Human After All
Human After All
Tracy Howse
Daft Punkis duo of French musicians who make electronic
house music. The members are
Guy-Manuel de Homenem-Christo
and Thomas Bangalter. Human After All was released on October 31, 2005.
Human After All starts with a very sharp percussion beat that consists of heavy bass and
tightly gaited snares. This continues until a vocoder enters and creates a
somewhat melodic pattern with rising and falling intervals. The vocoder,
although generally constant, has variation to it and has an almost glitch-y
sound to it. Next a very unnatural sounding guitar enters and acts as a counter
melody to the vocoder. The guitar swells as it plays in an almost too perfect
way, giving it a mechanical sound. As the song continues, a synth occasionally
adds to the texture through a small, lingering melodic pattern which fades in
and out. A bridge-like section occurs where every part drops out except for a
guitar-like sound that plays a brief melody. Everything but the guitar comes
back in and this sound then morphs into voices singing the lyrics. The guitar
reenters and acts as a counter melody again. The voices again morph into the
melodic sound, which continues over top of the layers. This pattern continues
and the bass and vocoder sound hypnotic. This layering basically repeats again
until 3:38, where the song becomes
completely silent for a second. This is a stark contrast because it allows the
listener to realize just how hypnotic each individual part becomes. The
percussion and vocoder come back in with the voice continuously saying “human”
and eventually the guitar comes in as well. At 4:35
the bass drops out for the first time, other than the silent second, which
gives the song a much lighter feeling. The beat drops from 4:49 until the end
with all the parts working together as the voice continues to sound less and
less natural as it says “human.”
This song
features many of the robot esthetics, one of which being the important sound of
things falling apart. The vocoder throughout the song exemplifies the important
sound of things falling apart. When the vocoder sounds like it glitched or
sounds like it skips, this esthetic is revealed. This noise is a constant
background and becomes very normal sounding to us through repetition, and, when
it changes or slightly alters from what it was, the listener realizes this and
receives an almost shocking feeling about this.
Another robot
esthetic is contrast, which is prevalent in the difference between the lyrics
and the sound of the music. The lyrics are saying “We are human after all. Much
in common after all.” The message the lyrics are giving has very natural
connotations; it is saying that we are all the same. However, this is being
said by a voice that is not very human. This shows sharp contrast between the
message and the way the message is being presented. In And the Beat Goes on: An Introduction to
French Techno Culture, Smith says,
“When vocals are included in techno music, their function is usually phonetic
or aesthetic rather than semiotic. The voice, often electronically distorted or
reproduced, becomes just another instrument rather than a means of conveying a
verbal message” (Smith 734). This is showing that the voice and vocals,
although conveying a message, are not the main point of the song.
This stress
on the music rather than the lyrics is very important in all techno music in
France as well as the rest of the world. Smith also says, “Whereas the word, by
definition, is rap's raison d'etre, techno rejects lyricism and narrative, and
relies almost exclusively on ambiance or beats per minute for its effect”
(733-734). This shows that the beats and the sounds are the real focus of this
song. The fact that techno music of all types is related to this shows the fact
that these songs have an international undertone.
The idea of
using music to represent daily life of any culture is not new. Russolo said in
his Art of Noise: Futurist Manifesto,
“As soon as we will have found the mechanical principle which produces a
certain noise, we will be able to graduate its pitch according to the laws of
acoustics” (Russolo 11). He is explaining the push from classical instruments
and vocals to something new and different. This idea is very prevalent in the
electronic-based techno music. However, techno has gone beyond these ideas. It is
a type of genera that not only incorporates daily technology into the music,
but it does this to create a getaway. “In other words, by dancing to techno
music with a large group of people one can escape momentarily the problems of
the real world” (Smith 737).” Techno as a cultural element is taking society
and using its tools to create an escape from the very same society.
Further Readings:
Works Cited
Smith, Nigel. "And
the Beat Goes on: An Introduction to French Techno Culture." French
Review Vol. 77.No. 4 (2004): 730-741. JSTOR. Database. 10 Apr 2013.
Mansell, James. "Luigi Russolo's Art of Noises." The
Senses and Society 2.3 (2007): 391-95.
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