Daft Punk and electronica (fight the "What? Electronica?" gag reflex)

Daft Punk is a little electronica duo from France. This may sound familiar: most electronica groups are in the form of "a little electronica [duo/trio/foursome] from [country in Europe]." Honestly (IMO, of course) most of them should stay in their hometowns, only bugging the people within earshot of the members' houses.

Most electronica (again, IMO, although this opinion is shared by a significant portion of the population of the world) is repetitive, boring, and... well, repetitive and boring. That's just about all it was...

... Until I discovered Daft Punk. To be more specific, their album Discovery (their second). It's not just electronica-techno-funky stuff, like most of the realm of electronica; it's got, not just good beats, but also melodies and harmonies. It's kind of like a crossover between electronica and real music. (Sounds like a bad idea? Yes. But it was well executed.) Their first album, Homework, was mostly just electronica-ish junk, though it was actually somewhat endurable.

Daft Punk, if nothing else, is a good medium for expressing your inner nerd. I'll admit it: if there's no one else around, sometimes I'll put some Daft Punk on the stereo after getting out of the shower and just nerd it out. Turn out my room is a good place to air-guitar, air-synth, air-explosive-drums, dance in nothing but a towel... Good times.

My personal favourite songs on the album:

• Veridis Quo — this one might just be because I'm a piano nerd, but maybe not.
• Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger — A classic. This song actually became popular in the mainstream. Then it became popular again when Kanye remixed it for his song "Stronger." Yes, this was the song you heard in the background.)
• Too Long — The background lyrics are "too long," but I think the real reason this song was named this was because it's over 10 minutes long. It's a gem of boy-band-like vocals combined with Daft Punk shenanigans.

Weekly Randomness

Hi fellow geeks Jerel here with something new. Now you might be asking yourself, "What is this something new?" Well it's your Weekly dose of Randomness!

This week's dose is all about, music. People who know me well enough will tell you that I'm a music whore. I love it all from Sinatra to Feist, from Jay-Z to Miley Cyrus. It doesn't matter to me who sings it, just as long as the song can take me on a ride. Music has no barriers, whoever you are where ever you are music can reach you.

Currently I'm listening to Ingrid Michelson religiously, so what are you listening to at the moment? Are you a music whore like myself, or do you have a certain taste?

In the spirit of this week's little article here's some links to some random music:

http://tinyurl.com/ntwfft

http://tinyurl.com/lkuyw7

http://tinyurl.com/4xgkxy

MTV: Strangulation of the true underground.

MTV: Strangulation of the true underground.

MTV sucks, and pretty much always has. Besides the advent of a few good programs such as: Beavis and Butthead, Aeon Flux, The Maxx, Daria, and all those other depressing 90’s shows, they are deader then hell; and the tombstone reads,” MTV: 1981 – 1997ish”. The network itself is 28 years old, yet has reverted to satisfying the needs of middle school girls, and college kids that are immature enough to watch middle school girl shows. For example: look at the programming guide for the next month. Do you see anything that isn’t a scripted “reality show” about some 16 year old “daddy’s girl” spoiled bitch, or some bullshit about “date my mom”? The original idea of the network was to show music videos, and feed the need for the “underground” of the time period (which primarily consisted of mainstream music with an alternative twist added on for market value).

Now this is all well and good, but where is the music? I have yet to see any… and if there is this supposed music played on this alleged music network, what is the quality of said music? Standards have dropped dramatically over the last decade in the mainstream culture, and MTV documents every second of it, while fattening their pockets along the way. Has anyone except me noticed that modern talent is nothing compared to our predecessors? Every generation before us has released heart felt, and meaningful artwork (their music). Modern music is essentially garbage, based on the fact the lyrics themselves aren’t written by the actual artist. The videos promote sex appeal designed to reach younger and younger crowds as time goes on. It is no secret the “music” industry is based around greed, and the artists themselves are to blame. The networks are based around greed as well. Consumers love to eat this corporate shit seeing as they don’t know any different.

As a generation we have been taught to accept, and lie down on our backs, belly up. We should accept the fact talent is going extinct, while the talent-less strut the big impressive red carpet. MTV is killing the little that’s left of the underground, but hey the counterculture is alive and kicking. That’s why we keep it hush hush, baby.

-PCP