At first I was planning to write a piece about this song, but focusing on how - to me - the hype killed Daft Punk’s next album. Now I still believe that that is the case: doing your launch event in a stupid little town in Australia, doing countless strange leaks, strange loops suggested to be songs, are in my opinion a little too much, though the public is partially to blame. Then I decided that if wrote a piece about that, I would do the thing that annoyed me: making the hype bigger than necessary. That’s why I’m just going to talk about the musical aspects of the first complete song off of Daft Punk’s ‘Random Access Memories’: Get Lucky.
Back years ago the French house, nu disco, electro sound of Daft Punk changed electronic music forever. And now they have returned. Get Lucky is a brilliant disco inspired tune and the first single of their album ‘Random Access Memories’. Pharrell’s voice fits the groove perfectly, legendary disco producer and guitarist Nile Rodgers’ influences takes the song to a higher level and the production by Daft Punk remains as good as it always has been: on Get Lucky everything adds up beautifully. I even get a little psyched to hear the album.
A week ago Bruno Mars’ second album was released. The album became the fastest selling solo album of 2012, and quickly received lots of acclaim, positive and negative. A.V. Club rated it a C+, the Guardian was a little bit more lenient and granted it three stars. During all critiques though, nobody questioned Mars’s professionalism, except for one artist.
Two days after the release of ‘Unorthodox Jukebox’, French producer Breakbot openly questioned the originality of one of Bruno’s new songs, Treasure, which, according to him, has much resemblance with one of his own songs: Baby I’m Yours of his ‘By Your Side’ album. Breakbot isn’t making a big fuzz (yet), but is clearly expecting a reaction.
@brunomars “treasure” is a pretty nice song, but it REMINDS ME OF SOMETHING
Comparing both songs it’s clear what Breakbot’s getting at. The refrains sound pretty similar, but the rest of the song is just different. Also, it’s not like Bruno stole Breakbot’s brilliant melody. Disco’s just winning terrain in pop-music and Mars’ Treasure is a consequence of that. Maybe that’s why Bruno Mars decided not to answer the French DJ, or is it because his Twitter-account is obviously run by his management? Considering all this, it might be better that Breakbot isn’t making the resemblance bigger than just a tweet (yet).
Do you want to compare the two songs yourself? Check them both here:
Disco is an interesting field nowadays with outputs by the likes of Todd Terje and Ed Banger’s Breakbot. One of the other names well known in the disco field is RAC, a trio that’s most notorious for it’s reliably awesome remixes. The trio was started in 2008 and the Portland-based team has produced over 180, yes 180, tracks in the past years, of which almost all are of great quality. This time they got a request from one of my favorite singers of the moment, Mayer Hawthorne, who released his sophomore ‘How Do You Do’a while back and just released his remix EP for that.
Hawthorne’s songs are incredibly soulful, mostly sung in falsetto and very old-school, but RAC gave No Strings their signature style twist by adding an amazing amount of funk to make it ready for the dance floor. They have added a funky bass-line while leaving most of Hawthorne’s vocals and the original brass riffs intact. Just like approximately eighty percent of the remixes RAC produces, RAC’s remix of No Strings is incredibly awesome and very danceable. Be sure to check out the other remixes of the ‘How Do You Remixes’ EP as well as soon and grab this one for free.
If I ask you which song you remember of the summer of ’10, I bet you say Baby I’m Yoursby Breakbot. If you don’t, you’re in for an even bigger surprise today, because Breakbot finally released his long awaited debut album ‘By Your Side’ on Ed Banger Records. Two years after his first success, Baby I’m Yours, Parisian producer Thibaut Berland releases his album which showcases precisely what you’d expect after hearing his hit and it was definitely worth the wait. What seems the style of most internationally known French acts, like Daft Punk and Cassius, gets revisited by Breakbot and he takes it to a whole new level.
One of the new tracks on ‘By Your Side’ is One Out Of Two (feat. Irfane).
‘By Your Side’ is an album that could make every disco, funk and soul lover’s heart beat faster, and features guest appearances by the likes of Irfane, Pacific! and Ruckazoid. You can clearly hear the Bee Gees, Prince and his French colleague influences in Berland’s style though it’s genuinely unique. My favourite tracks are opener Break Of Dawn and Easy Fraction, two of the instrumental tracks, where Berland shows all the great tricks he’s got up his sleeve. The album is streamable on Spotify and you can buy it on iTunestoo!
At first I was planning to write a piece about this song, but focusing on how - to me - the hype killed Daft Punk’s next album. Now I still believe that that is the case: doing your launch event in a stupid little town in Australia, doing countless strange leaks, strange loops suggested to be songs, are in my opinion a little too much, though the public is partially to blame. Then I decided that if wrote a piece about that, I would do the thing that annoyed me: making the hype bigger than necessary. That’s why I’m just going to talk about the musical aspects of the first complete song off of Daft Punk’s ‘Random Access Memories’: Get Lucky.
