Daft Punk

Schoolmates Thomas and Guy-Manuel began their career in 1992 with the indie rock trio Darlin' (named after The Beach Boys song) but were scathingly dismissed by Melody Maker magazine as "daft punk." Turning to house-inspired electronica, they used the put down as a name for their DJ-ing partnership and became a hugely successful and influential dance act. First major single “Da Funk” was accompanied by a Spike Jonze-directed video and more success followed with global dance floor anthem “Around the World,” “One More Time,” and “Harder, Faster, Better, Stronger” - which was sampled by Kanye West for his hit “Stronger.” Albums Homework (1997), Discovery (2001) and Human After All (2005) all made the UK Top 10 establishing a style of simple, Chicago house-inspired grooves exploding into a robotic, rave sound. Disguising their faces with masks, crash helmets and robot heads, the duo cultivated an air of mystique, but they've been sampled by Janet Jackson, appeared in TV commercials, and performed at the 2008 Grammy Awards. In the following years, they appeared alongside Kanye West at the 50th Grammy Awards and then pivoted to film music, composing the entire soundtrack of the sci-fi movie Tron: Legacy (2010), which spawned a collection of remixes under the name Tron: Legacy Reconfigured in 2011. The disco and funk-oriented Random Access Memories, their fourth full-length, arrived in 2013 and soon Daft Punk found themselves reaping the fruits of their labor, winning a Grammy for Best Dance/Electronica Album and Best Pop Duo/Group Performance for the Number 1 hit single “Get Lucky,” featuring Pharrell Williams and Chic’s Nile Rodgers. Despite not releasing any new material of their own, Daft Punk continued to collaborate with some of the biggest stars in pop music, scoring production credits on Kanye West’s Yeezus (2013) and an appearance on The Weeknd’s Starboy (2016). After years of radio silence, the duo announced their breakup in 2021 through their video streaming channel.