From The Top 40 & Beyond ["Pilot Episode"]

I wrote this post almost two months ago as a bit of an experiment and I’m sharing it now as a ‘pilot episode’ for the post format.  Looking at the charts again this week, Robin Thicke has been at number one for eight weeks and Daft Punk are still in the top ten.  Thicke’s video has received huge amounts of press attention; personally I thought it was just another why-on-earth-is-this-on-kids-TV pop video and I’d picked it fairly randomly for this post.

Robin Thicke ft. T.I. & Pharrell – Blurred Lines

I’ll take this opportunity to let you know, I don’t listen to commercial radio.  Which may be the reason why I’ve never heard of Robin Thicke.  Or maybe this is his first single.  Fuck knows.  Anyway, with my eyes shut, this is a great little laid back tune, it’s actually very summery, which is great news for the rest of the world at this time of year.
 
When I first saw this video, I didn’t know who it was by.  So the constant #THICKE tag right across the screen meant nothing to me, and if anything just left me think ‘oh, this guy is literally thick if he thinks that makes any sense’.   Thicke himself turns out to be quite a good looking chap, and he and guest stars Pharrell and T.I. (I don’t know who he is either), get a funky groove on throughout the clip.

But why are there girls wearing plastic? Or to be more precise, various styles of white bras and knickers covered in clear plastic?! Why is there so much clear plastic covered flesh bumping and grinding in this, the PG rated version?! Why is there a goat??!

I know this is the PG rated version because VEVO also provides a link to another site that plays the X rated version.  It’s basically the same video, but the girls are only wearing g strings.  But at least no plastic.

Click to watch Robin Thicke ft. T.I and Pharrell Williams - Blurred Lines [VEVO]

Daft Punk ft. Pharrell Williams – Get Lucky

Well now isn’t Pharrell a lucky boy.  At the time of writing, he’s at number 1 on the ARIA charts with Robin Thicke (see above) and at number 2 (down from 1 last week) with Daft Punk with this little number.  Daft Punk have been elevated to demi-god status by electronic music fans over the years, so this single was always going to be a ‘big thing’.

My initial thoughts on starting to listen to it were ’Is this actually it?’, ‘Is this actually Daft Punk?’ and ‘I don’t like it’.  Initially I thought the video wasn’t even a video, it was just a picture of a record cover, but eventually the protagonists do start moving around.  I’ve since listened to Daft Punk’s interview with Pete Tong (listen  here), which gives some insight into what the duo were thinking when they made this track.

My thoughts by the end?  It sounds like something from the 70s.  I think that’s exactly how they wanted it to sound.  But like most things from the 70s, I don’t like it.  Sorry Daft Punk.

Click to watch Daft Punk - Get Lucky [VEVO]

From the Video Vaults:  Daft Punk – One More Time

This is, in my opinion, the best tune Daft Punk have ever made.  It’s a classic.  Just hearing it again tonight for the first time in ages has got me grinning from ear to ear.  One More Time was released in November 2000, that’s over 12 years ago, and appeared on the 2001 album Discovery.  The video for One More Time forms part of the animated film Interstella 5555, which has no dialogue and instead is played out to a soundtrack of tracks from Discovery.

Daft Punk are trying to go back in time with their new album Random Access Memories to pay homage to some of their early influences.  Allow yourself to do the same because for many of us, Daft Punk were one of our major musical influences.  Press play and for the next 5 mins 22 secs take yourself back to the dancefloors of the early noughties. Enjoy.

Click to watch Daft Punk - One More Time [VEVO]

I would love feedback on this post format; did you like it, are the reviews too short, or just right, would you read weekly reviews in this format? I won’t always favour old music over new, it just turned out that way this time.

I had planned to embed videos in the posts, but didn't in the end because most mobile browsers do not support the VEVO player and even in desktop browsers the embedded player can take a long time to load.