Daft Punk announce split after 28 years

Katadunkass

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Daft Punk, who were responsible for some of the most influential dance tracks of all time, have announced their retirement after nearly 30 years.

The duo broke the news in a typically-enigmatic video, titled Epilogue.

In the clip, musicians Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, dressed in their iconic robot costumes, bid each other farewell in the desert, before one of them self-destructed.

The band's longtime publicist confirmed the split to the BBC.

Formed in Paris in 1993, the group brought the French underground house scene into the charts with hits like One More Time, Da Funk and Around The World.

Their debut album, Homework, is considered a landmark in dance music; while they scored a worldwide hit in 2013 with the retro-disco single Get Lucky, featuring Pharrell Williams and Nile Rodgers.

The song was taken from their most recent record, Random Access Memories, which won the Grammy for album of the year in 2014.

Since then, the band have kept a relatively low profile - although they collaborated with R&B star The Weeknd on two tracks, Starboy and I Feel It Coming, in 2016.

Famously publicity-shy, the musicians were seldom seen in public without their robot headgear, and used processed, computerised vocals on almost all of their biggest hits.

Daft Punk announce split after 28 years - BBC News
 
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dmgtz96

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Smart move, to be honest. They adapted well to the early 2010s pop music scene, but their decline happened quickly.
Starboy in 2016 was their last hurrah, and even then The Weeknd is who carried that track, not Daft Punk. Daft Punk haven't had any major hits ever since (were they even active?). They really did not adapt to the hip-hop era of today.

edit: I Feel it Coming was their last hurrah. Daft Punk could have adapted well to the hip-hop/funky era of today, but they just... didn't. They more or less stopped working. I feel like Dua Lipa or BTS would have been happy to collab with Daft Punk, as they've both been incorporating house/housey styles.
 
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Uplifted

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They've helped in forming of my musical tastes. At least I'm glad they didn't went too EDM/bigroom-sounding before splitting.
"Get Lucky" was a great tune, not sure if they did smth else after it. And Interstella 5555 was an amazing album/video.
 
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dmgtz96

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They've helped in forming of my musical tastes. At least I'm glad they didn't went too EDM/bigroom-sounding before splitting.
"Get Lucky" was a great tune, not sure if they did smth else after it. And Interstella 5555 was an amazing album/video.
Starboy and I Feel It Coming, which both were The Weeknd ft. Daft Punk tracks. Daft Punk were co-producers in those songs, and you could hear their influence and robotic "voices." In fact, these two are their most famous productions.
Starboy: September 21st, 2016
I Feel It Coming: November 24th, 2016

I remember when both songs were on the radio all the time. I Feel It Coming was Daft Punk's last single, and it hit the mainstream just as Latin reggaeton and American hip-hop were beginning to take off.

After I Feel It Coming, Daft Punk co-produced Parcels - Overnight (released June 21st, 2017). This is the last Daft Punk production, yet they were not featured in the title.
 
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Daysleeper

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Most famous?
Around the wold
One more time
Harder better faster stronger
Exactly. Those must be more known overall haha. I remember how One more time were played everywhere , literally everywhere! Before social media and youtube ofc.
 

Bluemoon

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One of my best best memories from my clubbing days is from One More Time. I think it was in 2007 when they released Alive with the One More Time version that is mixed with Aerodynamic. Me and my friends fell absolutely in love with this song and it was on repeat everyday.

2 weeks later we went to Sensation White in Dusseldorf Germany which was a special new years eve event.

They did the magical Sensation White countdown to the new year, and boom then they put on One More Time/Aerodynamic and the crowd went totally crazy.

Man i feel old now haha.

From another event but same version:

Also this one they played.


Daft Punk is legends and Alive is one of my favourite albums both the mixed one and the original one. They do make some weird music though as well.
 
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Julian Del Agranda

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I do believe though, that One More Time was considered a cheesy betrail by Daft Punk fans.

You know, like we judge Armin for his This Is What It Feels Like.

Perhaps the general opinion on it changed though, I don't know about that. It could be a Armin - Shivers, which was considered quite poppy cheese too, but is seen as a somewhat respectable trance classic now. ;)
 
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Recharge

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I do believe though, that One More Time was considered a cheesy betrail by Daft Punk fans.

You know, like we judge Armin for his This Is What It Feels Like.

Perhaps the general opinion on it changed though, I don't know about that. It could be a Armin - Shivers, which was considered quite poppy cheese too, but is seen as a somewhat respectable trance classic now. ;)
In this case Armin have been living in sin even since :)
 

Hensmon

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I remember when Aerodynamic was released even though was pretty young at the time, it made such an impression, the animated video helped. Guitar solo is epic. What a unique act, up there with the greats

 
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SecondNature

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My first encounter with house music was with their album "Discovery" and being really biased towards trance as a young kid, they opened me up to give other electronic music genres a shot, haha. Legends of the music scene, I'm sure they got a bunch of other solo projects in the works.

I know that Thomas Bangalter did a few film scores as well (I saw his name on the "Enter The Void" opening credits, one of my favorite movies, but that's another topic!)
 

TwinSilo

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They were some of my first tastes of European imported electronic music in the US. It was rare to hear sounds like that on my station but I remember thinking it was pretty cool and it led me to discover some good jumpin house music in France and UK. I wonder if they will do solo stuff now.
 

brandonl

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This is a big loss for music. Daft Punk legends.


I personally do not see this as a loss as at all. Daft Punk had their moment in time and made some great house BACK IN THE DAY. The went commercial/mainstream a while back and have been irrelevant to house music every since. Songs like "get lucky" are lousy pop dance, not real house. They had nothing left to offer house music since they didn't go back to their old sound, they kept with the more modern poppy dance sound.
 

dmgtz96

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Exactly. Those must be more known overall haha. I remember how One more time were played everywhere , literally everywhere! Before social media and youtube ofc.
Yeah, if Youtube had existed then, One More Time / Around the World / Harder Better Faster Stronger would beat Starboy for sure.
 

dmgtz96

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I personally do not see this as a loss as at all. Daft Punk had their moment in time and made some great house BACK IN THE DAY. The went commercial/mainstream a while back and have been irrelevant to house music every since. Songs like "get lucky" are lousy pop dance, not real house. They had nothing left to offer house music since they didn't go back to their old sound, they kept with the more modern poppy dance sound.
I agree in that Get Lucky was pretty basic. My hypothesis is that once a music act/group starts making music like that, they are probably running out of ideas. The same applies to BTS and Dua Lipa. The funky soul house style feels like it's been milked for decades.
That being said, Starboy was really good. It's an interesting RnB/electro-pop collab with The Weeknd. It still feels fresh and modern today almost 5 years later.