical career  is expected to be released on November 17 on Because Music.

Juliette Armanet: Monte le Son session featuring I feel it coming (The Weeknd cover)

A lovely 'VF' cover version of I feel it coming by The Weeknd by Juliette Armanet.

The song, the original of which was a massive hit in France as it was pretty much everywhere else,  takes on a laid back jazzy feel at her hands.

The performance comes from France 4's Monte le son TV show, where in the same session she also performs L’Amour en Solitaire and Alexandre.

 The original of I feel it coming was a collaboration with Daft Punk, from The Weeknd's Starboy album that was released last year. Daft Punk also collaborated on the album's title track, a US Billboard chart number one single.

Juliette Armanet releases her debut album, to be entitled  Petite Amie, on April 7.

LEJ: Get Lucky

It has been a while since versions of Get Lucky were a thing, but proper pop stars LEJ revealed their version of the track in an appearance on France 2.

The trio of Lucie, Elisa and Juliett have had massive success this year with their track Summer 2015, re-versioning summer hits in their own style.

They've released a collection of cover versions entitled En attendant l'album, which includes Get Lucky as well as ten other tracks, with Summer 2015 and Hip Hop Mash Up also featuring.

They're 2016 diaries are already looking quite full, with extensive live dates throughout next year across France including a date at L'Olympia in October at the end.


L.E..J. "Get Lucky"

2015 Grammy Awards

The Grammy Awards unfolded in Los Angeles last night, and while there was no repeat of Daft
Punk's sweeping victory last year for French artists, there was at least one French artist on the list, and a French flavour for another.

Alexandre Desplat picked up the award for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media for the soundtrack of The Grand Budapest Hotel.

There was one award interesting award, with a Best Arrangement, Instrumental or A Cappella  award for Texas vocal group Pentatonix for a track entitled Daft Punk, a work that pays tribute to the French duo.

Meanwhile Daft Punk associate Pharrell Williams took home a prize for Best Pop Solo Performance for Happy and Best Urban Contemporary Album for his album Girl. He also took home the Best Music Video award for Happy.

Daft Punk: Recognizer - Audi TT Advert

A new appearance by a Daft Punk track on an advert, with a remix of the track Recognizer .

The track comes originally from Disney's Tron Legacy soundtrack, released originally in 2010.

The third generation TT was unveiled at the Geneva motor show earlier this year, and the advert certainly shows it making a dramatic entrance.

While car enthusiasts were pretty excited about the new car, the advert does perhaps ramp up the drama a bit.

Still, what better act to soundtrack some cutting-edge technology than Daft Punk?

Vorsprung Daft Punk, perhaps?

Pharrell Williams and Daft Punk: Gust of wind clip

An addendum to yesterday's post about the new Pharrell Williams /  Daft Punk video, with the full video coming out today.

The Daft Punk boys make a low key appearance in the video, their legendary status apparently secured literally with the stone icons.

The track was co-written between Pharrell and  Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter from Daft Punk.

It appeared on Pharrell's G.I.R.L. album.

Pharrell Williams: Gust of Wind [feat. Daft Punk]

A teaser today for  new video by Pharrell Williams featuring Daft Punk, for the track Gust of Wind.

Will it match the success of last year's collaboration?

Uncertain as let's be honest, Randon Access Memories was quite a special moment for both these artists and the others involved, so it might be a case of hoping lighting strikes twice.

But certainly the odds are good, and both Daft Punk and Pharrell are at the peak of their game at the moment so it's without a doubt possible.

Until the full release, an brief teaser video has emerged.

Daft Punk: Human After All: The Remixes

A new(ish) release from Daft Punk as an album of remixes gets a more widespread release.

The collection of remixes of tracks from 2005's Human After All features remixes by  Sebastian, Justice, Soulwax and Vitalic. It was a originally a limited release in Japan that came out in 2006.

It appeared in Japan again earlier this year, as a 14 track version that included two extra versions of Human After All and two new takes on Technologic.

The new release features 15 tracks, the ten that originally appeared on the Japanese release, the four extra tracks and another version of Technologic, this time by Le  Knight Club, which features Daft Punk's Guy-Manuel De Homem-Christo.

The new collection is being streamed on Spotify

Daft Punk: Grammy Awards rehearsals video

Some great footage has emerged of rehearsals for Daft Punk's appearance at the Grammy Awards.

It's a relaxed performance with Pharrell, Stevie Wonder and Nile Rodgers.

Still, a formal enough occasion for the Daft Punk boys to remain in full costume.

It would of course turn out to be a busy night for them, picking up a host of awards for Random Access Memories.

You have to love the audience shots, featuring all the place marking pictures of the celebrities who would be sitting there later.

It has to be said that there's still quite a bit of applause for a runthough of the track. Well deserved, too.

Jay-Z and Daft Punk: Computerized

A track has emerged online presenting a surprise collaboration between Jay-Z and Daft Punk.

The track Computerized leaked online, but with little information about it.

Pitchfork.com say that they can confirm that the track is genuine.

It's not certain when the track was recorded, some have analysed the track and noticed Jay-Z's reference to his Blackberry, and noticed that he's been on a contract with Samsung since 2013 which would date it to before then.

Many online commentators reckon that the track dates from around the time of Daft Punk's Tron Legacy soundtrack.

There's always the possibility that it's something more recent, and that a finished version of the track may yet be released.

As is the nature of internet leaks, nothing is certain, but the possibility of more work between Jay-Z and Daft Punk emerging is a fascinating possibility.

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Pharrell Williams feat Daft Punk: Gust of Wind

With Pharrell Williams working with Daft Punk on Random Access Memories, it seems that that the
collaboration didn't end with Get Lucky and Lose Yourself to Dance, the two best-known tracks from the French act's 2013 album.

A track entitled Gust of Wind has emerged from Pharrell's forthcoming second solo album called G I R L , the song produced by Daft Punk

There's something of Jamiroquai about Gust of Wind  I reckon, and while the Daft Punk contribution is obvious, it is not so intrusive that it ceases to be a Pharrell Williams track.

It will certainly go down well with all those who were impressed with Random Access Memories and who can't wait for new Daft Punk material.

While Daft Punk teased its audience in the build up to the release of Random Access Memories with snippets of tracks, Pharrell has released an entire track. However, given Pharrell's high profile, the success of the song Happy  and the strength of this track, it looks certain that G I R L  will be one of this year's key releases.

The album gets its official release on Monday March the third.
 

Alonzo: A la Dafpunck

A track by rapper Alonzo reveals president Francois Hollande as an unlikely icon of street style, with his scooter and Daft Punk style helmet.

The rapper, known to his family as  Kassim Djae, mocks the president in his new track, and makes a very cool job of it.

Alonzo's usually found as a member of rappers Psy 4 de la Rime. The Marseille act released their most recent album Le Temps d'un instant last year.

Alonzo's most recent solo album was Amour, Gloire & Cité, a top ten album that was released in 2012.

Daft Punk at the Grammy Awards

An outstanding  night for Daft Punk at the Grammy awards last night, with a total of five awards for the
French duo.

They won the record of the year award for Get Lucky

Album of the year for Random Access Memories

Best Pop/Dup performance for Get Lucky

Best Dance/Electronica Album for Random Access Memories

and finally:
Best engineered album/non classical for Random Access Memories

True, award ceremonies are perhaps not an accurate measure of artistic merit, with winners this year including Led Zeppelin for best rock album and Imagine Dragons for Best Rock Performance, making for some curious choices for sure.

I'm sure most people would have predicted an award for Daft Punk, with Get Lucky a ubiquitous presence and Random access Memories Achieving both commercial success and critical recognition.

But collecting a total of five Grammy Awards is nothing less that astonishing .

Russian Police Choir: Get Lucky

There have been a million different versions this song, or so it seems, but there's always time for one more.

Just as the joke's getting a bit stale, it seems that it's reached the centre of Moscow where the police choir, when not imposing law and order upon the good people of city, enjoy a decent song as much as any of us.

So while they may look like the bad guys in the James Bond films, it seems that the Russian boys in blue enjoy the same things we do after all.

Not that it should be seen in any way as an attempt to distract the western media from accusations that the Russian authorities employ strong-arm tactics against their minorities or against those like Pussy Riot who mock them. That would just be cynical.

Instead, we should just enjoy the evident joie de vivre being expressed in way you'd never see the bad guy's henchmen in a Bond film behave.

Daft Punk: Lose Yourself to Dance

The new video for the Daft Punk track Lose Yourself to Dance emerged at the weekend, during the MTV
Video Music Awards.

While the performance by Miley Cyrus was the one that got most of the subsequent headlines, Lady Gaga and Katy Perry, along with Justin Timberlake and *NSYNC were also making a strong bid to steal the stage.

However, our eyes were on a  brief clip by France's favourite robots, with a teaser for the video for the song Lose Yourself to Dance.

While it doesn't have the element of surprise that Get Lucky head- the song's familiar to the huge number of people who have either got or heard the album by now - there;s no denying that it's still a great song.

Get Lucky, of course, went on to be the biggest hit they've had so far, and has been by far the biggest single of the year and like its predecessor, it also features Pharrell Williams on vocals.

However, will there be a full-length video for the song? Get Lucky didn't have much more than a minute's worth of pictures released, which were knitted together with footage from other clips that the band released earlier to make a broadcast video. I suppose it didn't exactly slow down the sales of the song.

Hopefully we'll get a full video before too long, if only to stop the music channels repeating the visuals from the One More Time video.

Evolution of Get Lucky by PV NOVA: Video

I featured this wonderful take on Daft Punk's Get Lucky which reinterprets the song in the style of earlier decades in chronological order in June, but thought another mention of it might be deserved on account of the new video.

PV NOVA, the Paris-based producer behind the track asked people to send in videos interpreting the historic versions of the songs, and received 179 videos in the space of a month.

38 of these were incorporated into the final edit to illustrate a century's worth of Get Lucky.

Of course, I'm sure there will be fuller versions, covers and remixes of the 'historic' versions to emerge in due course.

PV NOVA's debut album Start Again is available to download. You can set your own price for the download album, either take it for free or donate through Paypal, which will help him with his future musical projects.

François Hollande Gets Lucky

I earlier featured the Baracksdubs version of Get Lucky, with the American president performing (almost) his version of the Daft Punk hit, it's good to see some French creative people taking up the baton.

Marking July 14th this new version of the song emerged online

François Hollande's - unauthorised, I'm sure, version of the song featured the French president singing in English.

An English Language song by a French musical act, of course. Very much in the spirit of international co-operation.

I reckon it can only be a matter of time until his version of Call Me Maybe emerges. But I won't hold my breath.

Variations on Get Lucky

One thing that's impressed about Daft Punk's Get Lucky is the apparent ease with which the song has been adapted into different styles and how its mutated in the hands of other musicians like an internet meme that re-appears in different forms.

Whether pastiche, homage, re-mix, or mash-up, musicians and others taking the song as their starting point and adapting the song into something else.

Firstly, the original, and arguably the best. Still not enough video for the track, but perhaps they spent all the promotional money on the guerilla marketing ahead of its release. Still, lack of a video has hardly been a hindrance to sales given figures like it being the first song of 2013 to sell one million copies this year, already the biggest seller in the UK this year.



Wilco are one of the many bands who have covered the song live



US TV host Jimmy Fallon presented a version of it in a Black Simon and Garfunkle style



A bogus Irish tenor version of the song sounds a bit like this:



However, a more 'authentic' Irish version might be this one in Irish Gaeilge, An tÁdh 'Nocht" le Daift Ponc. Cracking video as well.



Here's a version that takes it back to basics by Collective Cadenza. If you can ten hands on the one piano as basic, that is.



Still, if you find the disco groove too uptight, you can always chill out with a smoother version of the tune.



Of course, one version that certainly raised a smile was the one that featured Barack Obama.



T
he US president wasn't the only unexpected vocal take of the song, here's one that features Michael Jackson



For an acoustic version of the song in s folk/jazz/classical crossover style, you'd probably want something like this:



But Daft Punk through the Ages is one version that showcases the versatility of the song like no other.



Not enough? Try this looped version of the song if you've got ten hours to spare. Ideal if you're up all night.