Listening to: Minilogue

[Peter Korsten]

Hi Jay,

(Did I say happy birthday yet? ;) )

> Does anyone really think Daft Punk is that great?  Coz I don�t.  I find their music formulaic, boring, and predictable.

Yes, I actually think they're terrific. Because they have the 
distinction that their sound changes over the years. Prince, or tafkap, 
or whatever he calls himself these days, definitely sounds like Prince. 
Always. Compare "Around the world" to the Tron Legacy soundtrack to Get 
Lucky: there's a very different feel and atmosphere to all these tracks.

About Tron Legacy: it's a soundtrack. It sounds like a soundtrack. 
That's what a soundtrack should be, not a collection of pop songs, or 
"music inspired by the film". It's like complaining that John Williams 
always does the same thing, Star Wars, ET, Indiana Jones, Harry Potter, 
heard it all before.

> There isn�t much sound design going on - most of their stuff sounds like factory presets.  The hooks?  Meh.  Subject-matter?  Meh.  Collaborating with the cheesiest people that America has to offer, for the sake of market penetration? Bo-ring.

Sound design is hugely overrated. Good luck wanking off in a studio to a 
sequenced loop that repeats into infinity whilst you turn this knob to 
slightly modify the filter cut-off, but nobody other than you really 
cares. That's my greatest gripe with modular synthesisers, because you 
lose track of what composition is about.

There's an art to creating music that other people want to listen to, 
and Daft Punk are good at that. I'd say it's a lot more difficult to 
write a three-and-a-half minute song that's pleasant to listen to, than 
to create a half-hour session with meandering sounds that nobody other 
than you wants to hear.

It's the same reason that you won't see me in the Tate Modern, because 
no, I don't think that Mickey Mouse moving in and out of focus, or 
canned shit, count as art. Make at least a bit of an effort.

It ought to be said that I do like most things French, and their music 
in particular. (Not their politicians, though. I think French 
politicians suck even by politicians' standards.)

- Peter