Song of the Day: Daft Punk - "Face to Face" (2001)
Welcome back to Song of the Day! A couple of days ago, I kicked this series off with a hearty recommendation of a newer tune by Gen Z pop master Benee. Today, I’m going to switch gears to a much older song from a formative period in my life, and from one of the biggest albums of my lifetime overall: Daft Punk’s “Face to Face,” from their blockbuster 2001 album Discovery.
From a personal perspective, it is hard (and I mean hard) to aptly convey how important this album was to me back in 2001, and has been for more than two decades since. The main reason being that it encapsulated a distinct period not only in my life, but for the world as well. Even more disturbing is that it’s a time that’s well over 20 years gone, so it especially behooves me to begin this article with some personal and historical context.
On a deeply personal level, Discovery was THE soundtrack for the Garvey family trip to Seattle in the summer of 2001. Not the entire trip, granted, for while I was already in love with its lead singles, I had yet to attain a physical CD copy when we departed in a rental RV from our home in the Natomas area of Sacramento. The drive all the way up to the Pacific Northwest was occupied more by the likes of Todd Rundgren, Carole King, America, and other ‘70s family favorites.
Once we arrived in the Emerald City, however, the priorities were clear: go to the top of the Space Needle, browse Pike Place, see Mariners rookie sensation Ichiro Suzuki at Safeco Field, and pick up a copy of Daft Punk’s newest masterwork (unfortunately, I can’t remember which specific long-defunct chain I bought it at).
For the rest of the trip, including a stop at an Oregon beach and the drive back to Sacramento, Discovery was on an endless loop on the RV’s speakers. Every moment, every emotion, every distinct feeling of being 11 years old and all that came with it (including my first full season as a baseball fanatic), was underscored by the 14 mind-blowing electronica classics the masked Frenchmen had bequeathed upon us all.
From a historical perspective over two decades later, this album feels like it’s the soundtrack of the last summer party the human race collectively celebrated before September 11 really kickstarted the macabre horror show that has been the 21st century thus far. The optimism that had bubbled to a foam in the late ‘90s, with the Cold War long over and the economy soaring on a tech boom, would soon fade thereafter.
To say the period in ‘01 right before the World Trade Center collapsed feels like a dream is selling it short. It feels more like something far more surreal than that, as if it were an entire period of history that was suddenly aborted and forgotten the moment the first plane struck the North Tower. One day, we were seemingly at peace. The next day, our lives were filled with the images of ashes and rubble in New York City, constant fear of terrorism, and a maelstrom of war and domestic turmoil set to unfurl for years.
Especially for those too young to remember the time before September (or, my god, were *born after 9/11*), let me be clear in saying there is absolutely no piece of media from 2001 that perfectly captures that brief shining moment in time more than Discovery. The hotly anticipated sophomore album from the French duo of Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, it captured a certain joy and creative ecstasy that, for lack of a better word, sounds timeless.
Hitting stores on March 12, 2001, the album exploded on the strength of its world-conquering single “One More Time,” which had been released individually months prior in November 2000. By 2001, it had been four years since their landmark debut Homework, during which other contemporary acts had heavily mimicked Daft Punk’s original sound. Bangalter and Homem-Christo were determined to evolve so as not to be absorbed by their imitators, and the result was the album that basically laid the groundwork for all electronic music in the 2000s.
I could go on and on, and will when I review Discovery in its entirety for my Classic Album Reviews series one day. So for now, let’s focus on more of a “deep cut” from the album, its penultimate track, “Face to Face.” Also released as the album’s penultimate single later in 2003 (the fifth of six total), this song lives up to its title with a level of immediacy that hits the listener no matter when, or how many times, they hear it.
In an album famously bookended by soaring vocals from the late, great Romanthony, singing duties on “Face to Face” were instead entrusted to American house music producer Todd Edwards. Bangalter and Homem-Christo instructed Edwards to sing in a raspier style similar to Foreigner lead singer Lou Gramm. The instruction worked, as Edwards delivers each line with a weathered timbre that makes every word feel wholly honest and relatable.
What's going on? Could this be my understanding?
It's not your fault I was being too demanding
I must admit, it's my pride that made me distant
All because I hoped that you'd be someone different
One of the attributes of Discovery that makes it a masterpiece is how much Daft Punk perfected their sampling game song by song. There’s a case to be made that “Face to Face” is the best example of that mastery not only for the entire album, but also their entire career altogether. Riding a steady drum beat cribbed from Surface’s “Falling in Love,” the track throws together three hooks from three other, more widely known classics to create a dynamic number.
First up is a stuttering guitar lick courtesy of Electric Light Orchestra’s 1975 smash hit “Evil Woman,” which is interspersed with two quick vocal samples that play off each other. The first is a soft intonation spliced from Colin Blunstone’s mellifluous lead vocal on The Alan Parsons Project’s 1982 ballad “Old and Wise,” the other a strangely familiar “Christopher Robin” line that - you guessed it - comes straight from “House at Pooh Corner” by Loggins and Messina.
What’s brilliant is that these three songs are instantly recognizable (especially “Evil Woman”). Yet here, they’re tweaked and fluidly mixed together in such a manner that they’re thoroughly recontextualized. Many of Daft Punk’s most eminent samples spun new magic out of the most buried artifacts at used record stores. (“One More Time,” undoubtedly their signature song, rides a horn loop from Eddie Johns’ long-forgotten 1979 R&B track “More Spell On You.”)
“Face to Face” weaves the opposite magic, taking multiple famous songs and making them feel entirely new. It’s the ethos of Daft Punk’s entire legacy encapsulated in one song: taking the old, both famous and forgotten, and tweaking it to create something original and edifying. Four seemingly disparate classics were molded together with a new vocal track, and the result is immediate and timeless.
Like the rest of the album, “Face to Face” received a sterling visual conveyance in the 2003 anime film Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem. Given it’s towards the end of the album, the song fittingly underscores a bracing resolution to the film’s main story about a blue-skinned alien band named the Crescendolls being kidnapped from their home planet. The band is brought to earth by a music mogul who erases their identities and turns them into a soulless money-making machine.
Arguably no other track is elevated by Toei Animation’s conceptualization than this one. In an uplifting sequence, the truth about the Crescendolls’ abduction, erasure, and commodification is revealed. Almost immediately, the public at large mobilizes to help repair their ship and safely send them on their way back home. It’s an endearingly optimistic view of the human race, one that feels almost alien to even try to imagine after living through the bitter real world history that followed Discovery’s release.
By itself, and as part of the entire album and its concomitant anime, “Face to Face” is magnificent. Even with Daft Punk now in the past tense as a musical act, here’s hoping it finds even greater life for listeners for years to come. I am more than certain that it will.