Thomas Bangalter and Guy Manuel Dehomem-Christo are french DJs who began together in 1993 as Daft Punk. During this phase, no helmets were worn, rather various masks and costumes to obscure their identity and just make the music famous. DJing for clubs until 1997, when they sat down at Thomas' house and created Homework, their debut album.
Fun fact: The album was named Homework because they created it at Thomas' house, like homework.
There was the ALIVE 1997 tour in this era, which showed us the beta for Short Circuit.
No masks
DISCOVERY
A real kick-start for the new shiny robot boys, a disco album featuring some lyrics released in 2001 with the debut of the Voyager masks and suits, a shiny sparkly and colorful era of the bots that featured bass, synths, and moreover, the brand new branding lended itself as they progressed, giving a recognizable face to the words Daft Punk.
Fun fact: The electronics required to run the suits were so awful that they were later cut back on and removed entirely.
There was also an anime movie, Interstellar 5555 released as a musical.
"Voyager"
HUMAN AFTER ALL
After Discovery was released, they had big shoes to fill. Human After All released as their newest album in the transition period of the costumes, with a grungier tone and harsher sounds to fill the album. A distorted Yeah and a squishy sound are notable through the tracklist, as part of the sound for this album. It was not recievd incredibly well by fans.
Fun fact: "Emotion" is one of the closest things we have to Thomas' unfiltered singing voice.
The music videos for this album were trippy as hell and pretty terrifying.
No unique masks
ALIVE 2007
Daft Punk were confirmed for coachella 2007 and began a massive construction project for... A pyramid? Nobody knew what they were planning, until their section began and the pyramid lit up with them sitting at the very top in a DJ booth. The ALIVE 2007 album was live recordings, so the hyped crowd was immortalized in it's releases.
Fun fact: The ALIVE 2007 pyramid was similar to the smaller pyramid featured in the Technologic music video
This show was recorded live with unique neon costume
"Encore"
TRON: LEGACY
In 2010, Daft Punk was brought on by Disney to compose the OST for the new TRON movie. The soundtrack features similar instruments and synths to Random Access Memories. The movie was met with mixed reviews but the soundtrack is loved by Daft Punk fans as one of their only 3 involved movies, other than Electroma and Interstellar 5555
Fun fact: A Guy-Man helmet was an option is a Disney TRON ride
Daft Punk has left this soundtrack mostly behind, aside from saying they will not remix it again
"User"
RANDOM ACCESS MEMORIES
In 2013, shortly after TRON: Legacy, Daft Punk released their final STUDIO album, Random Access Memories. Holding the most Features of their entire discography and most of which being live artists, it would never be performed live due to how unique it was and how secretive the initial composition was. It featured brand new Electronics-less masks.
Fun fact: There were many shelved songs and sounds for this album, many of which are still being released!
There were less mixed reviews but more extreme ones, "Magnum Opus" or "Sellouts" were the main sides
"Robot"
THE BREAKUP+AFTERMATH
In 2021, Daft Punk broke up due to Thomas getting hearing issues and both robots being tired of the job. The news was depressing coming out of the height of the pandemic and marked the end of a legendary discography for the boys. Despite the breakup, their brand is still very active, releasing promotional videos and re-releasing shelved music, producing new, smaller remix albums and celebrating anniversaries.
Fun fact: The original Daft House was sold and later made into an incredibly expensive hotel sometime after the breakup
"Winner"
FEATURES
Daft Punk, during their career, featured and collaborated with many artists such as Kanye West, Pharrell Williams, and others. Notably they won awards for their 2 collaborations with The Weeknd, Starboy and I Feel It Coming. They had an entire album centric around their collaborations and remixes named Daft Club, released as a service for anyone who purchased their CDs or vinyls.
Fun fact: Daft Punk's collaborations with Kanye West were essentially just letting him use HBFS as an instrumental for one of his songs, despite this, it is still one of their more famous tracks.
