Can you name a (non-Drake) Torontonian whose free album was shared by People, Esquire, Maxim and hundreds of music sites around the world all on the same day? It’s been that kind of week for Coins.
In March 2014, the Toronto DJ/producer born Peter Chapman had a layover in Chicago on his way to SXSW. The Beastie Boys had recently shared their raw vocal tracks online, so “I started playing with those,” Chapman tells NOW. “It was literally just something to do because I was bored in an airport.
“Once I got to Austin, I played it for some friends in the car and they all kinda freaked out, so I finished it once I got home.”
Released in July 2014, Daft Science is an album of Beastie Boys remixes using only Daft Punk samples. It “sat on Bandcamp for free for two and a half years, and got downloaded around 400 times and I kinda forgot about it,” says Chapman.
Then last Monday, November 14, Reddit user RainbowDynamite anonymously shared the album on Daft Punk’s dedicated Reddit forum, seemingly out of nowhere. EDM website Dancing Astronaut saw it and posted their own story the next day.
Beastie Boys and Daft Punk fans began sharing the album on Twitter and Facebook. Dangerous Minds and Fact Magazine posted it, and the album started getting downloaded hundreds of times per hour, maxing out Coins’ free download limits on Bandcamp and Soundcloud alike.
Within hours, People Magazine was calling the album “incredible.” Maxim, Vice, and Gizmodo published stories, too. The AV Club called it “insanely hot,” while Esquire Magazine enthused, “It’s incredible…. It sounds exactly like what The Weeknd is attempting with his new album or what Kanye wanted on Yeezus.” (Esquire has also agreed to send Chapman some fashionable socks.)
Daft Science has now been streamed 1,138,000 times, with 16,000 downloads, since Tuesday.
Chapman says he eventually had to disable downloading after paying Bandcamp $450 to keep it free. (Bandcamp gives you 200 free downloads per month, and then you have to pay for them.) He won’t accept payment for the tracks since they were built entirely with samples.
“It was a super-fun project that I did out of total love and respect for the Beasties and Daft Punk.” Listen here:
music@nowtoronto.com | @mikesmallrules
