Because anything that loves Daft Punk’s ‘One More Time’ as much as this does is a pal of mine.
In a scorching display of pop’s subversive power, Junior doesn’t like peanut butter jelly but likes this.
one more time
[3] Daft Punk, ‘One More Time’
It’s Da Punk again, this time haring back with a filter disco classic that took everything Thomas Bangalter had learned from Stardust and made it harder, better, stronger, more soulful. Romanthony brings the testifying, grunting and working through an audacious, elongated breakdown that keeps your hands in the air until the blood drains out of them. Luckily, it’s all gone to your feet just in time for the final dance-off.
Junior says: “Look at my legs.” She’s crossing them and uncrossing them in time, alternating the leading leg. Later, she picks up the thread of the lyric and sings along to the big breakdown.
Best bit: That endless stop. It ought to banjax the song’s impetus but somehow Romanthony’s urgent vocal sustains a pace that isn’t even there. It’s a beautiful illusion.
[17] Daft Punk, ‘Aerodynamic’
Daft Punk were all about da funk and da cut-up grooves and da samples and da general messiness – and then along came second album Discovery and it was all shiny beats and bass so clean you could use it as a straw. After the outrageous party filter disco of 2000’s ‘One More Time’ wiped out the less extrovert Homework fans, along came ‘Aerodynamic’ to scare off the rest with widdly Yngwie Malmsteen guitars and just-this-side-of-naff classical fancies. Somehow, it ROCKED.
Junior’s an old slowhand at the air guitar so was happy to demonstrate her prowess; she learned how to say “Daft Punk” before doing the unprecedented (I think – someone check the archives) and asking for the track to be played again. Above all, she was very taken with the CD cover and propped it up next to her paintbox on her little table. She admired the name rendered in glossiest mercury, a visual aid to da Punk’s wild, bright, fluid, new disco palette.
[7] De’Lacy, ‘Hideaway’
Junior and I had a go at slapping out the military house beat on the sofa cushions. We were bang-on and superfly.
Right. I like the cheekily long breakdown on this, not quite rivalling Daft Punk’s ‘One More Time’ but good enough. It’s a belting vocal and a moment of dancefloor epiphany as the clattering percussion starts to come in a few seconds before we’re off and running again. Ignore the more straightforward remix that surfaced a few years later; this is the one with the soul. ‘Dubfire Needs To Score’, it’s called.
Maybe I edged over the hill after this, but I don’t think house/techno/dance in general gave us much of note from here on. In the early ’90s, Tony’s Records were selling us a couple of classics a week.
Jukebox Junior 