Music / Homework

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Homework is the debut album of French electronic duo Daft Punk, released on January 20, 1997 through Virgin Records.

The album's tracks weren't initially produced to end up on a body of work; according to duo member Thomas Bangalter, they were compiled from projects intended to be separate singles created over a five-month span, after which he and fellow member Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo realized that these songs could make a decent album when put together.

The success of Homework, primarily through the strength of its singles (most famously "Da Funk" and "Around the World"), brought worldwide attention to French house.

Tracklist:

1. "Daftendirekt" (2:44)
2. "WDPK 83.7 FM" (0:28)
3. "Revolution 909" (5:26)
4. "Da Funk" (5:28)
5. "Phœnix" (4:55)
6. "Fresh" (4:03)
7. "Around The World" (7:08)
8. "Rollin' and Scratchin' " (7:26)
9. "Teachers" (2:52)
10. "High Fidelity" (6:00)
11. "Rock'n Roll" (7:32)
12. "Oh Yeah" (2:00)
13. "Burnin' " (6:53)
14. "Indo Silver Club" (4:32)
15. "Alive" (5:15)
16. "Funk Ad" (0:50)

Stop the tropes and go home. I repeat, stop the tropes and go home

• Album Intro Tracks: The first two tracks, "Daftendirekt" and "WDPK 83.7 FM" function as an extended album intro.
• Album Title Drop: As seen in the page quote, "WDPK 83.7 FM" explicitly mentions "Daft Punk's Homework" in its lines.
• Broken Record/Looped Lyrics: Every. Single. Song. Then again, considering who we're talking about...
  • Most of the songs are defined by a certain element that is repeated. In "Burnin' " and "Rock'n Roll," it's a sliding sound. In "Rollin' and Scratchin' " it's a hard and heavy distorted sound.
  • "Around the World" repeats its title over 140 times.
• The Cameo: Thomas and Guy Homen appear at the rooftop party in "Burnin' ".
• Chekhov's Gun: In "Revolution 909", the spaghetti sauce stain on the cop's shirt is what helps the girl escape from being busted by the police when the rave party is raided, by using it to make him look down so she can run free.
• Dogfaces: The dog man (AKA Charles) from the music videos for "Da Funk" and "Fresh," although judging by this◊ it's more than just his head.
• Edutainment Show: The video of "Revolution 909" shows you how to make spaghetti sauce using tomatoes and spices. It follows the story of an old woman who makes it for her grandson who's the police officer who tries to bust the girl at the rave party.
• Epic Rocking: A lot of the songs on this album are on the longer side; in fact, half of the songs are over five minutes long, with the longest being just over seven-and-a-half minutes ("Rock'n Roll" at 7:32).
• Fun with Acronyms: A DVD of the music videos for Homework was released with the title D.A.F.T.: A Story About Dogs, Androids, Firemen and Tomatoes. Aside from spelling "Daft," this references elements of the videos themselves — Charles, the anthropomorphic dog main character in "Da Funk" and "Fresh", the robots in "Around the World", the firefighters in "Burnin' " and the tomatoes in "Revolution 909."
• Gratuitous Panning: "WDPK 83.7 FM" has a vocoded voice (sampled from Daft Punk's own "Musique") saying "music" that is repeatedly panned between the left and right ears.
• How We Got Here: "Revolution 909" begins with the story of up until the point the girl almost get busted by the cop who ate spaghetti.
• Incredibly Long Note: The opening guitar section in "Fresh" ends with a really long note that is held out for a time long enough to allow the song's beat to Fade In.
• Limited Lyrics Song: "Around the World" only has one line.
  Around the world, around the wóóóórld!
• List Song: "Teachers", which is essentially a list of shout-outs to all the musicians that inspired the duo (their "teachers", if you will).
• Minimalistic Cover Art: Just the duo's logo embroidered in red with a yellow outline on black silk.
• One-Word Title: "Phoenix", "Fresh", "Teachers", "Burnin' " and "Alive".
• Rearrange the Song: The album's finale, "Funk Ad", is merely a clip from "Da Funk" in reverse.
• Sampling: See here.
• Spoken Word in Music:
  • The radio announcer voice in "WDPK 83.7 FM".
  • From "Revolution 909:" "STOP THE MUSIC AND GO HOME! I REPEAT, STOP THE MUSIC AND GO HOME!"
• Stock Sound Effects: The crashing waves in the background of "Fresh", the crowd noises at the beginning of "Revolution 909", and the traffic/pedestrian noises at the end of "Revolution 909" and the beginning of "Da Funk".
• Surreal Music Video:
  • "Around the World" features quartets of skeletons, mummies, men with tiny heads, men in space suits and women in bathing suits walking in circles. Each one represents a different part of the music - the tiny-headed men are the bassline, while the space-suited men are the vocals, for example - and they only move when their part of the music is audible.
  • In "Da Funk" an anthropomorphic dog walks around a city at night, but nobody who encounters him finds this strange. At one point he even meets a girl he knows from years before and from their happy reunion it seems that he apparently always looked that way. When she invites him to her house and is about to get on the bus it turns out he is not allowed to bring him ghettoblaster with him. This causes the dog man to turn back.
• Take That!: "Revolution 909" is this to French police, notorious for being against rave culture.
• Title-Only Chorus: "Around the World," which is actually a title-only song. The only words are "around the world/around the world" over and over again.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: The music videos of "Da Funk" and "Fresh" features a man who either walks around with a dog mask or has the head of a dog. Nobody who meets him finds this bizarre.