Homework
After rocking the suburbs with the infectious and persistent "Da Funk" (with its amusingly pointless Spike Jonze video), Gallic pranksters Daft Punk unleashedHomework, an album that combined everything good about house music with everything bad about French pop and changed the face of dance music in the process. The sound of production duo Thomas Bangalter and Guy Manuel de Homem is a raw and dirty collage of cheap drum machines (wired for maximum swing) welded to endless filtered loops and embellished with everything from guitars to talk-box vocals. The beats are lifted straight from the Chicago House textbook, but the simple bass lines and catchy hooks make a listenable pop song from what would normally be a stripped-down DJ tool. Uncompromising yet totally accessible.--Matthew Corwine