The robots are powering down for the last time.
Daft Punk are splitting up. The legendary producers Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo announced their breakup by sharing an excerpt of their 2006 sci-fi film Electroma. Titled ‘Epilogue’, the clip shows two robots saying goodbye in a desert, before one of them asks the other to flick their self-destruct switch.
The Parisian duo formed in 1993, with their early tracks ‘Da Funk’ and ‘Around The World’ from their debut album Homework having a huge influence on the French touch sound. Their follow up album, Discovery, catapulted them into even more mainstream global success with the singles ‘One More Time’ and ‘Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger’.
Daft Punk went on to release a third album, Human After All, a live album, Alive 2007, as well as the original soundtrack to the 2010 film Tron: Legacy. They directed their own film, Electroma, in 2006. In 2013 they released their final album, Random Access Memories, featuring the now-mythic singles, ‘Get Lucky’ and ‘Lose Yourself To Dance’, both featuring Pharrell Williams and Nile Rodgers. Also in 2013 the duo co-produced a number of tracks on Kanye West’s album Yeezus, including ‘On Sight’, ‘Black Skinhead’ and ‘I Am A God’. More recently, in 2016, they collaborated with The Weeknd on the tracks ‘Starboy’ and ‘I Feel It Coming’.
Bangalter and Homem-Christo are responsible not only for some of the most important electronic music ever recorded, but also for some of the most innovative music videos of the last 30 years. Linking up with directors Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry and Roman Coppola for a series of career-defining collaborations, as well as manga artist Leiji Matsumoto and director Kazuhisa Takenouchi for Interstella 5555, the duo have made an indelible mark on the genre.
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