Wine and Cheese: Daft Punk and LCD Soundsystem
Though their approaches to the genre are different in many ways, Daft Punk and LCD Soundsystem have always succeeded in their common goal: getting your ass up and onto the dance floor.
It’s your dream collab. The artists you add back-to-back to the queue. The pairing you can’t get enough of. You know they sound good together, but why? Welcome to Wine and Cheese, a series investigating the why and telling you all about it.
Written by Adithya Srinivas
Many names have come and gone through the world of dance music. It’s a crowded genre, one where it’s particularly difficult to carve out a niche or stand out significantly enough to become world-famous. One of the greatest challenges to new electronic or dance artists is living up to the ultra-high bar that the legends have set for the genre. Two acts specifically have been the gold standard in dance music for the better part of two decades now, and have amassed legendary discographies through their careers: Daft Punk and LCD Soundsystem. With music so powerful, lively, and dynamic, there is not a single party in the world that these two groups together could not save.
From the very first track of LCD Soundsystem’s self-titled debut album, the band made their musical intentions clear. With “Daft Punk is Playing in My House,” members James Murphy, Nancy Whang, and company establish their first and most obvious connection to the French house legends. But more importantly, in this homage to one of their biggest influences, LCD Soundsystem announced their musical ethos to the world — they were going to make dance music, and we were going to love it. The song itself may not have sounded much like anything Daft Punk themselves would release, but from that point forward, both LCD Soundsystem and Daft Punk would occupy a very similar and important place in dance music fans’ hearts.
Photo courtesy of NPR
The two bands’ takes on dance music at first listen are very distinct, but do share the same root to their sounds in rock music. Well before Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter donned their iconic robot personas, and even before the duo uncovered synthesizers and took up the Daft Punk name, they got their start in a short-lived indie rock band named Darlin’. When Homem-Christo and Bangalter did eventually release their debut album as Daft Punk, Homework, they played it largely to crowds of rock music fans, using the rock influence in their music to introduce electronic music. LCD Soundsystem’s Murphy himself sings on their track “Losing My Edge” that he “was the first guy playing Daft Punk to the rock kids,” harkening back to his days as a DJ — further demonstrating the French duo’s crossover appeal.
These rock beginnings do not hide throughout Daft Punk’s discography — tracks like “Oh Yeah” from their debut album Homework, “Aerodynamic” and “Voyager” from sophomore effort Discovery, “Robot Rock” and “Technologic” from Human After All, and almost every track from their last album Random Access Memories features guitar samples and synths, thick bass guitar lines, and even straight up hard rock riffs to compliment their arrangements. Homem-Christo and Bangalter mastered the fusion of either live or sampled rock instrumentation with synthesized soundscapes to help trailblaze one of the most important movements in club music history: the French house genre.
Photo courtesy of Sonar Barcelona
LCD Soundsystem’s connections to rock are far more straightforward, as many would classify their style as electronic-rock. Their injection of keyboard synths, as well as their driving, energetic, and repetitive melodies and bass lines certainly shift their music into dance territory. Their apparent obsession with cowbells also adds to the aura of playfulness and fun that dance music prides itself on. Murphy’s spirited, moody, and not always pitch-perfect vocals round out the band’s compositions with an element of rawness and are the perfect compliment to rowdy live crowds. Some tracks from LCD Soundsystem’s debut like “Disco Infiltrator,” both mixes of “Yeah,” and “Yr City’s a Sucker” are just a few cut up samples away from being straight up house tracks. Songs from their follow up efforts Sound of Silver and This is Happening such as “Watch the Tapes,” ‘North American Scum,” and “Drunk Girls” fully capture the rock-dance fusion without overt electronic or synthetic assistance. LCD Soundsystem walk the fine line between sonic versatility and stylistic recognizability perfectly, and have climbed to their own legendary status within the dance and club scenes.
Yet even with these elemental similarities in their music, Daft Punk and LCD Soundsystem still sound so different, and are skilled at very different things. However, this is exactly why their music gels so well together. The two bands have often tackled the same topics and moods, whether it be love (Like Daft Punk’s “Digital Love” and LCD Soundsystem’s “I Can Change”), sentimental nostalgia (“Fragments of Time” and “Someone Great”) or funky dance bangers (“Get Lucky” and “Tribulations”). The end results emerge from the other side in the perfectly balanced area of being very aesthetically contrasting, but sharing enough elements in common that a listener could seamlessly transition between them without vibe whiplash. It also doesn’t matter if you’re queuing them up for a solo headphone jam session or for a professional DJ set, rolling and scratching them into a custom mix — the Daft Punk and LCD Soundsystem combo will never fail to get you onto your feet.