Daft Punk – Da Funk

My neighbor had been playing Daft Punk really loudly today. I could hear it through my window, where it was coming in through his open own. And then he put Da Funk on, and then I realized how old it was.

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Apparently it came out in '97, but it probably had some club play before then. But it's roughly a decade old. So is it one of the classics, then? It's floorfiller in a club, but recognizable in the general public. It's sort of the Blue Monday of this generation – one of those generation defining tracks you could kill to, with either a baseball bat or a battle axe or a tank. But it's also better to dance to, preferably when aggressively pursing some tail. There's an intrinsic sense of fun and life in the song that's quite remarkable. And because of those qualities, this song was the sort of material that helped to broaden the appeal of dance/techno music, especially in the United States. Before Daft Punk, only raver kids and DJ's in places like New York would ever have records like this. Disco died in the U.S., and as a result only within the recent decade has it come into its own as a consumer of records like Da Funk.

And how does this song fit in with the rest of what Daft Punk has done? Da Funk dominates the album it's on, Homework. As great as it is, I can't help but have the feeling that there's some filler here, paticularly on the tracks that try to hit as hard as Da Funk, like Rollin' & Scratchin', which is the sort of thing that probably is best enjoyed with a DJ fooling around with it in his set. But Da Funk needs no adulteration. It's real ear candy. I don't know if it sounds dated to any of you, but it doesn't to me. It's the kind of record that's stuck with me ever since I really started listening to music, and I know I haven't noticed it's age until today. But maybe it's ageless.