Kat Says: “Justice is Peaking and You Better Not Fucking Miss It”
I don’t want to hear it in 10 years when you’re sad you missed Alive 2007.
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Hey Friends,
I caught up with my mom recently (hi, mom!), and she was excited to tell me that she heard Justice’s “Neverender” playing over the speakers at her favorite restaurant/bar in downtown Chattanooga.
“It made me think about when RAM came out, and I heard ‘Get Lucky’ with you, then I heard it out in public,” she said. “Maybe this is kind of like that?”
“Yes!” I jumped off the couch and started pacing between my desk and the kitchen. “That’s what I keep saying! This is their RAM!”
Released in 2013, Random Access Memories was legendary French touch duo Daft Punk’s fourth album and, essentially, its musical victory lap. It was a sophisticated album that took inspiration from the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, celebrating analog instrumentation and recording techniques while showcasing the incredible talent of its personnel as producers, musicians and avant-garde visionaries.
It was a complex album that disregarded popular expectations of the band, though it ultimately earned massive pop appeal and won the maverick “robots” the illustrious Grammy for Album of the Year. It was also the only Daft Punk album to feature prominent vocal and cross-genre collaborations. I mean, they had Pharrell on two songs, and he’s only one of numerous marquee features.
The back image of Hyperdrama is one of the coolest illistrations ever created. They have plants in their spaceship!
Hyperdrama is Justice’s fourth album. Hyperdrama takes inspiration from the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. It celebrates analog instrumentation and is an absolute masterpiece of production technique, and it certainly was built to showcase its personnel’s masterful talent and unique vision.
It is complex and disregards any expectation of what a pop crossover sounds like while simultaneously standing out from Justice’s existing catalog with features from Grammy-winning, festival-headlining vocal collaborators. I mean, they have Tame Impala on two songs (whom Rihanna famously covered)—and he’s only one of numerous marquee features.
I know it would be kind of a monumental jump for Justice to land the win, but, in my professionally esteemed and completely unbiased lifelong superfan opinion, Hyperdrama deserves to at least be nominated for Album of the Year.
Did reading that feel like a glitch in the Matrix? You basically read the same things twice. That’s because, as me and my mom both surmised, Hyperdrama is to Justice what RAM is to Daft Punk.
That is not to say that RAM and Hyperdrama actually *sound* like each other.
Random Access Memories has a laid-back, adult contemporary sort of vibe throughout. It’s groovy and it’s cool and it’s got sweeping, psychedelic orchestral soundscapes that are very sci-fi and cutting edge—but altogether, it does sound like what you might imagine parents listen to when drinking wine and slow dancing together in a living room, only to have their kids walk into the house with their friends and yell, “EW! MOM! DAD! YOU’RE EMBARRASSING ME!”
Hyperdrama, meanwhile, has “Generator,” a single which gave my friend Jordan big “piracy is a crime” vibes and was paired with an extremely horrifying music video that shows robots fucking and eating each other’s faces.
So, yeah, a little different!
As an obsessive fan and professional critic, I can’t help but find more than a few weird parallels between Daft Punk and Justice.
I have long joked that my favorite band is both of them. (That joke predates my obsession with French touch. I spent my high school years saying, “My favorite band is The Cure and Depeche Mode,” and as far back as middle school, I said my favorite color was “plaid.”)
This joke then leads me to say, “They’re the same band!” and, of course, they’re not the same band. They’re two different couples from Paris who just happen to be part of the same creative collective, having shared a manager and, therefore, probably many of the same ideals and approaches to art. Both exist to explore the intersection of humanity and technology in a way that is fiercely independent of industry-wide pressures and incredibly influential to the entire EDM generation, even while their own subsequent productions seem to exist in direct congruence to the resulting trends they helped create.
But Daft Punk wears robot helmets, and Justice smokes cigarettes. They’re not the same AT ALL.
Actually, you know what the biggest difference is between Daft Punk and Justice? Daft Punk made this incredible leap from niche darling to household name. Meanwhile, Justice feels like the biggest band in the world that’s still your underground secret.
Daft Punk’s signature helmets and music are so mainstream that last week, Jeopardy included a “Dance Music” category, and “Who is Daft Punk” was the 200-point response. (If you don’t watch Jeopardy, 200 points is the easiest, lowest-common-denominator answer the show can even offer. You’d have to be living under a rock not to get it. This is a gimme, c’mon.)
Justice? They’re Coachella headliners and have been for more than a decade, but unless someone is really into music, I still have to explain who my favorite band is. Usually, I say, “You know Daft Punk, right? They’re like Daft Punk, but not really. They’re actually friends with Daft Punk. If you like Daft Punk and you like ‘70s rock, you should absolutely check them out.”
There’s this Brian Eno quote from 1981 that goes something like, “The Velvet Underground only sold 30,000 records, but everyone who bought one of those 30,000 records started a band.”
I’ve referenced that quote about 200 times when talking about Justice in the past 15 years. It perfectly encapsulates how Justice overpowers its peer group without selling as many tickets as Diplo or having as many radio hits as The Chainsmokers.
Almost every producer younger than 40 I’ve interviewed will cite Justice (and, you know, Daft Punk) as an influence, particularly the good ones with something unique to offer.
Justice was not mentioned in Tuesday’s Jeopardy category, but Skrillex (the 1000-point response) name-dropped them in his first Grammy acceptance speech, talking about “† should have won a Grammy.” (Funnily enough, he immediately followed that by saying, “Daft Punk should have won Grammys.”)
And it’s not like Justice hasn’t had crossover success. Swizz Beats gave Jay-Z a platinum hit with a Justice sample in 2009, two years after Kanye West made headlines for storming the stage of MTV’s European VMAs, bitching about how he lost the award for Best Video to, well, Justice.
“If I don’t win,” Kanye said, “the award show loses credibility,” It’s become one of the rapper’s most notorious lines, and it was directed at fucking Justice, lol.
A year after that outburst, West had a chart-topping hit with “Stronger,” which samples Daft Punk.
HMMMMMM.
Kanye West and Jay-Z went on tour together in support of their joint album Watch The Throne in 2011, and I went to the Miami show. I’ll never forget how Jay-Z performed “On To The Next,” then left the stage as the DJ mixed that beat into “D.A.N.C.E.,” then mixed THAT song into “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” by Daft Punk and cut that beat into the beat of “Stronger” as Mr. West emerged from the middle of the arena floor on a rising platform.
Nothing to see here, folks. No similarities that might confuse a super-fan’s brain into pushing Daft Punk and Justice into the same square meter of gray matter.
Sidenote: Okay, I just learned that, two years after he stormed the stage because he lost a video award to Justice, Kanye actually *released* Justice’s controversial, now-iconic music video for “Stress” *on his own website*. Incredible 180. Time wrote about it lol.
The comparison between the two French acts was part of the marketing strategy, going back to the release of Justice’s first single, a remix of English rock band Simian’s indie hit “Never Be Alone.” The music video—which is the very video that beat Kanye West in 2006—is hosted on YouTube by VirginRecords UK, and the caption in the description box is as follows:
“Fantastic video from the song that is sure to be the biggest club hit of the summer, 'We Are Your Friends'. French dance masters Justice (tipped as the new Daft Punk) did a stonking mash-up of Simian's classic 'Never Be Alone' and this awesome video compliments it well. A YouTube exclusive - enjoy!”
Besides being delightfully British (stonking?), this illustrates that—as of July 15, 2006—the music industry was choosing to position Justice as the heir apparent to the Daft Punk throne.
This is actually the moment I discovered Justice. You know what? I’ll admit it: I found them *because* of that Kanye moment. I went to the then-nascent website YouTube and looked up that exact video link to see what had beaten Kanye West into a tantrum. Immediately, I was like, “YES! FUCK YES! THAT’S THE SOUND! THE ONE I’VE BEEN LOOKING FOR!”
Daft Punk? I’d grown up with them. On Christmas 2001, my dad gifted me Discovery on CD because we were both big fans of “One More Time.” I VHS taped that special presentation on Cartoon Network’s Toonami when they played the first four music videos from Interstellar 5555. (For the kids, it took five more years until YouTube was a thing for me to see the rest of the fucking movie. You have no idea how happy I was).
This guy I dated in high school told me about Homework a couple years later, and I was one of the fans that actually liked Human After All when it came out in 2005. I was mildly obsessed with their appearance in that Gap commercial, and my friends and I were extremely excited when Busta Rhymes dropped “Touch It” just five months after the “Technologic” video gave us nightmares.
Sidenote: Swizz Beats also produced “Touch It,” this four years before he sampled Justice for “On To The Next One.”
By November of 2006, I had been a loyal Daft Punk fan for a solid five years. I was definitely excited for their set at Bang! Music Festival in Miami, but I didn’t know it was going to literally change my life.
The whole world now knows what that show was like, but it was 100 percent a surprise to me. When it was over, I knew it was the best concert I’d ever see, and I wanted to hear it again. I needed to feel it again. I was desperate, and it was impossible. The way Daft Punk mashed up its catalog created a whole new sound that couldn’t be replicated by simply playing Homework, Discovery or Human After All on CD.
I walked out of that set a manic zombie, stumbling through the streets at night screaming for more—and then I discovered Justice.
In my recent interview with Justice for Spin, I wrote:
“When attendees wandered out of Daft Punk’s electrifying pyramid performance seeking similar stimulation, † welcomed them with open arms.”
It’s me. I am “attendees,” and once I bought Justice’s debut album † on CD, it never left my car’s CD player. Literally. I only took it out four years later once I got a new car.
Further Reading: Chaos Theory: How Justice Shattered Their Six-Year Silence in Style (Spin, April 2024)
I memorized every crunching detail of that album, reveling in its chainsaw funk and mind-numbing mayhem. I was 20 years old, going to house parties for the first time, meeting people who didn’t know me as the weird girl from middle school, discovering whiskey.
Daft Punk was an incredible concert, and I caught it again at Lollapalooza 2007. I’m pretty sure I sold my soul to Daft Punk during the hypnotic mix of “Prime Time Of Your Life,” “Brainwasher,” “Rollin’ and Scratchin’” and “Alive,” but mostly, I remember that concert as being over-the-top euphoric. We were all being blasted in the face with more light than the human eye had previously been exposed to, all while bathing in maximalist electronic noise. It was pulverizing, but it was also so new, we had to just stand there and scream and dance and take it.
Seven months laters, in March of 2008, I saw Justice for the first time at a club venue in Orlando. It was as violent as a joyful experience can be. The whole crowd was a constant mosh pit. I remember being crushed as soon as the opening drop of “Genesis” rang through the smoky air. My friend Max only made it 10 minutes before he was forced to leave the club to sit in the backseat of his van, gathering his overstimulated brain cells.
If you watch the video I took below, you can tell I’m fighting just to stay upright. It was like my generation had been a rice cooker on a steady boil, and someone just flipped the steam release. Everyone was just screaming and sweating and losing their minds, and at the end, Justice played Metallica.
I now realize the difference is where these two acts were in their careers. Daft Punk’s second and final tour (though we didn’t know it would be their last at the time) was their version of an arena rock concert. Justice, meanwhile, was just making its rounds on the cramped club circuit. Daft Punk had a massive, cutting-edge stage production. Justice had a glowing cross and a wall of Marshall amps. Daft Punk was at its pinnacle, and Justice was just beginning.
The ensuing years were great—the “prime time of my life,” you might say. What we now call “blog house” hit its peak, and Daft Punk was tapped to score the sequel to an ‘80s cult classic, giving us Tron: Legacy. Blog house gave way to dubstep and Dutch house and a billion other subgenres until the suits started calling it all “EDM.”
Further Reading: Kat Says: “EDM Needs a Comeback, and So Do We” (August 2022)
In 2011, Justice released its second studio album, Audio, Video, Disco. It was much more polished than its predecessor and steered heavily into the sound and style of ‘70s arena rock. It shocked fans, to be honest. A lot of people just wanted to hear † again, but music had moved on from that sound, and so had Justice.
In 2013, Daft Punk dropped RAM. Critics and fans alike saw it as an anti-EDM album, choosing not to dive into the build-drop formula Daft Punk’s Alive 2007 had inspired but to relive the most glorious, vaseline-on-the-lens moments of glittering prog-disco.
Daft Punk spent the next few years producing on other artists’ albums, most prominently Kanye West’s Yeezus and The Weeknd’s Starboy LP, including the titular single for the latter. The robots even donned new outfits and made cameos in The Weeknd’s music videos.
A couple of months after Starboy dropped, Justice released its third album, Woman. It was enjoyable, and people liked it, but people were busy talking about the upcoming tour Daft Punk must be planning.
For 10 years, fans speculated that Daft Punk would tour in 2017. They’d toured in 1997, then again in 2007. It only stood to reason that they’d tour again 10 years later. That was math. That was logical.
That, of course, never happened.
One of the random things in my life I’m most proud of is this Facebook status I published in November of 2016.
I was just RIFFING. I wasn’t even IN CONTACT with their teams at this point. I literally was JUST A FAN, AND I FUCKING CALLED IT.
Three months later, I interviewed Justice for the first time. I hadn’t slept in 30-something hours, and I was beside myself with anxiety and excitement. I fumbled through the conversation, but they didn’t seem to mind. After the interview and an embarrassing moment when I asked for a pic, I walked away then stopped, turned around and said,
“Wait! When is Daft Punk going on tour? I know you guys know.”
They laughed. They looked me in the eyes, and they laughed.
As I stood watching The Church a few hours later, completely mesmerized by a spectacle equal parts light show and unmatchable musical talent, surrounded by thousands of people as captivated as I was, I realized the robots probably won’t tour in 2017, and the honest truth is, they don’t have to.
Further Reading: Justice Took Ultra 2017 to Church on Sunday, Talks New Live Show: ‘Everything Has Changed’ (Billboard Dance, March 2017)
That was the set that broke my brain. I was a huge Justice fan. Huge, like, everyone who knows me thinks about me when they listen to Justice (and Daft Punk, actually), but that Woman Worldwide tour sent me down a crazy spiral.
About 10 years after it happened the first time, I was walking out of a music festival in downtown Miami, screaming “THAT WAS THE BEST SHOW,” crying because I couldn’t just go home and listen to what I had just heard. The way Justice mashed up its catalog created a whole new sound that couldn’t be replicated by simply playing † or Audio, Video, Disco or Woman on Spotify.
(And what does that remind us of, hmm?)
The year 2017 came and went, and Daft Punk didn’t go on tour. The duo remained relatively quiet for years until February of 2021 when I woke up to a string of texts from friends across the country asking me if I was okay.
It was disturbing. I thought something bad had happened, but then I realized Daft Punk had announced it was disbanding, so I hit everyone back:
“I’m fine. I saw Daft Punk twice. Are YOU okay?”
Then I sat down and wrote a really nice love letter to my favorite band:
All good things come to an end, and even robots power down. After four studio albums, two tours and 28 years of service, legendary electronic duo Daft Punk have moved from “is” to “was.” It’s a simple change really, as the sentence that marks their storied career remains: Daft Punk was the most conceptual and influential electronic musical act of its time.
Further Reading: Fin: Why Daft Punk Was the Most Influential Electronic Act of Its Time (Billboard Dance, February 2021)
I was a bit saddened by the news, to be sure, but I wasn’t that surprised.
They’d been silent for years, and even in that time, people kept whispering about what they might do next. Even now, three years after the disbandment, fans still spread rumors about upcoming shows and unheard albums. I can imagine they’re tired of being told what they might do. I feel like they announced an official retirement just to get people to leave them alone—but that’s completely conjecture on my part. I know nothing about it, and I’ve never actually spoken to either of them.
In the wake of that news, Justice’s Gaspard Augé dropped a solo album called Escapades. I interviewed him about it for Spin, and he gave me some off-the-record info on the forthcoming Justice record.
I heard from a few sources here and there that the new Justice record was influenced by the dynamic chaos of modern hip-hop records by Tyler, The Creator and Travis Scott. I also heard it was going to be “feature heavy,” which freaked me out a little bit, because I don’t typically listen to Justice for the features, but that’s when I started thinking, “Is this going to be their RAM?”
The first time I heard Hyperdrama, I was nervous. I didn’t know what to expect. What if I didn’t like it? What if the features were cheesy? What if it was kind of mid?
I walked away thinking it might be the greatest album I’ve ever heard.
“It’s definitely their RAM,” I told my buddy Joel on the phone, pacing the streets of Brooklyn in full conspiracy theory mania. “I thought they wouldn’t be able to top the lighting tech of the last tour, but they don’t have a choice. This album is insane. I asked the manager what they’re going to do and he just said ‘some festivals who already booked them have to build bigger stages to handle what they’re about to bring.’”
I spent the next four months doing whatever I had to do to get a ticket to Coachella so I could see the tour debut.
Have you ever seen a concert so good it actually ruined your night? Have you heard a set so intense and dramatic that it made other songs sound stale, or seen a light show so overwhelmingly bright it rendered the rest of the world a bit dull?
It was magical. It was over the top. It was one of the wildest things I’ve ever seen. The game-changing lighting tech from Woman Worldwide is there, but it’s all been added to and upgraded into something that is so massive, emotional and overwhelming that it’s a bit hard to describe.
“Was it as good as Alive 2007?” I have asked myself that a million times. I’ve decided that the answer doesn’t matter. You know why? Because you can’t see Alive 2007. It’s over. It already happened, and Daft Punk is not going to go back on tour.
But Justice is currently on tour.
Justice is no longer the heir apparent. Justice *is* the moment, the vibe, the reigning elder statesmen, the legacy act on a victory lap that celebrates 20 years of a job well fucking done.
Justice is ready to take over the world, and I hope they fucking do. I hope the whole world sees this show and thinks, “This is the best concert I will ever see.” I hope Disney asks them to produce the Tron 3 soundtrack. I hope they win Album of the Year at the Grammys, and I hope one day Jeopardy has an electronic music category where the 200-point question is “Who is Justice?”
I want everyone to like Justice as much as they like Daft Punk, because it’s only logical that they would, because Justice and Daft Punk are the same fucking band, and if you needed any more proof, here, I made a chart:
Alright. Hope you enjoyed that deep dive into my psychosis. That essay took me waaaay too long to write, so it better be worth something LOL. It you wanna keep talking about all the ways Justice is and always has been the new Daft Punk, you can tell me your own thoughts on the Super Kat World Discord. The people there are actually really, really nice!
Here’s where you can buy tickets to see Justice on tour, btw. I don’t get fucking anything for this, I’m just a huge fan. I saw the last tour five times and actually paid for like 10 friends to see it, including my mom! I might take my dad to this tour. I might fuck around and go see it like eight or 10 times, who knows?! I am definitely going to see them at III Points in October. See you there?
Coming Up
I’m back tonight with another Kat Calls, this time welcoming my friend Craze back to the program.
Not only is Craze, like, scientifically the greatest living turntablist, he was also the second or third guest in Kat Calls history. Unfortunately, the recorded was corrupted, so I’m having him back to posterity’s sake. That’s just the excuse really, I love talking to Craze, so we’re bringing the goat to the show!
Please note that Kat Calls will be streaming exclusively to YouTube going forward. That’s the platform I want to grow as Super Kat World’s video level, so that’s what we’re doing! See you on the internet!
Kat Calls: Craze
Thursday, May 23
7 pm ET / 4 pm PT
Also…
Ummm, you may have noticed, Super Kat World now offers merch!! If you’re looking for a fun and cool way to support what I’m doing over here, this is a wonderful means to raise a little money for the project and spread the word!
More merch drops are coming. There will definitely be Kat Calls merch soon. Please let me know what you’d like to see in the store, and I’ll do my best cook it right up!
Also, check the replay of the last Kat Calls with fellow music journalist extraordinaire Lily Moayeri!
Absolutely Necessary
(This is the part where I share songs that are so good, they’re absolutely necessary to listen to. That’s it. That’s the bar.)
I made two Spotify playlists for this section that you can follow: one weekly playlist updated with just the new stuff every week, and one cumulative playlist that will host every song I pick ever (until Spotify tells me it’s full). Check them out! I made them for you—and me, but mostly you.
Here are this week’s five highlights:
Moore Kistmet - “How 2 Build A Better Boy”
This song from Moore Kismet’s fourth EP huemor me, out now on RL Grime’s label Sable Valley, is kinda the musical equivalent of a defibrillator. It’s like a shot of adrenaline straight to the heart, and Kismet calls it “one of the best songs I’ve ever made.” It’s got bounce, it’s got flavor, it’s got a mean edge, it’s got sauce. It’s brilliant, and def listen to the whole six song EP.
Tony Richman - “Million Dollar Baby”
This is actually the No. 1 song in the country right now, hahaha. If you’ve been on TikTok or Instagram at all in the past few weeks, you’ve probably heard it. Tony Richman of Woodbridge, VA., grew up just outside of D.C. and reps the DMV area HARD. He lives in LA now, and the only real interview I can find with him up until this moment where he became literally the biggest thing in music overnight is of course from my homies at Miami New Times. This song goes sofuckinghard. He’s got this great like, Bone Thugs kinda flow and the beat is just brown butter. Go check out the rest of his catalog, he’s hitting his stride right now for sure.
Whethan - “Do You Remember?”
Chicago’s wonderboy is all grown up and ready to drop part the spiritual successot to the successful LP, Live of a Wallflower Vol. 2. I am a big big fan of Whethan’s hypersaturated dance-pop sound. He’s akin to Chicago’s other talented left-field pop producers Louis The Child, though he certainly brings his own edge and style. This lead single “Do You Remember?” is so delicious. It spread smooth and chops up heavy, a delightful mix of moods and such a rainbow of sonic colors. Looking forward to the full drop this summer!
Wavedash - “b Alright!” Feat. Anamanaguchi & Cayenne
Wavedash just can’t miss! The Austin trio’s recent mixtape Tempo is a hype-ass adventure. I understand why they didn’t list it an album. It doesn’t have the narrative cohesion of their incredible debut LP World Famous Tour, but instead explores a rampant patchwork of vibes and boasts three-way collaborations from Madeon and Toro Y Moi, Flux Pavilion and Meesh, and this one with Anamanaguchi and Cayenne. The euphoric explosion of this single is an addictive place to start, but you should definitely explore the rest of the mixtape.
Toro y Moi - “Genius of Love” Feat. Brijean
Speaking of that boy Toro, he just released this dreamy lil bump of a Tom Tom Club cover for the Stop Making Sense Talking Heads tribute album. Brijean comes through for the fuzzy vocal. “Genius of Love” has always been one of my all-time favorite songs, and this take is just unique enough to warrant the must-listen label. It’s got the soul of the original but it shines with modern power. Love it, love it, love it! Haven’t listened yet, but the full tribute album features covers by Miley Cyrus, Paramore, BADBADNOTGOOD and Lorde, just to name a few.
Make sure you check the playlist on Spotify to hear the rest of the great tunes I found for you :)
Welp! That’s the newsletter. Hope to see you at Kat Calls, and if I don’t go check the replay!
Until next week!
Thanks for tuning into my newsletter. Listen to the playlists on Spotify. One is updated weekly with all the songs from each edition. The other is cumulative with all the updates ever!