Review Summary: Sometimes you have to take a second to breathe, before going any further. In this album, Daft Punk experiment with minimalism and rock music with their french house style, but is this anything were are used to?
Ever since I was a kid, had I loved Daft Punk. I bought all of their U.S. releases and DVD's, went to all of their shows, emailed them at least three times a week, and even made sort of a Daft Punk helmet of my own, that I liked to wear around the house and pretend I was a superhero. The first song I ever heard from Daft Punk was "Around the World". As soon as I heard it, I had just really got into Daft Punk's unique, and divine sound. I loved both "Homework" and "Discovery", and was very keen to hear their new album.
If you are a die hard daft Punk fan, quite like me, you obviously know that there was a very long, but worth it, time period between Homework and Discovery, 4 long years...and "Human After All", was no different. But it turns out that in that 4 years, they weren't even working on a new album! So when the seeming masterminds behind Daft Punk, Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homen Christo said that they were going to try and complete Human After All, in as little time as possible, I and many other fans had some sort of question in our heads, wondering if this album was going to be any worth listening to.
It seems today, that a lot of albums seem to get leaked before their release date...Human After All was one of those victims. When the album was first leaked weeks before it's release, I(knowing that I shouldn't have), downloaded the leak. At first, I actually wasn't very convinced that this was the right thing! Even other listeners said that it was a fake! When the album was finally released, after listening to every track on the album, I was wrong.
The first song on this album, being the title track, starts off with sort of a 70's/80's Rock 'N Roll drum beat, then kicks in a guitar, and a synthesizer, to a voice that sounds like it is saying, "Yeah-uh", and then the lyrics kick in. This track may have been too long for what it only was, being kind of the same thing, but it was actually pretty decent, and had me expecting more from all the other tracks, but I was wrong again. "The Prime Time of Your Life", starts again with a synthesizer, with the same like words, and some keyboard notes. Then simple and short lyrics kick in, very boring lyrics, then all of the sudden they hold at a high note, then drop. After that, all there is is a very boring and basic beat, suddenly getting faster and faster until the track ends. Then we have the third track, "Robot Rock", which starts off with sort of a jungle-like, drumroll beat, then a guitar kicks in, with sort of a high, shaky rhythm, with the lyrics, "Rock...robot rock", and a synthesizer, except this time saying, "Iyiyiyiyi". the song is good at first, but then gets rather repetitive, annoying, and just plain boring. The song "steam machine", carries on the NEW synthesizer, except in a bit lower key, a basic drum, and some guy in a breathy voice saying, "Steeeeeeaaaam, Steeeeeaaaam", which gets rather annoying. The fifth track,"Make Love", takes 45 seconds to fade, but by then you have already heard all you need to hear, however their is some attractiveness in the lyrics that a soft, male voice is singing to you in the song. "The Brainwasher is such a stupid, boring, and childish song, with absolutely no structure, and a guy saying, "I am the brainwasssshhhhhhaaaa", very stupid and just down right annoying. The song, "Television Rules the Nation", is actually pretty decent, with good keyboard and guitar synths, and a good cahin like drum, with catchy lyrics that are the same as the track name. The song, "Technologic", starts with a robot like voice saying, "Buy it, use it, break it fix it", and a whole bunch of other stuff, and takes quite long for the beat to kick on, we go back to the original "Yeah-uh" synthesizer, and at one point of the song, the same thing, except a higher note, which carries on in the next track. The final track on the album, "Emotion", almost seven minutes long, has a male voice saying, "Emooootiooon", has a trumpet, and a hard hitting bass drum, with that synthesizer again. Too long for the track it is, and gets old fast.
I was really expecting more from Daft Punk, but sometimes you have to take a minute to carry on, maybe the next record will be better(hopefully). The "Alive 2007" album, which contains tracks from Human After All, did get people to reconsider what they had first said about the album, but not many. A very basic and average album, final rating is 2.5. Thank you for reading this review! My first one and more to come! Thanks again!
Recommended tracks:
-Human After All
-Television Rules The Nation
