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 Animefringe Coverage:
Daft Punk: Music Videos with a Point
By Ridwan Khan
Anime fans might have already seen Daft Punk's videos for "One More Time," "Aerodynamic," and "Digital Love." The videos for these songs (he is scheduled to do one more video, at least, while rumors fly that he will make a video for every track on the Discovery album) were made by Leiji Matsumoto, of Captain Harlock and Galaxy Express 999 fame. Anyone familar with his work can testify that Matsumoto is a legend in our field. The videos themselves are brillant, vibrantly colored. The dark blacks and purples, for example, highlight the techno-dance music of Daft Punk.
The videos start with 'One More Time' with an alien rock band grooving to the beat. It highlights the funk style of both the music and video. We also meet the band, including the short drummer and the lovely blue female guitarist. The radar men of the planet the band is playing on, like much of the audience, grooves to the beats, oblivious to an ominious threat: an hostile military group landing onto the planet.
The second video, for "Aerodynamic" shows the intruders subduing the band and generally wreaking havoc. "Digital Love" starts out with an alien, of the same race as the band. He's lovingly dreaming of the female guitarist. He suddently gets a call on his ship, from the band's short drummer, who is barely able to send a distress call to him from the intruder's ship. Thus, our new hero races to his friends aid.
The most interesting thing on these videos will be how the conflict already presented will be resolved and whether any new complications will arise. The appearance of the intruders at the end of the first video is surprising, if you go into it not expecting an ongoing plotline.
As for the music itself, it will certainly take a backseat to the videos for anime fans. But the music is as stylish as the videos, as it combines techno with a 70's dance-funk. The result is everything one would expect from 21st century anime and music. And Daft Punk's music is better suited as background music to a story (the same holds true for the video for "Da Funk" from the Homework album); it is noticeable in some instances but isn't overly annoying as the video captures one's attention too.
Thanks to Daft Punk's track record as one of the first bands to fully explore the possibilities of using DVD as a music/video medium, we could be lucky enough to see a DVD with all these videos in the future. The Discovery album has been released in Japan via Toshiba EMI (2548 Yen). A promotional video containing the videos is also avaliable. In the mean time, the videos are all available on the Internet and are (as a techno first) on heavy rotation on the loud sounds and flashing lights channel (otherwise known as MTV.).
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