Six Finger Satellite’s Influence on Daft Punk’s Homework?

Six Finger Satellite–Rabies (Baby’s Got the)

Six Finger Satellite’s 1995 album “Severe Exposure,” specifically the song “Rabies (Baby’s Got the)” may have influenced Daft Punk’s 1996 single Da Funk, which is also featured on their  Homework album from 1997.  How you may ask?  Check out the keyboard stabs in Da Funk–conceptually similar to this arpeggiated keyboard part/stab in Rabies–then especially, check out that high pitched keyboard sound in Rabies–the notes played are similar to that main winding keyboard riff in Da Funk, it’s just that the riff in Da Funk has a little more frills.  And notice how the keyboard sound in the first few seconds of Rabies (also used to echo the main bassline periodically after :50 seconds in the song) sounds alot like the keyboard sound used for the main melody/winding keyboard part of Da Funk and a sound used alot on Daft Punk’s Human After All album.  I’m not saying these parts sound exactly the same, but that both feature conceptually similar keyboard stabs and winding synth parts with very similar notes.  They also both feature steady beats–a little more rock in Rabies,  still dancey/disco-ish,  and a little bit more straightforward dance/funk in Da Funk.

Daft Punk obviously listened to lots of weird 70s music, disco, electronic, experimental music (see all the music they sampled for Discovery and Human After All and the songs they picked for their Electroma movie), and I would not be surprised if they may have heard about this weird American band Six Finger Satellite that was making weird 70s-ish punk-electronic hybrid punk dance music in 1995 through friends, the press, or college radio, and having eclectic experimental tastes, may have picked up the album and been impressed with Rabies, which may have consciously or subconsciously influenced Da Funk.  What do you think?  On first listen, you may think, “These sound nothing alike.”  But keep your ear open for the conceptual similarities of the keyboard stabs, and the conceptual similarity of the notes of the main winding keyboard parts/main melody and the steady drum beats–conceptually they’re pretty similar in structure and intent.  Interestingly, the soundman for Six Finger Satellite, James Murphy, would go on to start LCD Soundsystem, and would end up making a song “Daft Punk is Playing at My House,” so you can see that there are definitely some conceptual and music shared roots there.

Daft Punk–Da Funk