Fans of Daft Punk are all wishing they could hear the band perform “One More Time.” After 28 years of creating music together, the iconic helmet-wearing French electronic music duo revealed that they were splitting up on Feb. 22. To announce the end of their career, the duo released an eight-minute video on their YouTube channel entitled “Epilogue.” The video begins with a scene from their 2006 film “Electroma,” in which both members of the band are seen walking through a desert. Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, recognizable by his golden helmet, starts a timer on the back of Thomas Bangalter, his silver-helmeted bandmate, and walks away. After 60 seconds, Bangalter explodes. The rest of the video shows de Homem-Christo walking off into a sunset as the song “Touch” plays.

I, Sarah, first heard Daft Punk when I was in elementary school. Sitting at my dining room table, I could hear my brother blasting “One More Time” while he was working on college application essays. At the time I remember thinking that it sounded like elevator music and could not comprehend why anyone would listen to such an odd sequence of beeping and booping. I retreated to my room to play my own, more tasteful music: the soundtrack to “High School Musical 2.”

On a similar note, I, Sabrina, was really excited to collaborate on this article with Sarah. We have become fast friends since we first met through co-writing an article for the Argus. Although I didn’t know much about Daft Punk when I first started writing, it was really interesting to discover the parallels between my friendship with Sarah and the relationship between the musical duo.

Bangalter and de Homem-Christo are friends who initially met in 1987 at the Lycée Carnot secondary school in Paris, where they started a rock band called Darlin with some other students in 1992. During that time, Bangalter and de Homem-Christo wrote four songs, eventually breaking off from the rest of the group. This was due to the pair branching out into more electronic and French house music. One of their bandmates, Laurent Brancowitz, continued with music and joined the band Phoenix.

Although I, Sabrina, was aware that Daft Punk had formed a while ago, I didn’t know that they had met up in school. This was touching to learn: two people that had been friends and made music together for 28 years. But this also made me ask the question: Why would they break up? And why now? I was confused as to why they hadn’t released a statement about their breakup, but I figured that they just weren’t ready to talk about it publicly.

As a duo, Daft Punk released their first single “The New Wave” on April 11, 1994, but they gained almost overnight success from their single “Da Funk” released in 1995. This song was featured in their first full-length album, Homework, along with another single titled “Around the World,” which was one of the most popular songs on the album. Both “Around the World” and “Da Funk” earned Grammy nominations and established the band’s music.

After rocketing into the limelight around the world, Daft Punk began limiting their media presence, donning the robotic helmets and outfits that they are so well known for today. Their unique style of music, incorporating aspects from disco, techno, funk, and house, has earned them a total of 13 awards and 43 nominations, including two Billboard Music Awards and six Grammy Awards.

I, Sarah, was reminded of Daft Punk’s existence during middle school when they released their 2013 album Random Access Memories. I think my gym teachers played “Get Lucky” during one of our warm-ups in class. Although I greatly despised running laps, I enjoyed the music. Later that night I looked up some of the lyrics (the lines I had remembered) on my iPhone 5, and started listening to some of the group’s other songs. After coming across “One More Time,” I made the connection to hearing them a few years before.

Known for their idiosyncratic approach to music, Daft Punk reinvented the electronic, disco, and French house genres. In many interviews, the duo explains how there’s no formula to their music and how, because of that, they don’t rush their creative process. After the massive success of Homework, Daft Punk started working on their second album, Discovery, which dropped in 2001, almost four years after Homework. The album thematically focused on their childhoods, seen in songs like “Teachers,” whose lyrics list their early musical influences. This album’s songs “One More Time” and “Face to Face” became popular in the United States and Europe.

Following Discovery, Daft Punk released three more albums over the course of their career: Human After All in 2005, a soundtrack album for the film “Tron: Legacy” in 2010, and their final album, Random Access Memories, in 2013. This final album featured a disco style and had many collaborations from artists like Pharrell Williams, Julian Casablancas of The Strokes, and legendary electronic composer Giorgio Moroder. Other popular artists, from Kanye West to LCD Soundsystem, have been influenced by Daft Punk and sampled their songs to create hits of their own.

Before writing this article I, Sabrina, didn’t know much about the history of Daft Punk. The only song I had really listened to was “Get Lucky.” I enjoyed it, playing it on loop a couple of times, but didn’t have much of an interest in exploring their music further. But while discovering their songs, I gained a greater appreciation for their music. Although I normally don’t listen to electronic music, I felt like they brought a whole new layer and perspective to their songs, which, as a singer, I really appreciated.

Although we will not be getting any more music from Daft Punk, they have left us with a powerful legacy.

From their humble beginning as friends in university who enjoyed mixing music together, Daft Punk has had quite the journey. In 2017 during Bastille Day celebrations in France, a military band played a Daft Punk mash-up for French President Emmanuel Macron and former President Donald Trump. The duo has appeared in advertisements for Adidas and Gap and had limited-edition Coca-Cola bottles made in Paris. There’s even a type of flatworm discovered in Canada named after them.

I, Sarah, listen to Daft Punk all the time now. I find the duo’s energetic beats to be perfect for study sessions, imagining myself living it up in a nightclub in Paris instead of studying organic chemistry in my dorm room. While it’s sad to realize that we will never be able to have the chance to go to a Daft Punk show, it’s safe to say people are going to be listening to their work for a long time to come. Once COVID-19 clears up and we can go back to dancing together on the weekends, I hope Daft Punk will remain relevant at parties.

Although it may be the end of the line, Daft Punk has had an incredible musical voyage, and we can be certain that their music will stick with listeners long after their conclusion.

 

Sabrina Ladiwala can be reached at sladiwala@wesleyan.edu.

Sarah Timbie can be reached at stimbie@wesleyan.edu.