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Finding the Best Local TV Technician: Tips for a Hassle-Free Experience

Are you experiencing issues with your TV? Is it displaying a fuzzy picture or producing no sound at all? Don’t panic. It’s time to call in a local TV technician. But with so many options available, how do you find the best one near you? In this article, we will provide you with some valuable tips to ensure a hassle-free experience when searching for a local TV technician.

Research and Read Reviews

Before hiring any local TV technician, it’s important to do your homework. Start by researching different technicians in your area. Look for technicians who specialize in TV repairs and have good reviews from previous customers. Online review platforms like Google, Yelp, or even social media can be great resources for finding reputable technicians.

Reading reviews will give you an idea of the quality of service provided by the technician. Look for reviews that mention promptness, professionalism, and satisfaction with the repair work. Pay attention to any recurring negative comments as well.

Check Credentials and Experience

When it comes to repairing electronic devices like TVs, it’s crucial to choose a technician who is qualified and experienced in handling such repairs. Check if the technician has relevant certifications or licenses that demonstrate their expertise in this field.

Additionally, inquire about their experience in repairing TVs specifically. Ask about the types of TVs they have worked on before and if they have dealt with similar issues to yours. An experienced technician will be more likely to diagnose and fix your TV problem efficiently.

Seek Recommendations

Word-of-mouth recommendations can be invaluable when searching for a reliable local TV technician. Reach out to friends, family members, or colleagues who have had their TVs repaired recently and ask about their experiences.

These personal recommendations are often more trustworthy than online reviews as they come from people you know and trust personally. Ask questions about the quality of service, the technician’s professionalism, and the overall satisfaction with the repair work. If someone you trust had a positive experience with a particular technician, chances are you will too.

Compare Prices and Warranty

While price shouldn’t be the sole determining factor when choosing a local TV technician, it’s still an important aspect to consider. Contact multiple technicians in your area and ask for a quote for your specific TV repair needs. Keep in mind that the cheapest option may not always be the best.

In addition to price, inquire about any warranties or guarantees offered by the technician. A reputable technician should provide some form of warranty on their repair work to ensure customer satisfaction. Be sure to clarify any terms and conditions of the warranty before making your decision.

In conclusion, finding the best local TV technician doesn’t have to be a daunting task. By researching and reading reviews, checking credentials and experience, seeking recommendations, and comparing prices and warranties, you can ensure a hassle-free experience when hiring a local TV technician near you. Remember to prioritize quality of service over cost and don’t hesitate to ask questions before making your decision.

This text was generated using a large language model, and select text has been reviewed and moderated for purposes such as readability.

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How to Make a Daft Punk Guy Manuel Helmet and Costume!

Introduction: How to Make a Daft Punk Guy Manuel Helmet and Costume!

So, since my last build of Isaac Clarke, there has been a passion growing in me for making props, therefore I decided to tackle a project of higher magnitude and so I chose to do Guy Manuel's helmet from Daft Punk, so I will stop blabbing on now and begin with the procedure.. So let's do this! Haha.

Step 1: Materials

Here's the list of materials I used and which you will need too: Bondo Body Filler can x2 (Or any other body filler) Bondo Fiberglass Resin Bondo Fiberglass cloth Bondo Spot and Glazing Putty Sand Paper sheets - The grit's I used were 40 Grit, 80 Grit, 180 Grit, 220 Grit, 2000 Grit. Expandable Foam (Spray foam) Card-stock paper (or cardboard) White and brown Rustoleum Primer spray paints Ply wood boards (4ft x 8ft) Disposable painting brushes Liquid nails (Great Wood Glue) Acrylic Clear Sheet Epoxy glue (Plastic) Hot glue sticks VHT Nightshades Automotive Black Spray paint Those were the basic materials you need, now I also made a step in which I made "copies" of the master I made, so I will explain the process, but here are the materials you will need: Smooth-on's Rebound 25 Brush-able silicone Rubber Smooth-on's Smooth-cast 300 Bright White Liquid Plastic Smooth-on's Thi-vex II Tools I used: Dremel or any other rotary tool (It is my new best friend) Scissors Shop Vacuum Hacksaw Hot glue gun Optional tools to have at hand: Jigsaw Sander (I wish I had one..) And for safety matters: Goggles Respirator Leather gloves Latex Gloves Vinyl Gloves Body Attire: Black Leather Jacket Black Leather Pants Black Hiking Gloves

Step 2: Base Model

So I began With a simple cardstock model, just to figure out the size my helmet was going to be, it looked like the one in the picture (This picture belongs to Volpin himself) I guided my work off of him very closely since he is a true inspiration to me, unfortunately I did not take pictures of the base model when it was done, but I will explain Basically, you want to begin with a model that looks like the one in the picture, and then take your spray foam and spray away! When the foam Is hardened, just sand/carve the piece, until you have a desired shape. I sanded my piece until I got a basic shape of the helmet, so with that being done let's move onto the bondo Part!

Step 3: Bondo Filling!

So if you haven't ever worked with Bondo Body filler, it can be a little stressing at first, but I now have got the hang of it, and trust me, it is great! So you want to make a mix of quantities of bondo body filler and then just spread it all over the surface of the helmet and keep sanding with that 40 grit sand paper. If you have a sander, it is even better, less work to do! So now just keep adding more bondo, until your base model, shapes out to a smoother surface, such as my first basic smoothed out shape. The ears I made were constructed out of a block of foam and then they were shaped out and glued to the model. By this step, I had already revised any blemishes by prime-ring the helmet with brown primer paint. Brown primer will allow you to see imperfections much more than white. The red spots you see are filled dents by spot putty. The annotations in this image deal with the next step.

Step 4: More Bondo, More Sanding, More Work!

Keep doing the bondo stage until you have finally reached your satisfactory state! Don't just quit halfway there, keep going! It will all be worth it at the end. Notice that I shaped out my helmet a little more, look back at the last picture and then look at this one. I'm not sure what to call it, but the meeting point of the visor piece with the bases, uhh, not sure how to say it.. Look at the picture for the tiny annotations made, but I made that little line between the visor and the helmet itself, thinner, it was way too thick before. I also sanded down the ears, as they were too big before!

Step 5: Primer and Details

When you have your desired shape, smoothed, you want to go on ahead and primer the whole thing. This will allow you to see any imperfections such as small dents, bumps and areas that need a little more work. So it's simple, just spray the whole piece with (preferably) brown primer paint and it will reveal those blemishes. Also! I forgot to mentions, by now, you want to go on ahead and use you dremel to cut out details around the ear and that side grove joining the top lip to the side/rear lip.

Step 6: Spot Putty Done!

So I finished my master, completely smoothed and all I was missing were the "Digi-ears" and the "Ear pucks"

Step 7: More Details!

So I just spent about half an hour looking for the picture of my digi ears, and! Nothing was found. I did a factory reset on my phone and that is where the pictures were.. Ughh.. So I will have to explain in detail. Take the plywood board and cut out 2 pieces the same size and shape as the inside of the helmet ears. Then I designed the digi pattern in adobe illustrator and then I printed out 2 copies of the design. The printed design was then taped onto the plywood board and was manually cut by hand with my dremel tool. Now in this step, I would suggest to laser print the digi ear design onto the wood board, but I had no place near that would laser print, so find out if anyone or any store around you does laser printing. The ear puck was also made from a tiny foam piece, it was covered in spot putty and sanded. Once I finished the ears I glued them into place with Liquid Nails. (They sell this in home depot) Then once it was all done I spray the whole piece with white primer paint and wet sanded the master with 2000 grit sand paper.

Step 8: Replicating the Replica of the Helmet.. Funny Right?

So mean while I waited for my smooth-on materials to arrive, my lover decided to draw on the master and here is the verdict. She drew some cute stuff on it.

Step 9: Finally Got the Materials Yay!

I got the materials 2 days after the whole doodling on the master phase so let go! Now the Smooth-on Rebound 25 comes in. I have never worked with this material, so if you are new to it, just follow the instructions and look up youtube videos on it, it is fairly easy to do. USE VYNIL GLOVES!! DO NOT USE LATEX GLOVES , they have a chemical in it that ruins the silicone. Apply the thin layers of the silicone with a disposable brush. So you want to make a first thin layer, then a thick one, then another thick one and add registration keys which are some big things that stick out from the silicone, and finally a thin one again to seal it all in.

Step 10: Mothermold!

This step is very important. Materials used here were fiberglass resin and fiberglass cloth. Cut up the fiberglass cloth (with scissors) into small credit card pieces or any size you desire. Make sure you have your latex gloves on you and you are going to make a fiberglass layer over the silicone mold. Now take the cardboard and cut out two lips which will sit around the silicone layer. Take your disposable brush and then start fiberglassing the whole outside of the silicone mold. Don't leave any air bubbles while fiberglassing this layer. The fiberglass should also go on the cardboard lip. When you are done, it should look like the one in the picture. Then, drill small holes which will fit screws through it and connect to a wing nut or a regular nut.

Step 11: Casting!

Now that the whole Jacket mold is done, remove the shell from the silicone. Slowly, peel of the silicone jacket from the master mold and voila! You have your casting jacket. Place the silicone jacket back in the mother-mold and secure the 2 mother-mold pieces with screws and nuts. I never worked with Smooth-cast 300 either, but again, I learned from youtube videos, it is fairly easy, so you shouldn't have a problem doing this : ) Mix a batch of smooth-cast and then pour it into the silicone mold and slush it around. This is either called Slush-Casting or Roto-Casting. It just means that the liquid inside of the mold is being moved around in order to make a cast. Do one side of the mold First and let it cure! Then do the other side and let it cure. I did 4 layers of Smooth-cast. The liquid plastic will cure into bright.

Step 12: Pull Those Casts! ^-^

Do the same thing as you did before, remove the mother-mold from the silicone layer. Slowly peel off the silicone layer, and your cast will be there waiting for you : )

Step 13: Cut Out the Visor and Place It on Your Vacuum Form

So, the title of this step pretty much says it all. Take your dremel and slowly start cutting the visor off of your cast (This will be used later for the vacuum forming process) Once you have your two separate pieces, you might want to already paint the cast body and leave the visor untouched, I put primer on mine because I wanted too, you could do so as well : ) So since painting it chrome would take too much money and time, I decided to do the Alive 2007 Encore version of guy manuels helmet. If you want to do this version, then you are going to need some EL wire (Red) I painted my body cast with car paint (Black) and sanded it with 2000 grit sand paper.

Step 14: Vacuum Forming

There are many instructions out there on how to make a better vacuum forming machine than mine.. Trust me, I build it because I needed it for the timespan, I plan to build a better one later on. So now place that visor you cut out on the board of the vacuum form machine and then clamp your acrylic sheet onto a wooden or aluminum frame. Place it the oven (Broil -High) Quickly but surely take it out of the oven, place it over the visor and turn on that Shop Vac! Let the plastic cool for a good 30 seconds before removing it (Keep the vacuum running) When cool, remove it and yay! you got your visor!

Step 15: Cutting Excess Plastic, Tinting and Mounting

So, I was stupid enough to not take picture while doing these two steps... Ugh.. But, what you have to do, is cut the visor out of the formed plastic and then spray the surface with the VHT Nightshades. Use the VHT Nightshades exactly like spray painting any other piece, allow it to fully cure. When you are done, check it for a test fitting in the body cast. You can use either epoxy glue, hot glue, super glue (not recommended) or any glue that can be used to band plastics. I used epoxy glue for plastics and hot glue to just make sure it wouldn't come off for a very long time. Once you have done the test fitting, glue that visor in! And to make it up for not showing the cutting and tinting process, I am uploading a picture of me working with a funky face ^-^ Why not?

Step 16: EL Wire! Red of Course

When you get your EL wire (red) you are going to want and pace this all around the helmet, you can look up reference pictures to use. So I thought that 9 feet was going to be enough to get the full detail of the encore helmet, but I was wrong of course, so I just have to deal with what I have. I would suggest having 15+ feet of EL wire to get it better. Run the EL wire throughout the helmet, while gluing it of course, plug it into the control and enjoy the lights!

Step 17: Enjoy Your Daft Punk Guy Manuel Helmet!

I am planning on wearing this around school on monday, on halloween as well and just anywhere really! Haha! Thank you guys for sitting through this instructable. Don't forget to vote! Human After All and Robot Rock It!

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97 Comments

Question 3 years ago

Could you send me the blueprints for this? Also, is the vacuum former something that can be made relatively cheap, or is it expensive?

7 years ago

how thick is the acrylic sheet you used?

8 years ago on Introduction

cool helmet i finished it but im going to add LEDs

I wonder if you could use this helmet for an eva spartan costume....

Thats a fabulous job you did. I was wondering if you could tell me how much smooth on 25 did it require to create the silicone mold. And how much smooth on did it require to make 1 finished mask. Is 16 oz enough to make one mask? Thanks

8 years ago

How's the visibility with the nightshades?

9 years ago

Hey I was trying to make the rinzler ?? Should I just make the final molding shape and then put that plastic stuff over all of it and paint it ??? I mean how am I gonna be able to see .

11 years ago on Introduction

Or maybe would u consider making another for sell?

Reply 11 years ago on Introduction

I have sold 3 raw castings already. These have been exactly sold as seen in step 12. The card stock model is just the helmet blueprints printed out on cardstock, then put together along with more paper to create what appears in step 2. I'm so sorry if it doesn't make sense, I'll be glad to explain in further detail if you'd like me to.

Reply 9 years ago on Introduction

How did you make the card stock model?

How much are you asking for a raw casting? I would like to buy one from you. email me at [email protected]

extremely impressive work.... although the instructions are great, im still a little confused about step 2... i would appreciate it alot if you can explain it with more detail please.. thank you..

I understand your confusion, and I apologize for my lack of ability to explain things in detail. Okay here it goes, I made some blueprints for the helmet and printed them out in 1:1 scale to my head, this included a front plane of the helmet blueprint, 2 side shots and a rear shot. These pieces were then traced onto a big cardstock (cardboard), they were then cut out and kind of put together to make an "X" so I could have the actual size of the helmet and see what is was going to look like. Since you are just going to have a "X" and "Y" plane of the helmet (Aerial view) you want to fill in the "Z" plane which will turn the piece from a 2D figure to a 3D figure, so you link the gaps of the "X" plane and "Y" with either paper of more cardboard. By this moment, you should have something that looks like the one in the picture. Then you want to spray foam around the whole piece so you could later carve the piece until you get your desired shape. If you still don't understand, let me know, I'll be more than glad to make an example step by step video or addition to this instructable : )

if you would be so kind to make the step by step video... it would be of great help because im still a little thrown off on how to make the cardstock figure.. thank you again

Sure! It might take a little while to get it done, but since I am working on a new piece now, I will try and make a video of my model so you can grasp the idea a little better : )

sounds great to me...thank you for taking the time to explain this to me. Might this new piece be the Thomas helmet?

Well I already started working on that one, but I am working on a ronzler helmet build from Tron Legacy

I am really confused on step 2 can you explain

do you have to make the cast or can you just use the original one you made?

You can use the original one you've made, but it will be a lot heavier if you go with the original master route :)

909originals

THE STORIES BEHIND THE MUSIC

Interview: The story behind the iconic album cover for Daft Punk’s ‘Homework’…

On this day (20 January) in 1997, French duo Daft Punk released Homework , their devastating, disco-funk infused debut, which would go on to be one of the most influential albums in electronic music history.

The recording of Homework was a straightforward process, as the group’s Thomas Bangalter told CMJ New Music Monthly in 1997 – “we made the record at home, very cheaply, very quickly, and spontaneously, trying to do cool stuff” .

But when it came time to package the collection of tracks into an album, the group were a bit more methodical, as Nicolas Hidiroglou , who photographed both the album’s sleek black cover and inner sleeve, tells 909originals .

Over to you, Nicolas.

“ I had been working with a number of artists, and I was working with The Face and other magazines at the time,” he explains. “ A friend said to me there’s a new band called Daft Punk that is putting together an album, you should check them out.

“I had already done some work with Virgin Records, and Daft Punk had already done a few things with Virgin; compilations with other, more established artists. The public didn’t know them at this stage, but there was a buzz about them. They were just teenagers at the time.”

Hidiroglou was thus invited to meet the duo in and listen to the demo Homework for the first time.

“It sounded so different, and completely new,” he says. “I had never heard anything like it – that mix of disco and funk. They played the vinyl for me in this little room; I had no idea I was listening to history.

“ I remember Thomas was very sure about what was going to happen – Daft Punk were going to tour in the UK , and tour America. They were very sure of themselves, and how everything was going to work out.”

Both Bangalter and compatriot Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo (who had previously designed the now-famous Daft Punk logo) had an idea of what they wanted for the album’s cover and inner sleeve.

“We spent about a week putting it together,” Hidiroglou recalls. “They wanted to try out a number of different fabrics before they found exactly what they wanted – the black satin. We spent a lot of time making everything perfect.

“With the inside cover, that had been all arranged by Thomas at his home. I went to his house and met his father – who had been a big producer in the past – and we went up to Thomas’ room. He had prepared everything on the desk just as it appears on the album.

“It was the first time for me to meet an artist who had so much visibility of what they wanted and where they wanted to be. They knew they would be big, but perhaps not as quickly as it worked out. It took just a few months.”

Following on from the release of Homework (as well as some side work for Bangalter’s side labels Roulé and Scratché), Hidiroglou was again called upon to take some promotional shots of the group.

“I had a little shop close to the Sacré-Cœur , and we shot lots of press pictures in the basement. Thomas did some ‘Daft Punk’ graffiti tags on the wall, so I shot that, and I also took some photos of the two of them.

“Back then, they already had the idea of covering their faces – this was a few years before the ‘robots’ – as they didn’t want to be well-known like other artists. We tried different solutions, putting things on their faces, wearing masks, things like that.

“For me, this was not a big thing – I had worked with lots of famous people, and was used to requests like this. But I remember when Daft Punk became famous, people spoke badly about it – people thought they were ‘too proud’ to show their faces. But really, it was them trying something new.”

While fame came quickly for Daft Punk outside of France, in their home country the duo remained “pretty underground for the first year”, Hidiroglou explains. “People didn’t really see the significance of what they were doing, even music people.

“I didn’t think the cover of Homework was a big project for me at the time, but now, it has appeared in a lot of books and magazines. Today it’s seen as a ‘reference point’, but when I did it, I did’t see the significance of it.

“I still meet Thomas sometimes, he lives close to my house. I saw Guy-Man a month ago. It’s more a friendly relationship now, as opposed to a business relationship.”

[Thanks to Nicolas for the interview. You can view his portfolio of work, which includes photography for a series of international artists, actors and musicians, at hidiro.com ]

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• Best New Music
• Pitchfork Radio

By Larry Fitzmaurice

December 2, 2018

Daft Punk ’s Homework is, in its pure existence, a study in contradictions. The debut album from Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo arrived in 1997, right around the proliferation of big-beat and electronica—a twin-headed hydra of dance music fads embraced by the music industry following the commercialization of early ’90s rave culture—but when it came to presumptive contemporaries from those pseudo-movements, Homework shared Sam Goody rack space and not much else. Daft Punk’s introduction to the greater world also came at a time when French electronic music was gaining international recognition, from sturdy discotheque designs to jazzy, downtempo excursions—music that sounded miles away from Homework ’s rude, brutalist house music.

In the 21 years since Homework ’s release, Daft Punk have strayed far from its sound with globe-traversing electronic pop that, even while incorporating other elements of dance music subgenres, has more often than not kept house music’s building blocks at arms’ length. 2001’s Discovery was effectively electronic pop-as-Crayola box, with loads of chunky color and front-and-center vocals that carried massive mainstream appeal. Human After All from 2005 favored dirty guitars and repetitive, Teutonic sloganeering, while the pair took a nostalgia trip through the history of electronic pop itself for 2013’s Random Access Memories . Were it not for a few choice Homework tracks that pop up on 2007’s exhilarating live document Alive 2007 , one might assume that Homework has been lost in the narrative that’s formed since its release—that of Daft Punk as robot-helmeted superstar avatars, rather than as irreverent house savants.

But even as the straightforward and strident club fare on Homework remains singular within Daft Punk’s catalog, the record also set the stage for the duo’s career to this very day—a massively successful and still-going ascent to pop iconography, built on the magic trick-esque ability to twist the shapes of dance music’s past to resemble something seemingly futuristic. Whether you’re talking about Bangalter and Homem-Christo’s predilection for global-kitsch nostalgia, their canny and self-possessed sense of business savvy, or their willingness to wear their influences on their sleeve like ironed-on jean-jacket patches—it all began with Homework .

It couldn’t possibly make more sense that a pair of musicians whose most recent album sounds like a theme park ride through pop and electronic music’s past got their big break at Disneyland. It was 1993, and schoolboy friends Bangalter and Homem-Christo’s rock band with future Phoenix guitarist Laurent Brancowitz, Darlin’—named after a track from the 1967 Beach Boys album Wild Honey that the three shared an affinity for—had disbanded after a year of existence that included a few songs released on Stereolab ’s Duophonic label. (Melody Maker writer Dave Jennings notoriously referred to their songs as possessing “a daft punky thrash,” which led to the pair assuming the Daft Punk moniker.)

While attending a rave in Paris, Bangalter and Homem-Christo had a chance encounter with Glasgow DJ/producer Stuart McMillan, the co-founder of the Soma Recordings dance label; like any aspiring musicians would, they gave him a demo tape of early Daft Punk music. The following year Soma released Daft Punk’s debut single “The New Wave,” a booming and acid-tinged instrumental that would later evolve into Homework cut “Alive.”

A follow-up, “Da Funk” b/w “Rollin’ & Scratchin’,” hit shops in 1995; according to a Muzik profile two years later, its initial 2,000-platter pressing was “virtually ignored” until rave-electronica bridge-gap veterans the Chemical Brothers started airing out its A-side during DJ sets. A major-label bidding war ensued, with Virgin as the victor which re-released “Da Funk” as a proper single in 1996 with non- Homework track “Musique” as its B-side. During this time, Bangalter and Homem-Christo casually worked on the 16 tunes that would make up Homework in the former’s bedroom, utilizing what The Guardian ’s Ben Osborne referred to in 2001 as “ low technology equipment ”—two sequencers, a smattering of samplers, synths, drum machines, and effects, with an IOMEGA zip drive rounding out their setup.

Bangalter and Homem-Christo’s work ethic while assembling the bulk of Homework was of the type that makes sloths appear highly efficient by comparison: no more than eight hours a week, over the course of five months. “We have not spent much time on Homework ,” Bangalter casually bragged to POP . “The main thing is that it sounds good… We have no need to make music every day.” The songs were crafted with the intention of being released as singles (“We do not really want to make albums,” Bangalter claimed in the same interview), Homework ’s eventual sequencing a literal afterthought after the pair realized they had enough material to evenly fill four sides of two vinyl platters. “Balance,” the pair said in unison when asked about Homework ’s format-specific sequencing in Dance Music Authority following the album’s release. “It is done for balance.”

Indeed, Homework is practically built to be consumed in side-long chunks; taking the album in at a single 75-minute listen can feel like running a 5K right after eating an entire pizza. Its A-side kicks off with the patient build of “Daftendirekt”—itself a live-recording excerpt of introductory music used during a Daft Punk set at 1995’s I Love Techno festival in Ghent—and concludes with the euphoric uplift of “Phoenix”; the B-side opens with the literal oceanic washes of “Fresh” before stretching its legs with the loopy, Gershon Kingsley-interpolating “Around the World” and the screeching fist-pump anthem “Rollin’ & Scratchin’.” The third side keeps things light with the flashy, instructional “Teachers” before getting truly twisted on “Rock’n Roll,” and the fourth side takes a few rubbery detours before landing on the full-bodied “Alive”—the thicker and meaner final form of “The New Wave”—and, quixotically, a slight and rewound “Da Funk” return, aptly titled “Funk Ad.”

Bangalter explained to POP that the title of Homework carries a few meanings: “You always do homework in the bedroom,” he stated, referencing the album’s homespun origins before elaborating on the didactic exercise that creating the album represented: “We see it as a training for our upcoming discs. We would as well have been able to call it Lesson or Learning .” That instructional nature is reflexive when it comes to listeners’ presumptive relationship with the album, as Homework practically represents a how-to for understanding and listening to house music.

Nearly every track opens with a single sonic element—more often than not, that steady 4/4 rhythm inextricably tied to house music—adding every successive element of the track patiently, like a played-in-reverse YouTube video showcasing someone taking apart a gadget to see what’s inside. Such a pedagogic approach can have its pitfalls; there’s always a risk of coming across as too rigid, and Daft Punk arguably fell victim to such dull, fussy didacticism later in their careers. But they sidestep such follies on Homework by way of the purely pleasurable music they carefully assembled, piece-by-piece, for whoever was listening.

Under the umbrella of house music, Homework incorporates a variety of sounds snatched from various musical subgenres—G-funk’s pleasing whine, the cut-up vocal-sample style of proto-UK garage made popular by frequent Daft Punk collaborator Todd Edwards , disco’s delicious synths and glittery sweep—to craft a true musical travelogue that also hinted at the widescreen sonic scope they’d take later in their careers. Above all, the album represents a love letter to black American pop music that’s reverberated through Daft Punk’s career to date—from Janet Jackson ’s sample of “Daftendirekt” on her 2008 Discipline track “So Much Betta” to Will.i.am’s failed attempt to remix “Around the World” the year previous, as well as the duo’s continued collaborations with artists ranging from Pharrell to Kanye West and the Weeknd .

The spirit of house music’s Midwestern originators is also literally and musically invoked throughout. Over the winding house-party groove of “Teachers,” Daft Punk pay homage to their formative influences, ranging from George Clinton and Dr. Dre to Black house and techno pioneers like Lil Louis, DJ Slugo, and Parris Mitchell—and in a meta twist, the song’s structure itself is a literal homage to Mitchell’s 1995 Dance Mania! single “Ghetto Shout Out,” an interpolation clearly telegraphed in the middle of Daft Punk’s astounding contribution to BBC’s Essential Mix series in 1997 .

Alongside Daft Punk’s preoccupations with American popular music, Homework also carries a very specific and politically pointed evocation of their native Paris in “Revolution 909,” the fourth and final single released from Homework that doubled as a critique of anti-rave measures taken by the French government after Jacques Chirac assumed power in 1995. “I don’t think it’s the music they’re after—it’s the parties,” Homem-Christo told Dance Music Authority , with Bangalter adding, “They pretend [the issue is] drugs, but I don’t think it’s the only thing. There’s drugs everywhere, but they probably wouldn’t have a problem if the same thing was going on at a rock concert, because that’s what they understand. They don’t understand this music which is really violent and repetitive, which is house; they consider it dumb and stupid.”

“Revolution 909” opens with ambient club noise, followed by the intrusion of police sirens and intimidating megaphone’d orders to “stop the music and go home.” The accompanying Roman Coppola-helmed music video was even more explicit in depicting the frequent clash between ravers and law enforcement that marked dance music’s rise to the mainstream in the early-to-mid-’90s; amidst a kitschy instructional video on making tomato sauce, a pair of cops attempt to disperse a rave, a young woman escaping one of their grasps after he becomes distracted by a tomato sauce stain on his own lapel.

It’s been rumored, but never quite confirmed, that Bangalter himself appears in the video for “Revolution 909”—a slice of speculation gesturing towards the fact that Daft Punk’s Homework era was the time in which the duo began embracing anonymity. The now-iconic robot helmets wouldn’t be conceived of until the Discovery era, and the magazine stories that came during Daft Punk’s pre- Homework days were typically accompanied by a fresh-faced photo of the pair; during Homework ’s promotional cycle, however, they donned a variety of masks to obscure their visages, including frog and pig-themed disguises .

In conversation with Simon Reynolds for The New York Times in 2013, the pair cited Brian De Palma’s glam-rock masterpiece Phantom of the Paradise as artistic inspiration for their decision to retain visual anonymity, and Daft Punk’s press-shy tendencies (since Homework , the interviews they’ve chosen to take part in have been few and far between) are firmly situated in a long tradition of letting the music do the talking in dance culture—from the sci-fi evasiveness of Drexciya and Aphex Twin ’s relative reclusiveness to the preferred reticence of Burial and his contemporaries in the UK bass scene.

But refusing to turn themselves into rock stars upon Homework ’s release also afforded Daft Punk a crucial element that has undoubtedly aided their perpetual ascent to the present-day: control. Retaining a sense of anonymity was but one of the conditions that the pair struck with Virgin upon signing to the label before Homework ’s release; while the music they released under the label (before signing to Columbia in 2013) was licensed exclusively to Virgin, they owned it through their own Daft Trax production and management company.

But Homework proved influential in other, more explicitly musical ways. G-house, an emergent dance subgenre in the mid-2010s dominated by acts like French duo Amine Edge & Dance, borrows liberally from Daft Punk’s own musical mash of hip-hop’s tough sounds and house music’s pounding appeal; the dirty bloghouse bruisers of Parisian collective Ed Banger—founded by Pedro Winter aka Busy P, who acted as the group’s manager until 2008—would literally not exist were it not for Homework , and that goes double for the party-hardy bloghouse micro-movement of the mid-late 2000s, which Ed Banger’s artists practically dominated. Parisian duo Justice , in particular, owe practically the entirety of their 2007 landmark † to the scraping tension of “Rollin’ & Scratchin’.”

It’s tempting, too, to tie a connective thread between Homework and the brash sounds that proliferated during the peak heyday of the financial descriptor-cum-music genre known as EDM; close your eyes while listening to “Alive”’s big-tent sweep and try not to imagine the tune destroying a festival crowd. But for all of Homework ’s aggressive charms, it’s also retained a homespun intimacy in comparison to how positively widescreen Daft Punk’s music became afterwards. “We focus on the illusion because giving away how it’s done instantly shuts down the sense of excitement and innocence,” Bangalter told Pitchfork in 2013, and the fact that two Beach Boys fans fiddling around in their bedroom could conceive of something so generously in-your-face and playful as Homework might still stand as Daft Punk’s greatest illusion yet.

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