What a record. Truly an impeccable pick to immerse yourself in the musical genius of Daft Punk. Usually, when artists attempt to expand the boundaries of their respective genres, they suffer from some hard misses. It only makes sense, right? One can only create something new and exciting if they don’t fear falling short on some aspects. Discovery is no such case. Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo hit the nail on the head with every song in this record.
In this album, songs feel like they constantly build on themselves. If the song starts feeling a bit mellow or basic, a new element is introduced to shift the entire experience of the listener. If the song starts feeling a bit intense or strong, elements are taken away to let them take a breath.
At times, when the song feels like it is arriving at its climax, the whole buildup suddenly collapses to change beat or melody. Then, after you slowly adjust to this new change, all of the previous buildup reappears and completely recontextualizes the adjustment you just had. A complete joyride of an album.
And we start with a bang! Side A begins with the highly compressed sample of "More Spell on You" by Eddie Johns is immediately recognizable. The song speaks for itself, high compression, high autotune, and heavy synths set the tone for the entire album. Setting up the record player, taking Discovery, and listening to “One More Time” feels like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Of course, I’m going to play One More Time… one more time. The whole song in paper should feel incredibly repetitive, but Daft Punk’s playing, and I really mean playing with the song, makes it feel alive the whole time. It just feels fun.
We follow up with the bells. Aerodynamic’s bells. These bells transmit a sense of uncertainty after the upbeat mood set up by the last track. Which is immediately followed by one of the rawest robot beats in the entire album. After the conclusion of the initial section, we find ourselves in a dead silence – broken by this dangerously raw and aggressive guitar solo, taking center stage. As soon as you start feeling the guitar too extreme, the robots come back into play to give us this new medley with the guitar still as a lead. Only for the bells to cut the song in half, pulling us out of the intensity. There is then an unexpected mood change. Daft Punk takes us to something that can only be defined as interstellar. The overall melody stays the same, yet it feels like a completely different song, 10 times more mellow and 10 times more spacey.
Next up is our first track with a proper set of lyrics. Starting with a synth crescendo, Digital Love is a love song unlike many others. Differentiating it from more mellow or deep love songs, Digital love feels like a song you would associate with your crush. Fun, playful, and not too serious. The starting section of the song maintains a consistent melody for both the chorus and the verse, with a remix of the melody as a bridge. Afterwards, it seems as if one of your speakers stopped working. The other one is playing a fun yet beautiful digital-chord melody, only for your second speaker to join the party with another digital-chord 10 seconds later! These chord