Daft Punk

Week 38: Kylie- TENSION

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What is this? Like my third review of a Kylie album? I’ve lost track. My most recent review of hers was ‘Disco’, which came out amid one of the lockdowns, and the music within made you yearn to return to the dance floor, be it at clubs, wedding receptions, bars or parties. I also enjoyed listening to it and found it the perfect tonic to escape the drab reality we were all subjected to. However, it could have gone better with the younger generation, which could mean that with streaming services widely available, they can steer clear of radio and television music channels and avoid going to shops to listen. Therefore, they can choose who they want to listen to and become trapped in that mindset. I grew up on everything mentioned in the previous sentence, so my taste has become eclectic. Listening to the radio and watching Later…with Jools Holland gave me an open mind to music. I don’t believe that on these streaming services, the algorithm would recommend Kylie Minogue to a youngster listening to BTS, so therefore, you can see why Kylie hasn’t been as popular with the younger generation (yet.)

I first heard ‘Padam Padam’ on the Graham Norton Show (I think.), which was four months ago when the track was released, and it is still as popular now as it was then. The younger generation will certainly know this one, as the staff of Hobbycraft did a dance for it on TikTok. What is refreshing about the track is that it is uplifting, fun and humourous.

The record is reminiscent of the Europop/Eurodance you would hear on Euro Trash. It may be cheesy, but it is fucking fun and uplifting. We all need to lighten up once in a while. The title track flirts with Kylie going for the Daft Punk approach of using robotic vocals; the saxophone swoons on ‘You Still Get Me High’ and ‘Vegas High’, which have that Europop sound. ‘Hands’ reminded me of Madonna’s ‘Vogue’—especially the rapping verses. 

There is no way in hell that  “Tension” is nothing more than to promote her upcoming Las Vegas residence shows; I am not having it. It is far too professional just to be regarded as a throwaway. It is Kylie at her best, touching on all sorts of emotions, and it deserves its number-one placing. I do not believe “Tension” got there by sales alone; I reckon that the younger generation heard ‘Padam Padam’, streamed her, and fell in love with the music. The TikTok video would have also drawn their attention. I also love the cover art. Nice and vibrant

Song recommendations: ‘Hands’. ‘Vegas High’, ‘Padam Padam’

8/10

Week 6: Bastille- Give Me the Future

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This is a band I heard initially without even knowing who they were. I only knew once I saw them appear on Later…withJools Holland back in 2013 (I think.). Before then, I didn’t know much about them, and the songs I had heard without knowing who they were neither excited nor annoyed me. I remember Noel Gallagher said, “If Bastille had been around in the 90s, they would have been finished.”…now, I like Noel Gallagher, as regular readers know, but although it probably would have been true with the music around back then, I quite like Bastille. My opinion of Dan Smith and company changed after seeing them at Glastonbury, reading about them, and watching a few concerts on YouTube. Dan knows how to work with the audience, and they put on a great show. ‘Pompeii’ used to drive me around the bend, but that grew on me. I am often caught whistling or singing the chorus when I hear it.

“Give Me the Future” is their latest and fourth album, which has already amassed five singles. That is just below half of the record itself. Once again, Bastille plays it safe (Sort of.)with their usual songs, but there are some elements of new creativity. For example, the opening track ‘Distorted Light Beam’ takes some influences from the defunct French Houseoutfit Daft Punk, which is quite apt due to the band’s name. 

According to reports, Dan Smith began embarking on this album before the pandemic started and flirted with the idea of combining Bastille’s sound with elements of futuristic sounds. At the same time, you could argue that it takes something from the 80s. However, due to what has happened since 2020 or late 2019, Dan’s idea of this record has seen fact and fiction become convoluted, to say the least. Everything we believed to be fiction through music might be a reality now. At the moment, no one within any industry knows what is inevitable. We have seen the world shut down during these testing times despite it still spinning. Immense industries have seen companies and businesses suffer or fall, and music artists like Bastille suffered heavily because they could no longer go on tour worldwide. Some music artists signed just before the pandemic or after suffered even more. So, at the moment, it is no surprise a fair chunk of people look at the future with caution in mind. In “Give Me the Future”, Bastille takes all of that away and looks to embrace whatever happens in the future.

As usual, the band set the stall out with their dancefloor fillers to give the listener a chance to escape from what was happening and lose themselves as they mentally picture themselves enjoying life in the club again. We are gradually getting back tothose days and nights, but listening to music that propels us back to those feelings is excellent. Bastille have always beenknown for their hard-hitting subjects shrouded in upbeat instrumentation, and they have done just that yet again. The lyrics are pretty dark, but the instrumentation diverts your attention. For example, in the Daft Punk-Esque opener ‘Distorted Light Beam,’ Dan says, ‘It isn’t enough, if this is real life, I’ll stick to dreaming, come see what I see.’ That is powerful. No one can deny that that lyric reverberates the current feelings the majority of us have. I’d rather escape from the trappings of reality and stay in a dream just for my sanity. My standout has to be ‘Promises’, which is Spoken Word performed by Riz Ahmed over strings and other instrumentation. Why ‘Promises’? I am a spoken word artist, so for that reason alone. I love to hear what poets have to say. Of course, I like other tracks on the album, like ‘No Bad Days’, the title track, and ‘Future Holds’. The latter features Bim, who you will be familiar with if you attend Bastille concerts. Her rich vocals complement Dan’s on the uplifting closer with a message of hope about who cares about the future as long as we all have someone to love and care for us.


The album is also structured cleverly. The listener goes on an adventure where they will be lost but find themselves again. Now, this could be explained by Dan’s love of cinema. He wants the songs to be a cinematic experience rather than music-related. I only know a few bands or artists that use the method. Most tell a story, but not in this manner. I can only think of Clannad or London Grammar in recent times. “Give Me the Future” wasn’t made to pick out tracks and listen randomly, but to listen from start to finish due to the cinematic nature. 


Yes, you can listen to any tracks you like. I mean, that’s your choice, but it takes away the premise of the record. Is it their best? Well, it’s up there. Although, it is bloody short for a Long Play. The longest is the title track at 3:39. One thing I will say is, going back to “is it their best?” is that it is incredibly creative, and they have moved with that but have still kept that distinct sound we associate with the band. So, they have yet to complete 360 and lose their identity.


It’s pleasant to listen to an album that gives you hope about the future rather than being bogged down and depressed by the shit we are surrounded by. The record is uplifting and sends you off into a dream. 

The attitude adopted by Bastille is one of “Fuck it. Let’s have fun while the world is falling apart”.




Song recommendations: ‘Promises’, ‘Give Me the Future’, ‘Distorted Light Beam’




8/10

Week 2: the Weeknd- Dawn FM

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I cannot believe I hadn’t written a review since late November when Adele released “30” and then proceeded to hold on to the top spot for the majority of December before being overtaken by Ed Sheeran in the first week of the new year. However, it was widely known that the Weeknd’s “Dawn FM” would take the top spot. It is quite a quirky little record with its premise of you listening to the radio, complete with jingles and advertisements featuring the likes of Jim Carrey and Quincy Jones, to name a few. It made the interludes more intriguing, although I did skip them because you all know my opinions on interludes. Abel has gone for that 80s feel again, as he did on the previous album that spawned the 2020 ‘Blinding Lights’ track and featured on the Mercedes advertisement. It sounds futuristic and retro, with music by Daft Punk and Nile Rodgers. The aforementioned do not feature on the record save for some samples. The production this time includes Calvin Harris and Swedish House Mafia, among others. 

Another thing you will notice about the album is you are listening from inside your vehicle in a traffic jam, but you are dead. It is quite a dark concept. Why, you ask? The theory follows from the previous records where the narrator has finally met his end. Is that true? It could be because the lyrical content seems to suggest it. As we know, Abel talks about drug use and the perils of it and sex in a non-romantic way. 

Abel can sometimes be compared to the Cure for his use of gothic elements but still staying sonically within the chart-friendly confines. 

So, you have him discussing gothic things, but the music fits nicely with the singles charts and takes the edge off, like the Cure executed perfectly in their prime. Since then, the band has gotten darker, but they balance out their shows with those pop classics we grew up with (Well, it depends on who is reading this and how young you are.). Abel, thus far, has kept it under a tight lid, but he unleashes the gothic narrative from Pandora’s box on this record.

This album would make an excellent soundtrack for a remake of Buck Rogers or the gang warfare classic the Warriors. My favourite track was ‘Take My Breath’; I heard the sample of Daft Punk’s ‘Da Funk’ and Nile Rodgers-esque guitar playing. I particularly enjoyed the “Alternate World” section with a remix of ‘Take My Breath’ featuring Agents of Time. It felt like a moment of being in a club, enjoying life and reaching up as the song reaches the drop. I cannot wait for the club-inspired remix to be played out across nightclubs worldwide. So, with “Dawn FM”, we have an album where you listen to the radio while stuck in a traffic jam en route to the other side with lost souls DJing or on advertisements, not fully accepting that they are no longer alive. It is quite a departure from Abel’s usual subjects. He appears to have matured and is willing to refrain from talking about drugs and sex. Although the music may be uplifting 80s, the topics are far darker.

Song recommendations: ‘Take My Breath’, ‘Take My Breath(Remix)’, ‘Out of Time’

8/10

Week 36: Kanye West- Donda

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In 2004, I bought an RnB compilation album called “Ice”, which also happened to have an artist I was yet to discover called Kanye West, and songs called ‘All Falls Down’ and ‘Jesus Walks’ complete with about three remixes of those said tracks. Back then, I liked his music and was interested in discovering more. Many feel it is offensive to rip off ‘Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger’ by Daft Punk off their iconic “Discovery” album. I didn’t mind Kanye’s sampling of it for his track ‘Stronger’, and I also enjoyed the track featured as the title track for the Saint’s Row the Third console game. The latter was in 2008; that was the last time I was interested in listening to his songs. 

In the previous decade, Hyde Park was beyond embarrassing. His music has been nothing short of cringeworthy since then. His woe-is-me act while wearing a diamond-studded Prada (I think) mask at the British Summer Time Festival was disgraceful. Yes, he came from a low-income family, but you don’t rant about that wearing such a mask. His hijacking of Beck’s award at the Grammys was also a joke. He wanted to protest about Taylor Swift winning an honour and stole what should have been an excellent moment for Beck Hansen. Luckily for him, Beck, although visibly stunned, found it funny and praised Kanye for his work.

So…”Donda” is an album everyone has been raving about and comparing it to Drake’s “CLB” (I forget what it stands for right at this moment.). I wouldn’t say I like Drake’s rapping anyway. He wants to use autotune; that winds me up big time. Now, “Donda” lasts for almost two hours over twenty-seven tracks. I was willing to listen, but there were only three tracks worth listening to. The rest is just autotuned bullshit. It’s a shame because he does have some pretty hard-hitting stories to tell, but all ruined by that shitty software, ‘Donda Chant’ is just not worth putting on a record. It lasted 52 seconds, with a female repeatedly saying “Donda”. The three tracks I did like were ‘Jail’, which is rock-inspired, ‘Heaven and Hell’ and ‘Keep My Spirit Alive’, which took me back to something that 2pac and Tha Outlawz Immortalz might have done during their peak in the 1990s. Apart from that, an album shrouded in hyperbole. Utter shit.

Song recommendations: ‘Keep My Spirit Alive’, ‘Heaven and Hell’, ‘Jail’

3/10

Week Thirteen: the Weeknd- After Hours

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I first heard of Abel Tesfaye in 2013 after listening to a live concert on YouTube, and I remember him for his unique look with his mad hair and crazy spelling of his alias. I was impressed with the songs “Wicked Games”, “Love in the Sky”, and “Pretty” off his debut album and a mixtape that featured his fellow Canadian Drake. Some have said that the debut “Kiss Land” was highly disappointing and didn’t live up to his work featured on the mixtapes from 2011 and 2012, but every album since “Kiss Land” has gone to the summit in his homeland.

Due to the critics panning his debut record, he changed it up for his sophomore record “Beauty Behind the Madness”, which came out in 2015. The best song off that record was the commercially friendly disco funk “Can’t Feel My Face”, which was a very clever way of concealing the song was about meaningless sex and drug use (Listen carefully, and if you’re of a certain age, it doesn’t take a genius to work it out.) There were also songs like “the Hills” and “in the Night” that stood out. For the third album, “Starboy”, the following year, he got Daft Punk on board, which were easily the best two songs on a rather overcooked record.

On his latest record, “After Hours”, Abel is trying to make music that appeals more to the fans of the 1980s with the sound and traditional melancholic lyrics.”Blinding Lights”, which is the lead single off the album has been number one for the last five weeks in the UK and sounds like nothing he has ever done before. It’s definitely a track that will appeal to the fan of 80s music. Then, the other track that sounds different from the norm is “Hardest to Love”, which sounds like a commercial version of drum n bass, and I could certainly hear it being included in a vocal section of a mix by Nicky Blackmarket and the like. I’ve heard that “Too Late” sounds like a UK garage vocal song, but I honestly disagree; I didn’t hear anything remotely like any form of garage on it, and the last song that sounds original, “Save Your Tears”, is very experimental. If I didn’t know I was listening to the record, I would have mistaken it for a new track by MGMT.

What about his lyrical content and song subjects? Have they changed much? Well, not really. He does venture out, but it’s for a short time. Although on tracks like “Faith” and “Save Your Tears” (The latter, I have mentioned regarding the originality of the sound.), he is reflecting on what happened in past relationships and apologising, but he can’t do it without being self-indulgent. His reflection and apology appear like it is to him rather than the ex-girlfriends. The record is entirely egotistical, too, as he brags about fucking women in the studio and then proceeds to mock the plastic surgery they have had done on their faces. He might pause and say, “I don’t criticise” when he talks about that on “Escape from LA”, but it’s more about him once again congratulating himself for his mistake of mocking those women for their physical appearance rather than being sincere.

You may be thinking, after reading my review, “Is it worth even listening to?” the answer is yes. This record is very much what got his name out there originally. It has a consistent story, the songs all fall in together, and although the record may have 14 tracks of pretty much the same with its production, it does change for three songs, so that’s something to look forward to with his next album because I can’t see him playing safe all the time. The deluxe album has 20 tracks, but the additional 6 are just remixes. My other laptop is closed, so I can’t be bothered to go and check on the remixes (I think it is the singles so far.). “After Hours” differs from the rest of his records and offers a preview into the next phase of his career. 7/10