It wasn’t intended to be successful. It wasn’t even deliberate to be released. But while Alain Quême, a younger Paris-based manufacturer working below the name Alan Braxe, needed to quickly place a few tunes collectively for an upcoming stay set on the venerable Rex Club, he inadvertently changed the face of clubland records. As much as the gig, the classes ended in one of the most instantly recognizable tunes in house music history — Stardust’s ‘Music Sounds Better With You.’ Released on 20th July 1998, the music became considered one of the most important-promoting dance tracks of the 12 months, with an influence that extends to the moment. Almost precisely 21 years later, the road is getting the rerelease remedy, with a remastered vinyl version (single-sided with lyrics etched at the turn, much like the unique) hitting the stores on the twenty-eighth of June; it’ll also be to be had on streaming offerings for the first time.
‘Music Sounds Better with You’ came collectively nearly through a twist of fate when, in guidance for the Rex Club set, Braxe is known at the help of multiple buddies, Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter and vocalist Benjamin “Diamond” Cohen. (Daft Punk is no longer quite the arena-conquering pressure it faces today — ‘Homework’ came out in 1997; however, ‘Discovery’ is years away.) Together, the trio settled in at Bangalter’s home studio, Daft House, and started to tinker away. In setting the song together, the crew realized that one in all their concoctions had that ineffable something. This magical essence transforms trifling music into miles of extra fulfillment.
Like many of history’s beloved dance tracks, ‘Music Sounds Better with You’ is as easy and direct as a track can be. But just in case everybody wishes a reminder, the center of the track is made from a brief-hit guitar-riff loop anchored by a sincere but hooky four-bar bassline. (The guitar turned into sampled from the primary few seconds of Chaka Khan’s ‘Fate’, from 1981’s ‘What Cha’ Gonna Do for Me” LP.) Diamond’s vocals, sung in a half-half-pleading, half-ecstatic tone, quickly join in: “Ooh toddler, I sense like, the song sounds better with you / Love would possibly convey us lower back together / I feel so exact.” Toss a chunk of filtering into the mix, and there you’ve got it — there’s no build-up and no breakdown; keep for a short passage when the guitar is filtered nearly down to a spectral afterglow. It doesn’t do much whatever, sincerely, nor does it must. It exists in a country of pleasure-giving perfection.
Soon after the Daft House sessions, a handful of Stardust white labels crossed the Atlantic to land on the March 1998 edition of Miami’s Winter Music Conference. Dimitri from Paris recalls it well. “It becomes out of doors at the Raleigh Hotel at an afternoon birthday celebration,” he says. “Daft Punk has been on and performing the music, and anybody is going’. What is that? It’s in reality, precise!’ I went as much as Thomas to invite about it, and he stated, ‘Oh, it’s this new factor I did with multiple different guys. Here, have one!’
And the file has become so big, even earlier than it, in reality, came out, that some promoters have been booking me simply because I had that record.” The veteran New York DJ and manufacturer Hector Romero also became one of the lucky recipients. ‘I become blown away the first time heard it, just like most of the people have been,” he remembers. “It was just so infectious. This file samples this easy one-bar loop, which they controlled to create a monster around it! It became almost stunning.”
That shock value becomes one of the keys to its success. The French residence explosion of the mid-to-late-’90s was already nicely underway. The likes of Motorbass (made up of X and Zdar, who regrettably handed the remaining week), St. Germain, and, of course, Daft Punk had already been releasing the statistics which for plenty of human beings had served as an advent to the fertile Parisian scene of the time. But the way wherein ‘Music Sounds Better with You’ distilled a sure pressure of French dance track — the sort that relied heavily on catchy filtered loops and a disco-kissed vibe — right down to its base factors, to such outsize impact… Nicely, it felt like a glittering new global had just been invented. Its June release on Roulé became, arguably, the moment that shifted the entire French Touch motion into high gear. And it bought via the truckload: Various reports on the Roulé income figures range between 250,000 and four hundred 000 information, and after Virgin signed the music later in 1998, it shifted a whopping million statistics.
A captivating, dreamy video for the music by the then-ascendant French auteur Michel Gondry did not show anything to hurt the one’s figures. While a young boy diligently works on a version aircraft, a clip providing the trio — heavily disguised, presaging Daft Punk’s robot-helmet schtick — mime the track on a ‘Top 5 Hits’ software. (Short segments of the other four hits, parodies of’ 80s-esque video tropes, are also glimpsed.) As the boy continues to construct the plane, he dreams of flight. When the boy’s mission is completed, he hoists the plane aloft, and it soars above the hilly French nation-state. It descends on a cloud, wherein Stardust — now Valhalla-dwelling gods, reputedly — relaunches the aircraft and ships it back to watch for the boy. Fin.
