Daft Punk and Kanye flex their egos – The difference between Daft Punk and Kanye West

While Daft Punk releases its second-best album in its 20-year career, Kanye West is still an egomaniac.

This week’s release of Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories feels like a huge, once-in-a-lifetime event. The electronic duo’s latest album already has a mythology thanks to its collaborators and recording process. Credit should also go to the team’s PR department as the dripping of new material left fans’ mouth watering until its eventual live stream on iTunes.

All the outside fuss and hype aside, Daft Punk has created the uncoolest cool album I’ve ever heard. It’s fun cheese but its production is remarkable to a point where you might convince yourself this is what it felt like to hear Thriller for the first time.

It may sound like I dislike Random Access Memories, and that’s incorrect. I enjoy the hell out of this record but its style is a mish-mash of contradiction. It’s big dumb pop, but it has its moments of genius. The album is largely throwing disco back into the mainstream, and while the majority of disco is bad, I’ve never heard disco this slick and grin-inducing.

“Give Life Back to Music” is guitarist Nile Rodgers’ way of saying, “Hey, I know how to class up a disco beat with this guitar lick.” “Giorgio by Moroder,” the nine-minute masterpiece, is best Muse song Muse will never create, and I often have to pick up my jaw after hearing it. “Instant Crush” is an extension of everything The Strokes tried on Angles and Comedown Machine, and it’s a better song than the majority of tracks on those albums.

All these songs I’ve referenced have the ability to make a hipster go cross-eyed if you read their descriptions. Nile Rodgers, really? A nine-minute song that begins with an Italian composer talking about how he made music in Germany? The Strokes’ last two albums? Then, there’s that lead single with a hook about getting lucky, a phrase I haven’t heard since the early ’90s.

By defying popular expectations of what Daft Punk should sound like in 2013, Daft Punk has created its bloated, timeless album — another contradiction that will only make you listen to it more and realize the duo has a knack for PR.

The spectacle of Daft Punk’s release could only be overshadowed by Kanye West, a man who has no sense of timing when making his return announcements.

This weekend, West performed two new tracks on the season finale of Saturday Night Live. True to his personality, West is still all about “making a statement” and being the hard-to-love rapper whose mix of genius and over bloated ego can be an eyesore in otherwise great career.

Like Daft Punk, West is full of contradiction, and he also plays up that point with each release.

West’s new tracks — “New Slaves” and “Black Skinhead” — are overbearing, like a Bill Cosby commencement speech. Its messages seem directly targeted at black America, yet white kids will no doubt gobble it up because West is “going hard bro.”

View “New Slaves” and “Black Skinhead” below:

The difference between Daft Punk and Kayne West is that Daft Punk knows its purpose is to rock a crowd. For all of its contradictions, Daft Punk knows what its music is supposed to do — make people dance.

West’s purpose changes with each release, and he is still searching for ways to get into fans’ sub-conscious. The only way he knows how to do that is to be the worst egotistical maniac in the entertainment world.

He has always been a speechifying MC who thinks he’s never gotten enough credit. How he can think that, I don’t know. He still holds the title for best one-two rap and hip-hop punch ever with The College Dropout and Late Registration. Let’s not forget his production credits which include Jay-Z’s masterpiece The Blueprint and the epic Watch The Throne.

West hates attention for tabloid drama, yet his antics put himself directly in that atmosphere. He would never ask for a pep talk, but if I could give him one, I’d probably start with, “Really dude, you hate attention, but you’re naming your new album Yeezus?”

If you’re a basketball fan, one could make a case that West is becoming the Kris Humphries of the rap game. Dating Kim Kardashian? Check. West does good things musically as Humphries is sort of underrated on the court. Yet, both talents are overshadowed by the endless need to address elephants in the room in the worst way possible. For Humphries, it was the divorce settlement with Kardashian. For West, it’s defending his jerk actions at gigs and awards ceremonies.

Usually in the case of West, I can ignore most of his ego. The part of his ego I try not to ignore is his music skills. If you put the hullabaloo aside, West is great, and he proves it time and time again. But I feel like Tommy Wiseau in The Room, he’s tearing me apart.

At its core, music is an extension of ego. The only reason to create is because that need for attention. Unlike West, Daft Punk knows its music is a strong enough reason to take heed.