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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Solely responsible for the current interest in all things funky and French, the Daft Punk boys, Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, can do no wrong. Breaking into the club scene with their own blend of techno-disco in 1995, their debut album is the 80's electro-funk record of your dreams. Influenced by old school Chicago house and Detroit minimalist techno (all name checked on "Teachers"), Homework ranges from the warped electro that has become their trademark on "Around the World" and "Da Funk", to banging acid techno on "Rollin'and Scratchin'" and "Alive". An album so funky it could make James Brown cry, and with so much bite you can feel it at the back of your throat. --Ed Potton
Review
Even before they pulled a Kraftwerk and turned into robots, Daft Punk’s talent for mythmaking was as precocious as their production skills. They first passed a cassette of their music to Stuart MacMillan, co-founder of the Scottish techno label Soma, at a Euro Disney rave in 1993. Then, following the release of just two singles, Parisians Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter were snapped up by Virgin and set to work on their debut album.
When Homework arrived in 1997, Britpop’s wane was too incipient to be detected and dance albums tended only to cross over into the UK’s guitar-centric mainstream if, as Leftfield, The Chemical Brothers and Underworld had shown, vocals were included to leaven all those repetitive beats. Perhaps it has something to do with Homework’s success, then, that one of its few vocal tracks happened to be Around the World, one of the decade’s catchiest singles.
The track is 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. While the vocal performs that role on Around the World, elsewhere the same effect is achieved using a wide variety of sounds: Da Funk’s acidic wah-wah guitar line; the torturous squeal that powers the aural battery of Rollin’ & Scratchin’; a sustained fragment of guitar distortion carrying on the ocean breeze of Fresh; the woozy oscillations and slicing percussion of Indo Silver Club.
Just as distinctive as the less-is-more approach to each track’s elements is Homework’s love of compression, a sonic tribute to the FM radio stations that fed Daft Punk’s youthful obsessions. Such extreme use of attack and release, augmented still more by a predilection for filtered basslines and astringent hi-hats, establishes a distinctive tension between bass and treble that’s become as key to their sonic palette as their referencing of 70s disco, 80s pop and 90s techno.
Homework could have been a superb 40-minute album, but at almost twice that length there are definite longueurs. For every bagatelle like High Fidelity or Phœnix, though, there’s a gleaming techno machine like Alive ready to hover into view and throw you forward into an LED-coated future of Kanye samples, Grammys, Tron soundtracks, movies and pyramids. The rise of the robots started here. --Chris Power
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Seminal and one of the most influential 90's sound,
By
This review is from: Homework (Audio CD)
This remains one of my firm favorites. even if I came to it in late 1998. The CD contains well known tracks such as the famous 'Around the world' to the weirder end like 'Rollin' and scratchin''.My favorite track, one which keeps drawing me back is 'Revolution 909'. This starts very quietly with the sounds of a big beat on a boom box in the street. that's rudely interrupted by an announcement ("Stop the music!") then ... hell breaks loose. All of a sudden you're thrown into an amazing blast of BIG BEAT THUMPING that almost MAKES you reach for the volume knob and BLAST this one from the houses. When this one ends we hear 'Da Funk' cleverly slide in with it's weird but very additive warbled beat. The album after that is definitely in the realms of experimentation but if you listen carefully to this album you'll begin to notice similar sounds in later dance tracks...... I'm very impressed.
11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
debut daft punk,
By
This review is from: Homework (Audio CD)
I brought this album after discovery, so my expectations were a little skewed. Luckly i am a big house fan and found this album right up my street. The only problem that i have with this album is that the songs are too long, almost to the extreme.I know i shouldn't compare the two albums, but i feel that homework has the better tracks while discovery has the better layout and appeal. One or two friends of mine won't listen to this album because there is litle to break the album up. This is the only reason that i haven't given this the whole five stars. All in all a good, if somewhat strange album. I'd recomend that anyone should at least listen to it.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Superb debut from the boys from Paris...,
By
This review is from: Homework (Audio CD)
This is the 1996 debut album from "Thomas Bangalter" and "Guy Mauuel DeHomem".
This album is truly a test for the bass reponse on the listeners speakers, the opening track has an incredible bass slam as it's opener!The whole C.D. is just asking to be played at the max volume you can get away with,just watch the walls and floors bounce! They recorded this album on an eight track desk at "Bangalter" home, it's an eclectic collection mixing arcane analogue keyboards with hip-hop talk box effects taking in house,techno,and electro and little hits of disco.As a footnote "Bangalter" father wrote "D.I.S.C.O." for "Ottawan" and "Cuba" for the "Gibson Brothers",so it's no surpise that "Daft Punk" mutated,oddly comforting 70's influnces are all over the hit singles from this album "Da funk" and "All around the World" A real leap forward in the French music scene they took the lead started by St.Germain and ran with it, this is cracking stuff for the pre-going out party at the weekends,gets you right in the party mood buy for this purpose....
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