― Millar (Millar), Saturday, 15 February 2003 00:35 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Ronan (Ronan), Saturday, 15 February 2003 00:43 (twenty-one years ago) link
― M Matos (M Matos), Saturday, 15 February 2003 00:43 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Ronan (Ronan), Saturday, 15 February 2003 00:44 (twenty-one years ago) link
― M Matos (M Matos), Saturday, 15 February 2003 00:46 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Ronan (Ronan), Saturday, 15 February 2003 00:55 (twenty-one years ago) link
Yeah, it's not just "nostalgia." Doing Norman Rockwell paintings in 2003 would be "nostalgia" -- what Daft Punk do would be more akin to a visual artist that takes the Rockwell aesthetic gets inside it, deforms and elaborates it and represents it in new ways. Actually, a better art reference: Daft Punk do for their formats what Roy Lichtenstein did with comic art? (My art history's not good enough for me to be really confident about that, but I think it works.)
The biggest source of this sort of thing in the 90s was, I think, the whole "retro-futurism" vibe coming off of bands like Stereolab -- not just saying "oh how cute remember these old aesthetics" but rearranging and recombining them and actively redemonstrating how they functioned and what was valuable about them.
― nabisco (nabisco), Saturday, 15 February 2003 01:03 (twenty-one years ago) link
Or perhaps they're just benefitting from the old maxim - a fool may appear wise if he remains silent - and we are all thinking about this far harder than it really merits.
― Millar (Millar), Saturday, 15 February 2003 01:06 (twenty-one years ago) link
― mark s (mark s), Saturday, 15 February 2003 01:10 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Ronan (Ronan), Saturday, 15 February 2003 01:12 (twenty-one years ago) link
When this album came out I was reminded of this great 80s flick called "Electric Dreams", that was played thousands of times on HBO during the Reagan Administration. A young architect's computer, Edgar (voice of Bud Cort), comes to life (as usual whenever you spill soda on an electrical appliance) and vies with his owner for the love of the cello player next door (Virginia Madsen), learning about love and wooing her with the music the computer composes for her. In 1984 what was the sound of a computer making love? Well, it sounded like Boy George and Culture Club (Love is Love, The Dream). And what did a computer making love sound like in 2001- a little like Daft Punk.
― Carey (Carey), Saturday, 15 February 2003 01:16 (twenty-one years ago) link
I don't think we've gotten to that question yet, Millar. If you want a list of all the things Daft Punk are doing to recontextualize the stuff that's supposedly "ironic" I could listen through Discovery and write one; I don't think I could do the same with a Creed record, and besides I can't think of anyone who would claim Creed are reworking anything in the first place. Anyway with Daft Punk it's not "repackaged slightly different," it's actively about picking up different aesthetics and turning them over and seeing how they run -- like I said I could try and list "evidence" of that, but if you don't think there is any I'm not sure I could convince you.
― nabisco (nabisco), Saturday, 15 February 2003 01:17 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Millar (Millar), Saturday, 15 February 2003 01:19 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Ronan (Ronan), Saturday, 15 February 2003 01:20 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Dan I., Saturday, 15 February 2003 01:34 (twenty-one years ago) link
― nabisco (nabisco), Saturday, 15 February 2003 01:38 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Ronan (Ronan), Saturday, 15 February 2003 01:40 (twenty-one years ago) link
― M Matos (M Matos), Saturday, 15 February 2003 01:50 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Curtis Stephens, Saturday, 15 February 2003 01:52 (twenty-one years ago) link
― M Matos (M Matos), Saturday, 15 February 2003 01:55 (twenty-one years ago) link
I think in most cases DP is nonironic because they are either making straight up dance traxxx (too functional to be ironic) or getting all 1979 space-age with complete reverence for the original styles and settings albeit updated (lichtensteined) with modern technique. There are plenty of other artists in a similar vein nowadays and I don't think irony even enters into the picture.
― Millar (Millar), Saturday, 15 February 2003 05:03 (twenty-one years ago) link
― booyah achieved, Saturday, 15 February 2003 08:38 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Jay Vee (Manon_70), Saturday, 15 February 2003 12:42 (twenty-one years ago) link
― M Matos (M Matos), Saturday, 15 February 2003 12:51 (twenty-one years ago) link
and why didn't they tour it do we know ?surely the best record never to be toured *at all*.
― piscesboy, Saturday, 15 February 2003 13:39 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Ronan (Ronan), Saturday, 15 February 2003 13:41 (twenty-one years ago) link
― dave q, Saturday, 15 February 2003 13:46 (twenty-one years ago) link
― robin (robin), Saturday, 15 February 2003 18:30 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Ronan (Ronan), Saturday, 15 February 2003 18:58 (twenty-one years ago) link
― jess (dubplatestyle), Saturday, 15 February 2003 19:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― minna (minna), Sunday, 16 February 2003 05:44 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Dan I., Sunday, 16 February 2003 08:41 (twenty-one years ago) link
― nabisco (nabisco), Sunday, 16 February 2003 08:49 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Amateurist (amateurist), Sunday, 16 February 2003 08:52 (twenty-one years ago) link
― the pinefox, Sunday, 16 February 2003 16:27 (twenty-one years ago) link
― nabisco (nabisco), Sunday, 16 February 2003 18:04 (twenty-one years ago) link
explain please. this is not enough, too vague. nostalgia relates simply to the past. this is extremely confusing piefox, please clarify. how can an album which looks back to a previous era with affection not be nostalgic? this is baffling to say the least.
― gareth (gareth), Sunday, 16 February 2003 19:16 (twenty-one years ago) link
― mark s (mark s), Sunday, 16 February 2003 19:40 (twenty-one years ago) link
It's not nostalgia nor is it irony, and I like the idea that there's not a word for it. What I get is the feeling I had as a kid at the Magic Kingdom, after baking in the sun waiting in lines all day, euphoric throughout, and then watching the Main Street Electrical Parade, when it's finally dark and cooler, and the lights & music project a different euphoria: it's all over, you're going home soon, things won't be magical tomorrow. That's "Superheroes" to me.
― All cars are bad (Euler), Monday, 4 January 2021 17:14 (three years ago) link
it's both of those things surely, not exclusively, or with any of the implied disparagement that gets attached to those concepts
thread is an interesting time capsule. I don't get the need to define irony so narrowly here, or to treat it as a dirty word. or the need to justify what DP is doing in futurist/progressive terms (feels v brit music press) to defend it from accusations of revivalism (clearly the worst thing music could be back then)
― Left, Monday, 4 January 2021 19:36 (three years ago) link
the album name could still be a pun though. disco? very!
― StanM, Monday, 4 January 2021 20:09 (three years ago) link
https://media.s-bol.com/NxEXg9Ek03Y8/550x553.jpg
― partyin' maskless with Rudy G. and Vanilla Ice, it's a gas gas gas (breastcrawl), Monday, 4 January 2021 20:21 (three years ago) link
^^That album was in fact nicknamed "Disco, very!" by the members of ELO.
― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Monday, 4 January 2021 20:57 (three years ago) link
Well, I think the Disneyland comparison is supremely OTM, DP/Discovery as an impossible, manufactured utopia that doesn't purport to be a reality so much as it requires a suspension of disbelief. The trick of their trade is to manipulate or seduce you into checking your skepticism.
So it's easy to understand their attraction to forms that are devoid of cynicism, or mutually incompatible. LRD "Darkdancer" comes to mind as an album from that time which employed unfashionable (then) retro influences to a similar effect
― Adoration of the Mogwai (Deflatormouse), Tuesday, 5 January 2021 00:13 (three years ago) link
They don’t really sample or evoke well known songs so I the nostalgia factor of “hey, remember this?” is missing imho. It’s also clearly done with love for a certain mood and era, so I’d say the “irony” isn’t there either. I’d rather describe “Discovery” as an homage.
― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Tuesday, 5 January 2021 12:05 (three years ago) link
i'm a bit confused as to why someone would think of Discovery as being "ironic". Then again the landscape in 2003 was very different to today.
― Specific Ocean Blue (dog latin), Tuesday, 5 January 2021 13:14 (three years ago) link
if anyone is confused by the premise of this thread, keep in mind I was 15 years old when I started it
― real muthaphuckkin jeez (crüt), Tuesday, 5 January 2021 13:38 (three years ago) link
not an excuse
― Specific Ocean Blue (dog latin), Tuesday, 5 January 2021 14:38 (three years ago) link