Named after a Beach Boys song, the group featured Bangalter on bass, de Homem-Christo on guitar, and additional guitarist Laurent Brancowitz. Though they reinvented themselves continually, wherever Daft Punk went, the rest of pop music followed.Īfter meeting in 1987 as students at Paris' Lycée Carnot secondary school, Bangalter and de Homem-Christo became friends and soon started making music together. Daft Punk's influence reached further into the mainstream through collaborations with Kanye West and the Weeknd, and the duo's music was sampled by artists ranging from Missy Elliott to the Fall.
With 2013's Random Access Memories, the duo once again looked to the past to create the future, borrowing from prog, disco, and a laid-back West Coast vibe that bucked the predominant trends in electronic music but still resonated with a wide audience. Even when they polarized their audience, there was never any doubt that they staged groundbreaking concerts, and the tour captured on Alive 2007 helped pave the way for arena-sized EDM, particularly in the U.S. Despite their sizable popularity, Daft Punk were never afraid to challenge their listeners, which they did with 2005's cold and dystopic Human After All.
Not content to just widen electronic music's popularity, on 2001's Discovery they reinvented the then-unfashionable sounds of mid-'80s soft rock and R&B into stylish tracks that also had a childlike wonder. With their early singles and 1997's instant-classic debut album Homework, Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter quickly won acclaim for their skill at blending their beloved Chicago house and Detroit techno with pop, funk, indie rock, and hip-hop into nostalgic yet futuristic forms. As they evolved from '90s French house pioneers to 2000s dance tastemakers to mainstream heroes in the 2010s, Daft Punk remained one of dance music's most iconic acts.
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