Bleach Your Homework - A Two Album Analysis : Rock n' Roll's Relation to Electronic Dance Mu
- Joi :)
- May 31, 2017
- 8 min read
Perhaps the missing link between Rock n' Roll and Electronic Dance Music can be found by analyzing the similarities and differences between Nirvana's Bleach album & Daft Punk's Homework album, both of which were important debut albums leading up to the end of the 20th century. Below are some facts I've gathered and my perspective on how two different genres can intertwine after encountering both albums and becoming deeply familiar with both artists' works...
Throughout world history, the course of musical genres has evolved along with changes in society and technology, and the cultural effect of a new genre is never predictable. The artists who shape the sound of the world develop different styles of music in different geographical locations with influence from their personal experiences. Music movements leave the world as quickly as they enter, and they almost always trigger their antithesis. From the late Eighties to the late Nineties, the music world was a whirlwind of rapid changes in culture and society, of which Nirvana’s debut album Bleach was a landmark. Daft Punk’s debut album Homework stemmed away from Rock n’ Roll and used technological advancements to propel forward a new era of Electronic Dance Music.
In the summer of 1989, just miles outside of Seattle, Washington, Nirvana was still starting out as a band fairly late to the Punk-Rock scene and Grunge scene, with its lead singer and guitarist, Kurt Cobain, bassist Krist Novoselic, second drummer Chad Channing, and guitarist Jason Everman. Their original drummer, Aaron Burckhard, had left the band in 1987 due to disagreements with the other band members. Channing and Everman would go on to leave the band a couple years later, and notable drummer Dave Grohl, as well as guitarist Pat Smear, would then join it. With a few years of small performances and demos under their belt, the band was able to release its debut album Bleach with Sub-Pop records in Seattle on June 15, 1989. At the time, Punk-Rock had already been around in America and Europe for nearly a decade, but its raw and heavy sounding vocals, rough electric guitar melodies, and intense drumming had barely made a dent in the mainstream. What few listeners and musicians there were of Punk-Rock music were viewed by many in society as strange and troubled misfits. While Nirvana could not fully stand as proof of Punk-Rock’s songwriting credibility until the release of their second album Nevermind, their first album Bleach received fair sales and promising reviews that brought Punk-Rock and Grunge, and even other alternative genres, to the public’s eye. The album begins with the song “Blew”, a solid representation of college rock’s angsty vocals, pounding drums and messy guitar riffs, and a bassline that rises and falls with the melody. This song emphasizes deep feelings of entrapment and resentment that remains a recurring theme throughout Bleach and Nirvana’s later albums. The second song “Floyd the Barber” uses screaming lyrics and a sharp beat to draw the listener into bits and pieces of bitter childhood memories. “Paper Cuts”, the album’s sixth track, depicts much of the same turmoil, only with more volume dynamics and references to parental neglect on children that builds painful suspense. The third song “About a Girl” received the most public appraisal out of the whole album due to its swaying yet upbeat rhythm and poppy melody centered around Cobain’s love for his girlfriend at the time, Tracy Marander. “Love Buzz,” the fifth track on Bleach was a gritty cover from the Dutch rock band Shocking Blue, that included a bouncy rhythm, muffled vocals, and a high energy guitar riff. Disturbed and distorted guitar and vocals make for an emotionally unsettling effect in the seventh song “Negative Creep” as a narrative of an antisocial person. The remaining songs, “School,” “Scoff,” “Swap Meet,” “Mr. Moustache,” “Sifting,” “Big Cheese,” and “Downer,” contain much of the previously mentioned references to past struggles and detailed descriptions of angry childhood suffering in the lyrics. Much of Cobain’s songwriting was inspired by his experiences growing up in a dirty rainy town, in a broken household with divorced parents, a lack of social acceptance at school, and only a younger sister to share a sliver of happiness with. Cobain’s influence from drugs and alcohol, and the medical problems he had with his stomach ulcers, also added to the pain in his music, and was part of what lead him to take his own life away in 1994. Cobain’s childhood turmoil and stripped innocence paved the way for songs he would later write about prominent societal issues in America such as rape, racism, sexism, homelessness, child neglect, and drug addiction. Because these issues were personal to him, he expressed his thoughts through the power of music by reaching out to the public’s emotions and the intense bustling energy of rebellious youth in the late Eighties. This genuine expression of damaged emotions appealed to the mainstream and provided a contrast to some previous Rock n’ Roll and Metal bands that gave off false personas of glamor and excluded female artists from the performance spotlight. Nirvana’s debut album Bleach was just the humble beginning of underground and alternative music genres breaking societal stereotypes and rising to the surface of the music industry.
Something quite astounding was taking form in the Nineties throughout the music industry of the Western world. As Punk-Rock was slowly losing public interest, its rebellious spirit was being translated into new possibilities alongside technological advancements. Remnants of Disco from the Seventies and the emergence of clubs in European and American cities stirred up opportunity for the music industry to make money off of Electronic Dance Music (EDM). Soundboards were fairly new and African-American House music found its niche in creating a sense of fun unity, but EDM was so new that its boundaries had to be tested and pushed at some point. Like many contemporary pioneering artists, the members of Daft Punk started off in one direction and then shifted into an unknown area of music that they could make all their own. Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem Christo were two French musicians originally in a three-member Rock band called Darlin’. They spent a couple years receiving little to no feedback or critique until one small performance in 1993 that striked a bad review in the British newspaper Melody Maker, shaming their music as “a bunch of daft punk.” Although initially distraught, Bangalter and Guy-man were inspired to abandon their Rock n’ Roll ways to form an electronic duo under the catchy new name that the poor review had given them: Daft Punk. The duo performed in nightclubs, gradually gaining recognition until they were finally able to land a deal with Virgin Records and Soma Quality Recordings. Daft Punk released its debut album on January 20, 1997 called Homework. Each track was originally intended to be separate singles, but the material fit smoothly enough to form one whole album. Overall, the album stands as a revival and simplification of House music that adds instrumental layers one at a time and then peels those layers away to reveal the basics of each song. The first track “Daftendirekt” includes Hip Hop elements and a repetitive rapping voice and beat that intensifies into a groovy mashup and then digresses. “Da Funk”, the album’s fourth track, was greeted with curiosity by the public through its creative music video that told a story of a man whose struggle to find his identity in a large city is represented by him wearing a dog mask over his head in the video. This can be seen as a foreshadow that Bangalter and Guy-man would start wearing robot masks in public during Y2K and would continue wearing them up to present day as a way of maintaining their futuristic mystery and youth. The song “Da Funk” also contains many Hip Hop and beat-box elements by editing together music samples from the jingle of an old Coke commercial. The eighth track “Rollin’ & Scratchin” includes layers of improvisational and suspenseful disc jockey noises with a pumping nightclub beat. The seventh track “Around the World” received a promising amount of recognition by partygoers in France and America, and includes futuristic robotic sounding vocals that show up again in many of Daft Punk’s later songs. Other songs from Homework include “Wdpk 837 fm,” “Revolution 909,” “Phoenix,” “Fresh,” “Teachers,” “High Fidelity,” “Rock’n Roll,” “Oh Yeah,” “Burnin’,” “Indo Silver Club,” “Alive,” and “Funk Ad.” Much like Nirvana with their debut album, critics in the music industry were constantly analyzing the creativity, potential success, and the longevity of Daft Punk through their album Homework. Both artists were received with curiosity by daring listeners, and it seems that while Nirvana was the band to mark the finality of big glamorous Rock n’ Roll and demand that society respects alternative music, Daft Punk was the alternative artist of the new century that established musical experimentation and EDM as a powerful force in the mainstream. Daft Punk would later go on to release more albums, one of which contains a song called “Robot Rock,” and in many ways, EDM took on the same rebellious and mysterious quality that Rock n’ Roll took from its predecessor of Blues. At any rate, both Nirvana’s Bleach and Daft Punk’s Homework altered the way Western culture perceives music. Both artists showed the music business that music is about breaking stereotypes, pushing the limits, and discovering just how far the sound can take you.
Both artists’ albums have affected my perspective on life by broadening my imagination and showing me endless possibilities through the medium of music. They made me challenge my ideas on what I thought music was and how influential music can be on a generation. I could not be more grateful to have immersed myself in the music of Nirvana and Daft Punk, as their music and their stories are part of who I am today. Both artists are easily within my top five favorite artists of all-time, and I don’t think that will change anytime soon. Their music allows listeners to form their own opinion and draw their own meaning out of it, but at the same time, their music already contains substance and meaning within itself. However, if I had to choose one album over the other, I like Nirvana’s Bleach more than Daft Punk’s Homework. The main reason is- being the vocalist that I am- I am drawn to the peculiar, nearly stream of consciousness lyrics of Kurt Cobain’s song-smithing. Daft Punk certainly has the high energy dancing factor, but Nirvana seems to have that factor as well as the high energy singing factor. Also, surprisingly enough, the screaming and drumming in Bleach actually takes less of a strenuous tole on my ear drums than the continuous flow of electronic noises in Homework, and this is a huge advantage to me, considering that I listen to music on a high volume, sometimes for one straight continuous hour, either with or without headphones everyday when I have spare time. My final reason is that- being the social justice enthusiast that I am- I feel the lyrics and turmoil expressed in Bleach does a thorough job at exposing societal issues and thus progressing humanity, but this does not mean that Homework is less important, it simply means that it is meant for a different time and place. Bleach is more of melancholy and anger, and Homework is more of carefree fun and excitement. Both albums have their place in the music industry, and both artists will always have a special place on the hypothetical shelf of imaginary vinyl records in the contents of my mind, heart, and soul.
The emergence of new musical genres to the surface of reality is quite an interesting phenomenon, in which music history evolves at different rates at different times and the place where that history grows as well as the people who create that history can greatly affect the outcome of its influence on society’s lifestyle and way of thinking. Nirvana was late to the Punk-Rock/Grunge scene in Seattle but became its head figure seemingly overnight, and was able to transform the role of music across the globe as well as mark the final hay days of Rock n’ Roll. Just a few years later, and in a similar way, Daft Punk exploded into the early scene of Electronic Dance Music and gave the public more than they could fathom by exploring the use of technology in their art. These changes that occurred in the music industry throughout Western culture from the late Eighties to late Nineties have happened throughout history, just in different ways. There will always be new horizons and a brighter sun to rise the next morning, and only time will tell what musical movements have yet to emerge in our future or where they will plant their origins.
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