Single Review: Daft Punk – ‘Give Life Back To Music’
2 min read
Some songs just seem to have a natural capacity to induce in me the desire to walk. Tunes that give me ‘the struts’ (though self-consciousness doesn’t actually permit me to go for a good strut) are usually sourced from the seventies – the Bee Gees Stayin’ Alive, a bit of Funkadelic, some Earth, Wind & Fire perhaps – but Daft Punk’s latest single Give Life Back To Music is the latest to be added to my list.
That’s perhaps not surprising though given the help that the French duo received on this one – Nile Rodgers of 70s disco outfit Chic and a couple of other funky instrumentalists were added to the team to put together a track that feels retro at the same time as maintaining its modern dance floor quality.
Kicking off with a rather dramatic opening like a theme song for a Japanese cartoon, the track then moves into to an easy head-nodding disco groove. Then coming through with vocoder-inflection are the vocals: ‘Let the music in tonight / Just turn on the music / Let the music of your life / Give life back to music’. These are the only words in the song – yeah it’s repetitive, but that’s funk – and their melody is sprinkled with all that cheese that forms a necessary component of so many great tunes in the genre.
I’ve never really been into Daft Punk, for no other reason than that they’ve just been one of those bands I’ve never gotten around to giving a proper go. But Give Life Back To Music has been a good introduction to their sound for someone like me, and perhaps in turn the duo’s fans, if they haven’t already, will gain some insight into the past and the sounds of the acts in which this track feels so rooted.
::: Renowned For Sound Music Reviews ::: Ben is a 21-year-old student whose taste in music consists of tunes that make him see things. Music for him is a very visual experience; a song has succeeded when it transports the listener somewhere. This is a quality Ben hopes to articulate in writing music reviews for RenownedForSound.com.
Ben capped off his school days at a Sydney high school catering specifically for the musically inclined, but now must balance his musical cravings with university study. To satisfy these cravings, Ben has played guitar in a few groups of differing styles but is often most contented just tinkering with the blues.
