Sunday Night Sample - Daft Punk - One More Time
In honor of the French duo's announced retirement a week ago, decided to roll with one of the greatest songs ever made, their Mona Lisa, "One More Time".
Daft Punk created "One More Time" as the link between their debut album Homework and their sophomore album Discovery.
The song was completed in 1998, but sat on a shelf until it's release in 2000.
They recruited vocalist and New Jersey-born house producer Anthony Moore (aka Romanthony). The vocals were heavily Auto-Tuned and compressed. Thomas Bangalter stated: "A lot of people complain about musicians using Auto-Tune. It reminds me of the late '70s when musicians in France tried to ban the synthesizer... What they didn't see was that you could use those tools in a new way instead of just for replacing the instruments that came before."
The other half of the duo, Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo said, "we thought the funkiness of his voice fit the funkiness of the music." The song was considered an example of French house's frequent use of audio filters, featuring heavily processed auto-tuned vocals.
According to Bangalter, Romanthony enjoyed the alterations to his vocal on the track. "He has done a lot of different things and he always tries to innovate, which is what we like to do on our records. He never had his voice treated like an instrument like that." He also elaborated:
We care less now than we used to about what critics say about our music. We liked the track, Romanthony liked it, we can be disappointed about what they said about the song, but still we liked it. It's just music, it's just entertainment, and as long as we believe in it that's what is important. It's what we wanted to do. We love to be able to use instruments the way we want to. Criticising the Vocoder is like asking bands in the '60s, 'Why do you use the electric guitar?' It's just a tool... no big deal. Creation is interaction. The healthy thing is that people either loved it or hated it. At least people were not neutral. The worst thing when you make art is for people to not even be moved by it. Love and hate are interesting because it's deep and intense. It's one side of our music that people might be sensitive to and others might not.
The album version differs from the radio/video version. It is an 8-minute epic that includes a 2-minute long breakdown, and extended vocals.
An "unplugged" version was also released in the remix album Daft Club.
To create "One More Time" Daft Punk took a clever sample of "More Spell on You" by Eddie Johns.
What was strange was Eddie Johns received no sample credit in the production notes for Discovery and Thomas Bangalter inititally denied using any samples for the song. A report later surfaced however disproving this and showed that Daft Punk officially cleared the sample with Johns, and that he was rewarded handsomely.
To see how they took three key elements of the instrumental and flipped them watch this video. It's fucking awesome.
The song's message of defying exhaustion and just keep on dancing is a house update of the Depression-era dance marathon book and movie, They Shoot Horses Don't They? The track's meaning is emphasized in its two-minute breakdown when Romananthony gasps: "Celebrate… don't wait too late… mmm, no… you can't stop."
The music video of the song features scenes from Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem. a 2003 anime film that acts as a visual realization of Discovery. The video features a pop band of humanoid blue-skinned aliens performing the song to a crowd on their home planet while a mysterious force approaches it.
It was also recreated in the opening scene of the Trolls sequel. Which you know they got PAID for.