March 26, 2001

Single Of The Week - DAFT PUNK : Aerodynamic

Is this just one ginormous tongue-in-cheek joke?

A lone bell chimes. Like Godzilla, an electro-disco riff bursts from beneath the earth's crust. Beats kick like mules at the World Kicking Championships. A neoclassical, widdly-widdly geetar solo - that sounds suspiciously like Nigel Kennedy getting 'on one' - hovers into view. Enough?

Nah. What this tune needs - obviously - is some keyboards, heavily influenced by that scene from Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure where Beethoven gets busy on the Bontempi in the local mall. And then... well, then it's over... leaving a thousand questions in its wake. Questions like: are guitar solos ever acceptable? Is this just one ginormous tongue-in-cheek joke? Is it possible to resist the hype around 'Discovery'? Is Daft Punk's refusal to take concepts like cool and uncool seriously a lesson to all of us? And where can I get one of those robot heads?

Because they're too French for irony and there are no cocks in spandex knocking about to spoil the show, the only conclusion you can reach is: fuck questions of art, let's dance. To this fabulous concept single - the concept being to like, rock, dude - this 'Plug In Baby' for the nation's dancefloors, this tune which we'll all probably hate in 12 months' time, but, which, right now, baroques like no other.

Tony Naylor

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