Justice Discography Ranking

Justice is one of electronic music’s most important acts! It’s clear that they’re a bit in debt to Daft Punk, but now that Daft Punk has retired, Justice is the closest group still making music! What really made me want to go through their discography now is that they’re playing Bonnaroo, a music festival in Tennessee that I’m very excited for! They were already one of my most anticipated acts to see this year, but I hadn’t heard all of their music, so I wanted to make sure I was familiar with all they had before the show. Depending on how motivated I feel, there might be another discography ranking before Bonnaroo Weekend of another huge artist at the festival! For now though, let’s dive into one of the best names in electronic music!

Honorable Mention: Planisphere (2022)

This is the only EP released by Justice, but its origin story is that it’s actually a mix for the Dior Homme Summer of 2009 Fashion Show. After it was released on their MySpace page, the track took on a life of its own. Since then, it’s been released at the end of their next album, Audio, Video, Disco, and also as a standalone EP of the mix split into four different parts in 2022. The song keeps the same thematic and sonic motif, but evolves consistently enough throughout the 18-minute runtime that it never gets old. I especially like later in the track when a guitar comes in to both play the motif, and do its own solo in the last couple minutes! I definitely wouldn’t start here when it comes to Justice, but when you go through all four albums, this is them at some of their most extended and progressive!

4. Woman (2016)

I know they have an album with the word “disco” in the title, but Woman is definitely the closest the duo has ever gotten to making disco music. There is so much slap bass and quick guitar riffs on much of this album, especially the first half. I can’t help but wonder if this was inspired by seeing how popular and critically acclaimed Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories was in 2013 and them trying their own hand at it. Of course, there are still classic Justice moments though, it’s nowhere near a copy. I absolutely love the distorted chaos of “Chorus”, and the seven minute runtime allows them to really mess around with it. “Heavy Metal” may not feature any actual heavy metal guitars, but the surprising beauty found in the track is a welcome surprise! As with most of Justice’s material, I do find the vocal features a bit hit or miss. “Randy” is an awesome dance track that builds nicely towards the back half, and the monotone vocals on “Love S.O.S.” fit the track really well. But then there’s a song like “Pleasure”, which just sounds like a middling disco track and vocals that make me want to listen to Parcels instead. Still, Woman is a quality release from Justice with flashes of brilliance!

3. Audio, Video, Disco. (2011)

Let’s start with what’s different about this one. While many of the songs still have the same electro-house feeling that all classic Justice material has, this one consists of heavily distorted guitars and synthesizers for the lead melodies. Listen to a song like “Canon” and how that 80s-sounding guitar riff sits on top of the house drums and synth line. It’s something that has no business of working, but yet it does! There are a couple classic straightforward Justice bangers, the penultimate track “Helix” probably being the best one. The synth melody and vocal chops work so well together, and their organization of the track is wonderful! Now, what I don’t love here is the vocal features. When they just repeat a phrase, like on the title track, it works pretty well, but the vocals on a song like “Ohio” just takes me completely out of it. Still, even though Audio, Video, Disco is far from perfect, I do enjoy the whole project quite a bit!

2. Hyperdrama (2024)

It’s interesting going back to this having now listened to every Justice album, because you can see their evolution so seamlessly. And they are not just evolving, they actually have some of their best stuff on here! The main thing they excel at here, that every other album fails at, is vocal features. Not only are these the biggest features they’ve ever had, both in popularity and quantity, but they are utilized excellently! The Tame Impala collaborations both feel like they could’ve been hits, and Rimon fits “Afterimage” wonderfully! I don’t love every feature on here, Miguel being my least favorite one, but none of them feel like duds. As usual though, the solo songs tend to be the best ones. “Generator” manages to feature both this gargantuan house beat and a string section in the same track, and not make it feel forced. “Incognito” was an instant favorite since it was a single! The sudden change into the chorus from these warm drums to the pulsating beat of a French nightclub gets me everytime! They do also slow it down on the back half of the album, which leads to some of their most beautiful songs. Sure, they may feel a bit too much like interludes at times, like on “Muscle Memory”, but the songs themselves are still so gorgeous and lush that you’re not really paying attention to that stuff. Justice really did their thing here, and ended up with one of their best overall studio albums! 

1. Cross (2007)

There’s something special when you’re listening to people who don’t know what they’re doing. Not saying that Justice didn’t know how to make music, they clearly did, but there’s a certain roughness and amateurness to these songs that’s just not there with their other material. The other albums feel like they have this sheen on them. They sound like someone spent millions of dollars and thousands of hours perfecting each individual sound, and while that’s lovely, sometimes it’s nice to just hear two extremely talented people make music perfect for a dirty warehouse rave with whatever they have. Sure, the big single “D.A.N.C.E” is pretty clean, but it’s also an homage to Michael Jackson, who had infinite amounts of money for each album, so that clean feeling makes sense. That track feels like the exception to the rule, not indicative of the other songs. Heck, even when you look at the lead single, “Waters of Nazareth”, there’s so much distortion on those synths to the point where they barely sound like synths. And if that wasn’t enough, they add in plenty of chops to constantly throw the listener off balance. This album is grandiose, messy, and absolutely tremendous! I’m still not sure if it’s the best thing Justice has ever done, as I still haven’t checked out the live albums, but this is undoubtedly their best studio album!