NASA landed a new rover on Mars this month, and Daft Punk blew up in the desert. The explosion marked the end of an era, at a time when humanity embraces a new one.
The mysterious French EDM duo announced the end of their nearly three-decade journey with a YouTube video titled “Epilogue”. It was depicted in the true Daft Punk style: dress, helmets, without a word. The video showed someone walking in the desert while the 60-second timer counted down to his death. He never looked back before he was cut to pieces, looking like a machine on human flesh. The other watched motionless and expressionless before embarking on his own journey towards the sun on an infinite horizon of the desert.
Daft Punk’s “Epilogue” encapsulated the duo’s style in his 28-year reign over electronic music. More interested in art than fame, the group made rare public appearances and performances while revolutionizing the industry with electronic beats that pushed modern music into the future. Its publicist offered nothing more this week than simply confirming that the group split after 28 years – 28 years that saw four albums and six Grammys and a masked career of personal fame.
Daft Punk transformed electronic music from the beginning of the record, the electro-pop days of the 80s and 90s by incorporating new futuristic sounds from another world (perhaps from Mars), and the duo’s influence now extends beyond the electronic music genre . Modern mainstream hip-hop, from Britney Spears to Usher, now features electric elements that would not make your music recognizable without them. Daft Punk played an important role in shaping the influence that EDM would impose on the rest of the industry, starting with the techno genre itself.
Skrillex, a legendary DJ producer in his own right as one of the first stars to bring EDM into the mainstream, said that seeing a Daft Punk performance “was like entering the portal of my own destiny”, according to The Guardian. “It left an instant and indelible mark on my psyche,” said Skrillex. “The idea of providing a complete concert experience when leaving a band on stage was a game-changer – not just for me, but for all creators.”
Before the pandemic, entire festivals could be attended without a single instrument being played. Daft Punk was an original pioneer of the format, with an exclusive US reissue in a 2006 Coachella performance, shown below in a video from the pre-iPhone era.
Daft Punk, created by French artists Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter in Paris in 1993, went on to produce some of his most successful works in partnership with mainstream artists such as The Weeknd and Kanye West. This further consolidated his legacy and influence in the wider culture.
Daft Punk was certainly not the only group to push EDM into the mainstream, but it was certainly one of the first and with a gigantic effect. The duo’s journey, however, is now over, after modern music has become overtaken by sounds of the cosmos.
Times are changing’.