Daft Punk are not plagiarists
(A comment left at the blog linked below…reposted here just cos.)
This is a non-issue. And old news, actually, that Sample Wednesday link is from months ago, isn’t it? It made the rounds of the blogosphere and then vanished into the ‘ah, interesting, but meh’ file.
I get a bit cranky when a bunch of Year Zero musical purists get on a legless high horse about sampling. Of course Daft Punk use samples. If you couldn’t hear that they were samples originally, you need to get out more.
Secondly, part of what gets me upset is that this anti-sampling attitude is essentially rockist. It’s like those “No Synthesizers!” stickers that dinosaur bands would put on their albums in the 70s.
It’s a misplaced quest for authority, couched as a search for authenticity. Apparently, as long as Daft Punk were writing every note themselves and ’sampling’ their own performances in the studio to make loops, that was OK, but once their hooks are revealed to be sampled off old, obscure tracks, that somehow invalidates the fact that Discovery is a kick-ass album that’s still head and shoulders above anything currently on the market, years after its release?
I say these kinds of fans want ‘authority’ in the guise of authenticity — they don’t want to be caught out listening to something uncool, they want to be assured by the Powers that Be that it is indeed True and Righteous.
When in fact most pop is all tinsel and artifice and all our idols are not as working-class as they make themselves out to be (John Mellor, the diplomat’s son, anyone?). To expect ‘authenticity’ from a couple of guys in robot masks (who may not even be the people we think they are underneath!!) is a bit of a stretch.
August 31, 2007 8:55 AM
