Much in common, after all.
Human After All is the third Daft Punk album, released on March 14, 2005. As opposed to their first two albums, which were more dance-oriented, Human After All is more of an electronic-rock album, though the dance influences are still there.
Tracklist:
- "Human After All" (5:20)
- "The Prime of Your Life" (4:23)
- "Robot Rock" (4:48)
- "Steam Machine" (5:21)
- "Make Love" (4:50)
- "The Brainwasher" (4:08)
- "On/Off" (0:19)
- "Television Rules the Nation" (4:48)
- "Technologic" (4:44)
- "Emotion" (6:57)
Human After All contains examples of:
- Album Title Drop: One of the repeated lines in the Title Track is “We are human after all”.
- Darker and Edgier: The album is much more cold, robotic, and unsettling than their other works.
- Epic Rocking: “Emotion” is 6:57 long.
- Every Episode Ending: Inverted. Every music video starts off with SPECIAL PRESENTATION on a TV with a low blaring sound in the background.
- Limited Lyrics Song: Every single song (with the exception of 20-second interlude “On/Off”) is built off of repeated lyrics. The only possible exceptions to this trope are the Title Track for having TWO sections with DIFFERENT repeated lines (so shocking) and “Technologic” for having about 50-60 things you can do to ‘it’ (plus the title).
- Longest Song Goes Last: Closer “Emotion” is nearly 7 minutes long. No other song reaches 5:30.
- Madness Mantra: “The Prime Time Of Your Life” definitely feels like this, especially if you watch the video. (Warning: The video is a source of
Nightmare Fuel for many.) - Mood Whiplash: Throughout the entire album; some of the more poignant examples are the dark, unsettling song “The Prime Time Of Your Life” being followed by the upbeat “Robot Rock” (even more noticeable if you’re listening to the album on YouTube where the two music videos are much, much different), soft, serene “Make Love” directly preceding “The Brainwasher, which is straight-up threatening, and “Technologic”, an energetic, up-tempo song, directly preceding the slow and melancholy “Emotion”.
- New Sound Album: Human After All is much more heavy and emotionless (despite having a song called “Emotion”) than their first two albums.
- Performance Video: The video for “Robot Rock” plays this completely straight. This comes across as a little odd comparing it to the other two music videos of songs from the album. (Nightmare Fuel warning for the other two.)
- Sampling: Used much more sparingly than on the two albums preceding it, but “Robot Rock” heavily samples “Release The Beast” by Breakwater, “The Brainwasher” (much less heavily) samples “Iron Man” by Black Sabbath, and “Emotion” samples “Technologic”, the song that comes right before it!
- Surprisingly Gentle Song: “Make Love”, a soft song with clean guitar and calm, smooth vocals; especially so since it’s sandwiched in between “Steam Machine” and “The Brainwasher”, two of the most heavy, unsettling songs on the album. “Emotion” too, though less so because it’s still electronic-rooted and the fact that it’s the album closer as opposed to being shoved in the middle.
- Title Track: The album opener.
