
Panda Bear is iconic as an experimental electronic artist both for his solo work and in his band Animal Collective. Ranking this music is almost impossible, but here are Billboard‘s top 20 Daft Punk songs. Pick any Daft Punk song or album from its 20-year history, and it sounds good enough to be released tomorrow. Daft Punk is conceptual, simple, cinematic, and timeless. Their latest (and apparently last) album, 2013’s Random Access Memories, reignited the careers of legends Nile Rodgers and Giorgio Moroder and sparked a return to live dance instrumentalism that continues to catch among a younger generation. When Skrillex accepted his first Grammy, he was all “I think Daft Punk should have won Grammys.” The French duo invented the concept of the bedroom producer with its first album Homework in 1997, yet Daft Punk has had only two tours in 20 years, the second of which launched the modern dance music stage production concept.ĭaft Punk Break Up After 28 Years With Eight-Minute 'Epilogue' Video Daft Punk is the kind of band other bands write songs about (looking at you, LCD Soundsystem). It is the pop sound of the day, and Daft Punk has most certainly played a heavy hand in that sonic domination.Īt almost every turn, and with almost every release in its career, Daft Punk has been derided by critics only to be hailed in years to come. It’s leaked into rock, rap and even country. Dance and electronic music defines the musical movement of our era. Daft Punk is one of the most influential musical acts of the last 20 years. 22) via an eight-minute video entitled “Epilogue,” though we’re fervently hoping it’s not a breakup breakup.Įither way, it’s time to pay our respects. Rarely do artists nail a specific feeling with such mathematical exactitude perhaps Daft Punk are robots after all.The beloved French duo Daft Punk called it a day on Monday (Feb.

What’s remarkable is that it’s just as powerful on the umpteenth listen. They introduced Italo icon Giorgio Moroder to a new generation that hadn’t even been born by his ’70s heyday, helping kick off the decade’s disco revival with Pharrell Williams and Chic’s Nile Rodgers, they came up with the joyful, effervescent “Get Lucky”, a song so effortlessly delectable that hearing it for the first time was like being reacquainted with a childhood friend. Yet once again, even as the culture was trending in one direction, they feinted left: Their 2013 album, Random Access Memories, released at the height of the EDM boom, all but abandoned obvious digital trappings in favour of slinky organic disco played by real human musicians. Not only did Daft Punk help popularise electronic music, but their legendary 2006 Coachella performance from inside a neon pyramid helped set the stage for EDM’s turn toward hi-def spectacle in the 2010s.

With songs like “One More Time”, Daft Punk proved their unrivalled ear for a platinum hook a cut like “Robot Rock”, meanwhile, was pure alchemy, turning a forgotten hard-rock obscurity into an unforgettable anthem. A pattern emerged: Dance music purists were initially aghast, yet both records quickly rewired the collective consciousness, paving the way for crate-digging iconoclasts like Justice and Kanye-and minting a fair number of stone classics in the process.

But Daft Punk didn’t linger on their creation their next two albums, 2001’s Discovery and 2005’s Human After All, largely abandoned house and disco in favour of audacious sample flips from obscure ’70s rock and funk. Such sound-sculpting helped give birth to the “French touch”, a wildly influential production style whose luxe detailing continues to resonate through dance music decades later. The duo’s innovation was to take the wriggly, rough-hewn style-a descendent of disco, rooted in Black and queer communities in America’s cities-and sand down its edges, giving looped funk basslines both sensuous heft and Gallic panache. Shortly after, in 1993, the two regrouped as Daft Punk, trading their guitars for synths and samplers, and paying homage to the silky, hypnotic thump of Chicago house. Parisian natives Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter, born in 19, respectively, met in school and played briefly in a rock band, Darlin’, with future Phoenix member Laurent Brancowitz. Few acts have done as much to translate electronic music’s sometimes arcane pleasures to pop’s broadly universal contours. Daft Punk may pretend to be robots-their gleaming cyborg helmets are among the most recognisable silhouettes in modern music-but it’s the French duo’s warm, clearly human hearts that make them so beloved.
