90's Jams #8: Stardust "Music Sounds Better With You" (1998)

Deep ambiguous nostalgia... Is it retro 70's? 80's? 90's? "Love might bring us back together." Whenever "together" happened, it's clearly not happening now. Scattered memories are often a happy effect of weed consumption, which could possibly be the "You" in the song title, although the song itself mostly sounds like E. In any case, this fills up the listener with a rush of SOMETHING... Coursing through the bloodstream, and "feels so good." Perhaps love is this ultimate drug?

And then there's the middle section... Bangalter's sticks to his trademark "turn down the treble so it sounds like you're listening to the song being played at the apartment down the hallway" used previously in "Phoenix" and "Revolution 909" and pretty much every other song on Homework, and perfected in this case... The bass drum groove continues pumping, like our hearts continuing? To pound out of our chests? When a huge moment of our lives is right in front of us? Perhaps this is overthinking simplicity...

By the way, it might be tough to remember this, but Daft Punk and Chemical Brothers actually used to receive airplay on daytime MTV throughout Spring and Summer 1997. Hard to believe, but yes it's true, right around the time "Electronica" became a buzzword. Prodigy & Chem Bros recieved most of the hype for riding the wave commercially, while Daft Punk were the slow burner... "Around The World" got some daytime spins. By the time Stardust happened, MTV airplay was confined to AMP & 120 Minutes. Perhaps Gondry's most underrated video...