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Daft Punk
HUMAN AFTER ALL
(Virgin)
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What’s the saying — to err is human? Add two perfect albums and four years of giddy expectation to the equation and Human After All, this French house duo’s third proper full-length, feels less like an "error" than an outright betrayal. Let’s pass over the half-baked "Daft Punk recorded the album in only two weeks!" PR stunt, and while we’re at it, let’s forgive the duo for repackaging an old Breakwater loop as the first single, "Robot Rock," with such little face lifting. Where are the hooks? Why does Human After All sound like 2001’s Discovery in demo, each track corresponding to a harder, better version of itself on the 2001 album? In other words: why does this disc seem so calculatedly awful? One review offered the following explanation: Daft Punk, you see, are commenting on the music industry, which, you know, thrives on the sale of familiarity and therefore refuses to back new and challenging musical ideas. Elements of Human After All hint at this pessimism: the track titles are either pointedly bland ("Emotion") or just plain lazy, as if to parody what the industry packages as the Daft Punk sound ("Robot Rock," "Technologic"). Artistic subversion or plain old rock-crit auto-fellatio, Daft Punk’s "commentary" may make Human After All an interesting "read," but that doesn’t help if you’re listening.
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