Americablog may not know who Daft Punk or Adam Freeland are, but you do, gentle Riff readers, since I post something about the former at least every week or two. But that doesn’t make this video, called “Aer OBAMA,” any less baffling. The musical accompaniment consists of French duo Daft Punk’s “Aerodynamic” (from their 2001 album Discovery) remixed by UK breaks legend Adam Freeland to have a Speak-and-Spell-y Obama theme; the video is a jittery stop-motion story of the President-Elect jetting in from space to, I guess, dance around at a Daft Punk concert. Okay. Let’s just stop for a second. I’d like to point something out. First, I’m a huge Obama supporter who blogs for the Mother Jones magazine. Also, I’m a DJ, and in my radio career I managed to actually interview both Daft Punk and Mr. Freeland, to say nothing of the multiple times I’ve seen them DJ and perform. I’ve got the political and the musical sides of this pretty much down, so I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that I, personally, am at the very center of the intended audience for this video. However, it makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever, and after watching it, I feel vaguely disturbed, not, you know, “hopeful.” Plus, isn’t sampling a Speak-and-Spell kind of tired? On top of it all, the very idea that France’s greatest robot exports would get remixed by a breaks superstar for a stop-motion video featuring a bunch of Kubrick toys all in tribute to an American president is making me feel like the very laws of physics are collapsing around us. Or maybe I’ve just had too much coffee?
