Daft Punk

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DAFT PUNK

Formed: 1993, Paris, France

Members: Thomas Bangalter, keyboards (born France, 1 January 1975); Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, keyboards (born France, 8 February 1974).

Genre: Electronica, Dance

Best-selling album since 1990: Discovery (2001)

Hit songs since 1990: "Da Funk," "Around the World," "Digital Love"

Daft Punk have exploded a longstanding myth that France, the land of the chanson and the chanteur, is incapable of contributing to popular music's cutting edge. Since 1993, this Parisian duo has created an extraordinary collage of disco, funk, hip-hop, and techno on a sequence of remarkably inventive recordings. Not content merely to lay down irrepressible beats, the pair have also put to full use the battery of contemporary studio technology—distortion, compression, sampling—to shape a musical soundtrack that is both rich in tempo and texture but also engagingly intelligent, a rare mixture in a genre more associated with the physical than the thoughtful.

Disc jockeys Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo had been influenced by the range of dance styles that emerged in the early 1980s in the United States—house in Chicago, techno in Detroit, go-go in Washington—which were then filtered through the British acid house scene and the influential Mediterranean club scenes like Ibiza in the latter half of the decade. But Bangalter and de Homem-Christo, as they absorbed the bewildering array of hybrids that arose from this transatlantic surge, also clung to an affection for independent ("indie") rock.

Energy of Punk with Pop Twist

Bangalter, the son of Daniel Vangarde, who had written "D.I.S.C.O." for French act Ottowan in 1980, and de Homem-Christo created Darlin', and were quickly signed to Duophonic, a label run by independent stalwarts Stereolab. When a track by Darlin' was included on a compilation tape by U.K. rock weekly Melody Maker, the magazine dubbed their sound "daft punk," an innovative sound that married the energy of punk rock with a quirky pop twist, giving the duo a new incarnation.

In 1993, when Bangalter celebrated his eighteenth birthday and received a sampler as a gift, the friends abandoned their guitars and Daft Punk issued their first single, "The New Wave," on the independent Scottish label Soma. "Da Funk" followed to even wider acclaim, and Virgin Records stepped in to sign the group. Their debut album, Homework (1997), lived up to their initial promise as the hits "Around the World" and "Burnin'" brought their new sound to an international audience.

Discovery Confirms Duo's Album Credentials

With Discovery, their long-delayed second CD, in 2001 Daft Punk truly established themselves as more than mere single maestros. The album, an almost seamless electro concerto, spawned a huge European hit in "One More Time," a stirring dance-floor classic, and laid the way for two other significant singles, "Digital Love," an appealing love song delivered by a disembodied voice, and "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger," a harsh, metallic grind with an anthemic chorus.

Daft Punk, who issued a live album of earlier work on Alive 1997 (2001), credit a group of collaborators for the creative concepts surrounding their musical output: album sleeves that are a curious blend of retro and futurism, and their striking videos. The principal pair has also added to their mystique by refusing to present a conventional face to the music media. Bangalter and de Homem-Christo wear robot heads for photo shoots, commenting perhaps on the key part technology plays in the music they craft.

Bangalter has stepped outside that persona to create a series of disco gems that owe something to the Daft Punk style but have a relaxed ebullience that the band's work seems to deliberately avoid. Bangalter issued the underground tune in "Trax on Da Rocks" before assuming the identity of Stardust for a massive mainstream release, "Music Sounds Better with You," in 1998.

Although they have released a relatively modest body of work, Daft Punk musical confections have been hugely inspirational to other French artists like Motorbass and Air and have raised the profile of a nation that previously had contributed little to the development of latterday popular music. The duo have been more than just parochial successes—their finely sculpted dance sound has also inspired U.K. disc jockeys, such as the Chemical Brothers and Kris Needs, to remix a number of their key cuts. While their robotic guises suggest that Daft Punk could be the heirs to Kraftwerk, German groundbreakers in the field of computerized pop in the 1970s, the wit and irony the French duo bring to their recordings mark them as significant innovators in their own right.