A Daft Legacy

Daft Punk: Tron:Legacy Sountrack

With the release of the highly anticipated Tron: Legacy on December 17^th it’s only fair that its unique soundtrack by French DJ’s Daft Punk gets the same treatment.

It seems only right then that the DJ’s who made their name in the 90’s house scene started their careers with a meeting a Euro Disney. Their unique brand of future-house-techno, as I’m labelling it, took the world by storm with such singles as ‘Around the World’ and ‘Technologic’ and their even more unique ‘style’ on stage is a uniform of leather suits with helmets shielding them from the rave happy crowds. Helmets you say? That sounds familiar.  Yes Daft Punk are those guys that look they should have been in Tron. How perfect then that they happen to create music that suits the tone of the film like Cinderella’s slipper fits her own foot.

Two disks and over an hour and a half worth of music that takes you from a sense of impending doom and dread to moments of triumph and even elation. Daft Punk have pushed themselves to the limit here expanding to what sounds like a full orchestra being held captive and forced to play while Daft Punk have a techno battle over the top, just for fun. This album is strange because it’s not quite a soundtrack and not quite an album in its own right. If you look at the Tron grid and then try to imagine the natural music that would emanate from that world you will start to get some idea of what it sounds like. Epic is the word that comes to mind and I don’t use that term, as most do, lightly.

The duo consisting of, Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter, appear to have fully immersed themselves in the world. They had unlimited access to the set and director Joseph Kosinski and have formed a close relationship with original director Steven Lisberger, who is now contributing liner notes to the album. The pair even had their own Tron helmets purpose built, which I like to think turns their thoughts into music. All this attention to detail has paid off leaving the musicians with what could turn out to be the definite soundtrack of the year, even a generation. Now that seems like a rather large statement to make, but if you think about the last decade and ‘the rise of the machines’ then it doesn’t feel so odd. The internet has changed the way we all live and social networking is how we project our identities, much like the avatars and computer programme characters of  Tron, this soundtrack takes you to that other world and forces you to face yourself. Epic, like I said.

Whether you like classical or modern music this album will work for you. It has pace and depth and substance and style, all things you want from music, it manages all of this without lyrics and only one introduction from Jeff Bridges or Kevin Flynn if you will. It’s reminiscent of a Clint Mansell score in the way the orchestra utilises the sharp edgy strings, but this is one soundtrack that truly deserves to be filed under the heading OST.