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Tag: Daft Punk

  • One last time: Daft Punk’s five essential songs

    By AFP
    PARIS: Electronic music duo Daft Punk, who have filled dance floors for three decades with mega-hits you can’t get out of your head, say they are splitting.

    As Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo call time on their collaboration — via music video — we look back on the French pair’s five key hits. 

    ‘Da Funk’ (1995)

    This groove-based instrumental track from Daft Punk’s debut album was the band’s first worldwide hit and is now considered a classic of 1990s house music.

    It won Daft Punk, who long hid their identities beneath motorcycle helmets, their first Grammy nomination.

    It owes part of its popularity to its video, shot by top US director Spike Jonze, which features a man-sized dog with floppy ears and a boom box on the streets of New York.

    ‘Around the World’ (1997)

    The ultimate pared-down Daft Punk song with its endlessly repeated three-word lyric of “Around the world”, MTV rated it the seventh-biggest dance anthem of all time.

    The quirky French director Michel Gondry made the video featuring dancing mummies, skeleton men, synchronised swimmers and Martian spacemen. He said its “genius was always using repetition and stopping before it’s too much”.

    ‘One More Time’ (2000)

    You will not have escaped this club anthem’s invincible beat if you have set foot on a dance floor in the past 20 years. 

    “One More Time” debuted at number one in the French charts, number 6 in the UK and the auto-tuned vocals by US DJ Romanthony make it easy for anyone — and everyone — to sing along.

    Still need to jog your memory? The complete lyrics are “One more time/ We’re gonna celebrate/ Oh yeah, all right/ Don’t stop the dancing.”

    That may be why the readers of US magazine Rolling Stone voted it the best dance track of all time in 2012.

    ‘Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger’ (2001)

    From Daft Punk’s second album, this upbeat electro-pop track scooped one of the duo’s six Grammy awards. Revolving around a jumpy robotic refrain of “Work it harder, make it better”, it was popularised again by US rapper Kanye West when he used a vocal sample from it in 2007 for his song “Stronger”.

    ‘Get Lucky’ (2013)

    One of the group’s most covered hits, the song featuring US singer Pharrell Williams spawned hundreds of parodies. 

    Its addictive, ear-worm melody even prompted French president Emmanuel Macron to boogie in his seat at France’s usually sombre Bastille Day military parade in 2017 when an army band performed it. 

    While the rest of the podium got into the groove, the pop reference flew over the coiffed head of stoney-faced US President Donald Trump.

  • Grammy-winning duo Daft Punk break up after 28 years

    By Associated Press
    NEW YORK: Grammy-winning electronic music pioneers Daft Punk have announced that they are breaking up after 28 years.

    The helmet-wearing French duo shared the news Monday in an 8-minute video called “Epilogue.” Kathryn Frazier, the band’s longtime publicist, confirmed the break up for The Associated Press.

    Daft Punk, comprised of Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, have had major success over the years, winning six Grammy Awards and launching international hits with “One More Time,” “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” and “Get Lucky.”

    Bangalter and de Homem-Christo met at a Paris school in 1987. Prior to Daft Punk, they formed an indie rock band named Darling.

    They officially formed Daft Punk in 1993, and the helmeted, mute and mysterious musicians released their debut album, “Homework,” in 1997. They first found success with the international hit “Da Funk,” which topped the Billboard dance charts and earned them their first Grammy nomination. A second No. 1 hit and Grammy nomination followed with “Around the World.”

    Daft Punk spent time touring around the world and reached greater heights with their sophomore album, 2001’s “Discovery.” It included the infectious smash “One More Time” and “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger,” which Kanye West famously flipped into his own hit “Stronger,” released in 2007. It won West the best rap solo performance Grammy at the 2008 show, where West and Daft Punk performed together onstage.

    A year later, a live version of “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” won Daft Punk the best dance recording Grammy — their first win — and their “Alive 2007″ album picked up best electronic/dance album.

    But it was the 2014 Grammys where Daft Punk really took the spotlight, winning album of the year for “Random Access Memories” and making history as the first electronic act to win the highest honor at the Grammys. The duo won four awards that night, including record of the year for their bombshell hit “Get Lucky,” featuring Pharrell Williams and Nile Rodgers.

    “Random Access Memories” was regarded as a genre-bending album highlighted by its mix of live instrumentation, disco sounds, funk, rock, R&B and more. Rolling Stone ranked it No. 295 on their list of the “500 Greatest Albums of All Time” last year.