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[just-another-andy]

I want to find more music that sounds exactly like Daft Punk's Nightvision.
Does it exist??

[KickThatBathProf]

Pandora is the answer!

www.pandora.com

Try it out!

[just-another-andy]

thankyou! Pandora radio will be my new playtoy!

[OstermanA]

Pandora has to be the single most expensive free service of all time. It's kinda like crack that's good for the user, but harder on the wallet.

[Ballard]

Dude, Night Vision is one of Daft Punk's most unusual tracks. What I mean is, it hardly resembles their dance stuff. If you want stuff that sounds exactly like it, try some piano-driven pop. Possibly some Scissor Sisters.

(Brits don't kill me for this one. I'm well aware that in England they're Top 40, but here in the States they're fairly obscure and still really good)

[imagist42]

Dude, Night Vision is one of Daft Punk's most unusual tracks. What I mean is, it hardly resembles their dance stuff.

The beauty of Pandora is you can set a station to play tracks similar to one specific song rather than an artist's whole discography. In fact, it's usually more effective and interesting to do so.

[Thrillho]

Pandora has to be the single most expensive free service of all time. It's kinda like crack that's good for the user, but harder on the wallet.

I think you underestimate much crack costs and how much use you get out of it.

[a pack of wolves]

Dude, Night Vision is one of Daft Punk's most unusual tracks. What I mean is, it hardly resembles their dance stuff. If you want stuff that sounds exactly like it, try some piano-driven pop. Possibly some Scissor Sisters.

(Brits don't kill me for this one. I'm well aware that in England they're Top 40, but here in the States they're fairly obscure and still really good)

You appear to have confused obscurity with quality. Scissor Sisters aren't bad because they're popular they're bad because they write terrible music, and this is not altered by them being relatively unknown in the US.

[quietnow]

i heard "piano pop" and wanted to mention ben folds

[ImRonBurgundy?]

You appear to have confused obscurity with quality. Scissor Sisters aren't bad because they're popular they're bad because they write terrible music, and this is not altered by them being relatively unknown in the US.

There was a girl in my journalism class in senior year of high school who was obsessed with them.  Her rationale for her rabid devotion didn't go very far beyond "they're gay and hot".  I think she made some sort of attempt to get them mentioned in the paper every week.

[imagist42]

i heard "piano pop" and wanted to mention ben folds

I can't tell but I hope you're not implying there's something wrong with this urge?...

[Kai]

Whenever I want to talk about the Scissor Girls, I invariably mistake them for the Scissor Sisters and then I look and feel like a complete idiot.

That's all I really have to add to this.

[UberDrivel]

I'm really liking Chromatics right now.  They've definitely got the languid disco thing going on: http://www.myspace.com/chromaticsmusics

Plenty of ambient + dancey stuff out there as well.  Booka Shade and Mylo come to mind.

[Ballard]

You appear to have confused obscurity with quality. Scissor Sisters aren't bad because they're popular they're bad because they write terrible music, and this is not altered by them being relatively unknown in the US.

I'll preempt this by saying that I hate to turn a good topic into a fruitless debate on hipster ideals. However, it is very much a matter of their popularity. Certain acts reside within a grey area in terms of their acceptance within the indie community. The Scissor Sisters are not one of these bands. In Europe they're huge. Top 40 radio fodder. Therefore, any merit they have as musicians goes down the tubes. It is simply unfashionable to listen to a band that the walking cultural cliche on the street/bus/train/at work/in school praises daily.

In America, they've gone relatively unnoticed, and those people who do listen to them, such as myself, see much merit in their work. Merit that is untainted by their popularity with the masses.

Though of course blind dismissal of a band based solely on this factor has been deemed acceptable. Carry on.

[Johnny C]

They're not popular here and I really can't stand 'em. Just sayin' dude.

I guess we're in The Commonwealth though.

[a pack of wolves]

I'll preempt this by saying that I hate to turn a good topic into a fruitless debate on hipster ideals. However, it is very much a matter of their popularity. Certain acts reside within a grey area in terms of their acceptance within the indie community. The Scissor Sisters are not one of these bands. In Europe they're huge. Top 40 radio fodder. Therefore, any merit they have as musicians goes down the tubes. It is simply unfashionable to listen to a band that the walking cultural cliche on the street/bus/train/at work/in school praises daily.

In America, they've gone relatively unnoticed, and those people who do listen to them, such as myself, see much merit in their work. Merit that is untainted by their popularity with the masses.

Though of course blind dismissal of a band based solely on this factor has been deemed acceptable. Carry on.

No, this is just wrong. People like Girls Aloud, Justin Timberlake and Rihanna get talked up all the time despite their popularity in the UK (and rightly so). The Scissor Sisters don't, because they're terrible. There's no shame in liking pop though, and I pity the fool who doesn't enjoy 'Something Kinda Ooh'.

[Ballard]

Can you enlighten me as to exactly what makes them terrible? They manage to be creative without compromising the sugared-over glam pop aspect of their music.

I'm not saying they're innovative or amazing. But they sure as hell make some good music.

[a pack of wolves]

Too shallow, the rhythms sound like recycled Abba, really really irritating vocals, hideous faux-kitsch costumes that are all too predictable...

Fair enough if you like them, I was just pointing out that like or dislike of them should not be about their popularity. Personally I have no problem with enjoying the same music as the average person you see on the bus. After all, why should I?

[Ballard]

I agree, the vocals are the caveat when it comes to the Scissor Sisters. Costumes, I mean, they're a glam pop band. What else is expected?

I wasn't so much accusing you of being "too good" for them as lamenting that this is a problem I encounter often with this particular band.

[a pack of wolves]

I wouldn't have a problem if they were good kitsch. I do love me a bit of the old kitsch. I just think their outfits are sub-par, they ought to make them look like they're extras in Barbarella or Flash Gordon and they fail utterly.

[Jackie Blue]

Wait wait what?  Daft Punk are "relatively unknown"?!

Are you aware they were all the fuck over MTV in the mid to late 90s?  "Around the World" has been used in a ton of commercials.

That's about as unknown as the Chemical Brothers.  Just because nobody gave a crap about electronica between 1998 and 2006 doesn't erase the past.

At least back then people had the good sense to dismiss them as incredibly boring, simplified disco music.  Hence my confusion about the sudden re-emergence of such music and its sudden popularity.

Honestly, I don't understand why anyone listens to music like Daft Punk when one could be listening to Death In Vegas, Underworld, Future Sound of London, Third Eye Foundation, or even the aforementioned Chemical Brothers.

Hell, I'd even rather listen to semi-crap like Fatboy Slim or Lo-Fidelity All-Stars than any Daft Punk.

[onewheelwizzard]

The reason why people like Daft Punk is that they are really, really, really good at making music that people like dancing to.  They are particularly good at making dancing enjoyable for people who are under the influence of Ecstasy.

[Jackie Blue]

Nope, sorry, not buying that.  I can't stand Daft Punk while on Ecstasy either.  FSOL's Accellerator, on the other hand...

I don't understand how anyone could prefer Daft Punk to this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCoCTkC0oL0

[Kai]

I haven't ever listened to the Future Sounds of London.

I'm really enjoying that video though.


It's all "WUAAAAAASHRUUUUUWUWUWUWUWUAAAAAA WAAAAVEES"

[Jackie Blue]

That's one of their earliest songs.  After that, they got more ambient (the 2-disc Lifeforms which is like Aphex Twin's ambient stuff but much groovier) and then got all cyberpunk (the absolutely amazing Dead Cities, which is exactly the aural equivalent of a William Gibson novel, yes including the weird parts about voodoo gods in cyberspace) and then after a long hiatus and ingesting a lot of South American psychedelics became a kind of weird psyche-rock-hippie-thing on The Isness which is basically their best album.  They've done stuff since then but I've been slow to track it down, much of it under the name Amorphous Androgynous instead of FSOL.

Oh yeah, and they have a "live" album called ISDN which is also amazing.

[Johnny C]

I'd rather dance to Daft Punk than FSOL though.

[mediumrare]

I'm trying to trace any hint of a similarity between Daft Punk and that FSOL song, to maybe help me understand why they were mentioned at all in this thread.

[UberDrivel]

Hm, actually just...acquired Accelerator, should listen s'more.

Daft Punk have widespread appeal because they're accessible.  I don't know what people have against more abstract stuff (I love it), but it seems like if you don't have lyrics - even a couple repetitive sentences - you're thrown into that "techno" crowd, which is basically a tag for anything that doesn't have a voice or a guitar (I prefer the term "electronica").  But preferences aside, I think House music wins out on "fun" factor; it's pretty much pop music built around 4/4 beats.  I read someone elitist (Pitchfork, probably) calling house music "the lowest of the low," but being accessible isn't a bad thing.  It's a matter of taste, as always, but I'd think more people would rather dance to Daft Punk...and more people still would rather get crunk.   But going back to the original post, I think "Nightvision" proves that they can get ambient, but they choose not to.

Anyhow, I'd rather listen to this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bu9o6Nt6xR0

[Jackie Blue]

I'm trying to trace any hint of a similarity between Daft Punk and that FSOL song

Do you often also have trouble finding similarities between The Who and The Beatles?

[mediumrare]

No.

Again a display of ignorance of relevance. Stop it, please.

[E. Spaceman]

I once thought I liked the Chemical Brothers, the lesson here is that drugs make you think stupid things. Also, Daft Punk are really really good.

[Jackie Blue]

Again a display of ignorance of relevance. Stop it, please.

If you don't understand that FSOL and Daft Punk are within the same genre in the same way that The Who and The Beatles were, I think it's you that's being ignorant.

Also, you're being a dickweed.

[2HourHiatus]

The Who and the Beatles may have been in the same genre but similar? Not really. They both were in the 60's and they're both British.

[pinkpiche]

Again a display of ignorance of relevance. Stop it, please.

If you don't understand that FSOL and Daft Punk are within the same genre in the same way that The Who and The Beatles were, I think it's you that's being ignorant.

Also, you're being a dickweed.

Actually, it's you. You keep informing us that "you don't understand" why someone like something, and make it sound like it should be made
illegal to like something that you don't listen to. Just because FSOL and Daft Punk maybe locks in on roughly the same genre (electronic, Daft Punk
is house/dance) doesn't mean that you can possibly compare them. Both bands are not for everyone. Deal with it.

[Jackie Blue]

Lurk more.

[SeanBateman]

Zerodrone may be the best poster in the music forum right now, although I find I never ever agree with him.

[imagist42]

While I stress the part about how he may be the "best" poster, I will note that I have agreed with him once on the point that Daft Punk is not all that great.

Then I listened to Alive 2007.

[Jackie Blue]

What's wrong with the Chemical Brothers, anyway?  Their first two albums were solid gold, for stupid big-beat.  I went back and listened to "Setting Sun" the other day and it was all like FWAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH.  Awesome song.

I like my electronic music to try and creep you out and scare you, not make you feel all stupidly happy and shit.  Fuck a bunch of techno-hippies.  One time a bunch of us were on Ecstasy in a house and this one girl made us listen to George Acosta or however you spell it.  All those stupid vocal samples like "We're looking for the KEY.  The KEY to the DOOR."  Like whoah, man.

The dumbest thing that drugs have ever made me think I enjoyed was Sublime.  But let us never speak of it again.

[mediumrare]

Granted, I went at it like a dick, but I seriously don't see why you're telling people that they should have been listening to FSOL in the 90s instead of Daft Punk because, as you say, YOU like your dance to creep you out. FSOL are GREAT, but I see your presence in this thread as similar to someone coming into a "Music similar to CSS" thread and telling people to listen to Khanate. Makes no sense?

Of course my presence in this thread could be boiled down to "I'm antagonistic for no reason" so I suppose I could stop right about now.

[Jackie Blue]

I would never presume to tell people what they should listen to, I was merely pointing out in my typical zany way that there is more electronic music out there than Daft Punk and Justice, and if even one person got into FSOL because of what I said here, my work is done.

Also, I am not exagerrating when I say that I literally don't understand why people who otherwise have good taste in music like Daft Punk, especially why they like them so much.  If anyone could explain the appeal other than "They make good house music" I'd listen to them.  But there are literally hundreds of house music artists which, to my ears, are as good as Daft Punk and so I see it as an odd cultural artifact for people to only like Daft Punk.

It's kind of like people who go on about how awesome Public Enemy is but don't listen to any other rap.

I'm going to listen to Ice-T's original "99 Problems" now.  Yo.

[a pack of wolves]

Unless you were to investigate house music a fair bit I don't think you'd come across anyone as good at it as Daft Punk and Justice though. They might not be the greatest but if you put them up against the other house music you find in the charts, the stuff that people will generally come across in other words, they're a lot better. FSOL as an alternative doesn't make a lot of sense to me because although they're both making electronic music what they produce seems pretty different in intent. FSOL have done a lot of ambient work and aren't pumping out dancefloor fillers like Daft Punk and Justice are. As for the Chemical Brothers back when they were dropping tracks like Block Rocking Beats they got just as much attention as Daft Punk, but when was the last time they released something that people dancing like loons the same way Hey Boy Hey Girl did? And I have to say, Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger was dropped in an electro set at the club I was at tonight and it sounded sweet in the mix.

[C Patrick Carolan]

Also, I am not exagerrating when I say that I literally don't understand why people who otherwise have good taste in music like Daft Punk, especially why they like them so much.  If anyone could explain the appeal other than "They make good house music" I'd listen to them. 

How about because Daft Punk wear fucking robot helmets?

[Jackie Blue]

FSOL have done a lot of ambient work and aren't pumping out dancefloor fillers

This is just not true.  Only one of FSOL's albums was purely ambient.  Their earliest work was designed for play in the same clubs that Daft Punk was.  Try listening to the disc which is nothing but remixes of "Papua New Guinea".  If you are unfamiliar with the concept that clubs don't only play fast-paced mindless happy-electro then I think you might not know much about the history of techno/electro clubs.

Also, FSOL's "We Have Explosive" was a major mainstay of big-beat sets and was one of the most popular songs of the time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3zDV5V3SPg

[a pack of wolves]

I always presumed they had a lot of ambient work, every time somebody's told me I was listening to FSOL it was ambient music. I don't really have any interest in ambient though, so it would be easy for me not to have noticed that it was the same record every time and thinking about the kind of people who've played them to me it would make sense that it was the ambient one they owned. I hadn't ever heard that track you link and it's definitely the kind of thing I meant by a dancefloor filler, it would get people moving in a club. And although I never said or implied that 'fast-paced mindless happy electro' was all that got played in clubs you are right that the history of techno is not my forte.

However, my point about Daft Punk and Justice releasing good tracks for dancing recently whereas the artists you've mentioned haven't still stands. That FSOL song is great but it's hardly recent, it's Daft Punk people will hear out so it's Daft Punk people will buy. If I'm wrong then it would be great to hear some contemporary stuff that's better though, I like Daft Punk but only as part of a set. I find a whole album by them a bit dull and repetitive.

[UberDrivel]

I will agree that Daft Punk and Justice have been hyped to death.  I mean, it's gotten to the point where they're pretty much permanently at the top of the Machine, which is supposedly all about finding new artists, instead rehashing the same band(s) for months.  Reminds me a bit too much of how it is on mainstream radio.   The snarky-but-all-right Idolator highlighted some of these problems in their first post (incidentally, Beirut seems to have made a comeback, good for him), and it does bother me how arbitrary the status of "latest, hottest, most-blogged band" seems  sometimes.  But in the end, as long as you listen to what you like, I don't think anyone should judge you.

So, anyone heard of Vampire Weekend?

[Jackie Blue]

However, my point about Daft Punk and Justice releasing good tracks for dancing recently whereas the artists you've mentioned haven't still stands. That FSOL song is great but it's hardly recent, it's Daft Punk people will hear out so it's Daft Punk people will buy. If I'm wrong then it would be great to hear some contemporary stuff that's better though, I like Daft Punk but only as part of a set. I find a whole album by them a bit dull and repetitive.

Well honestly I don't think that there are very many, if any, particularly great electronic artists right now who are making music intended to be played in clubs.  The closest I guess I would say would be some of the better electroclash stuff, or people like Felix Da Housecat, but that's not very very recent anyway.  If I listen to electronic music that's been released within the past couple years, it's going to be M83, Four Tet, Boards of Canada, stuff like that.

Basically what this all boils down to is that I miss the days when Joe Indie Rocker hated techno because it's boring and I don't know what has changed to make said people suddenly batshit crazy for dancefloor music that isn't IDM.

Oh, wait, I just thought of one.  I do highly enjoy DJ Krush, a Japanese electro artist with lots of albums with various styles, all of them fucking amazing.

[a pack of wolves]

I don't think much has changed. Chemical Brothers, Daft Punk, The Prodigy and Orbital all got hyped up in indie mags back in the day, FSOL too to a lesser extent, as well as all the big beat stuff like Fatboy Slim and Bentley Rhythm Ace (I must admit, silly as it is I still like Bentley's Gonna Sort You Out). At least that was the case in the UK, maybe the rest of the world just caught up with us or something.

I'm liking the DJ Krush I can find on youtube, the guy is most definitely varied. Skilled turntablist too. Personally I reckon the best electronic music designed to be played in clubs of the past few years is dubstep, but that's coming from a very different place to all this music with its roots in drum and bass, dub soundsystems and grime.

[Sidonis]

if even one person got into FSOL because of what I said here, my work is done.

Then, sir or madam, consider your work done.  Thanks, I love these boards because they're full of excellent music I just haven't been able to find (and probably wouldn't have found) on my own.

Three cheers for whatever it is that made you mention them, for they are excellent.

[Jackie Blue]

I don't think much has changed. Chemical Brothers, Daft Punk, The Prodigy and Orbital all got hyped up in indie mags back in the day, FSOL too to a lesser extent, as well as all the big beat stuff like Fatboy Slim and Bentley Rhythm Ace

Nah, here in the US that music was generally dismissed as being commercial and a bit silly.  Well, Orbital have always been popular but I don't think you can lump in Orbital with Daft Punk or big-beat.

Basically there used to be two groups of electronic music that there was a definite line between.  On the one side you had Daft Punk, Prodigy, Fatboy Slim and all that, some of which was tolerated as being "not bad for dumb music".  Particularly Chemical Brothers, they were probably the most well-liked of that lot.

Then you had FSOL, Underworld, Orbital, Aphex Twin, The Orb, and other such acts that were deemed "IDM" or "ambient" or both, and were seen to have been focusing on making good albums rather than dance-tracks.

I'm not saying it wasn't a snobby distinction (I always thought "Smack My Bitch Up" was actually a pretty good song), just saying that I never knew or read of anyone who thought Daft Punk or any act like them was anything more than tolerable at best.

Like I said, I'm not actually trying to be a dick, I just literally don't understand their sudden popularity, because they haven't changed their style or anything.  To me it's as weird as if Pearl Jam suddenly became indie darlings (though to be honest, I'd rather listen to them than Daft Punk any day).

[UberDrivel]

So, as "Beautiful Burnout" comes on shuffle, what do people think of the newest Underworld album?  It seemed to be dismissed as "business as usual," but I dig some of the tracks.  I also have Dubnobass, anything else I should pick up?  Incidentally, with Autechre and Moby albums due in March, what albums in their back catalogue do you guys recommend? (I have Amber and Tri Repeatae and Play.)  Also, Aphex Twin peeps, have you heard/heard of the Tuss?  Apparently it might by Mr. James in disguise, check it out: http://www.myspace.com/thetussmusic

And finally, best use of an Aphex Twin song evar: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCJexsvUMM0