Discovery
The second album, a turn from raw house toward disco, R&B and songs, and the record released as the duo adopted their robot helmets.
Daft Punk, 2001
- Released
- 12 March 2001
- Recorded
- 1998-2000
- Studio
- Daft House, Bangalter's home in Paris
- Label
- Virgin Records
- Producer
- Daft Punk
Making it
Bangalter said Homework had influenced so many artists that Daft Punk chose a different direction. They recorded Discovery over two years at Daft House, in Bangalter's home. Instead of the Roland 808 and 909 they used an Oberheim DMX, a LinnDrum and a Sequential Circuits Drumtraks, with Akai and E-mu samplers, Fender Rhodes and Wurlitzer pianos, vocoders and Auto-Tune. Romanthony and Todd Edwards sang and co-produced on some tracks, and DJ Sneak wrote the lyrics to Digital Love.
Bangalter described Homework as a way to tell rock fans that electronic music was cool, and Discovery as the reverse. He cited Aphex Twin's Windowlicker as an inspiration for exploring song structures. The finished record draws on the decade between 1975 and 1985 and on childhood memories.
Release and reception
One More Time came out in 2000 and the album followed in March 2001, with singles including Aerodynamic, Digital Love, Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger, Something About Us and Face to Face. Daft Punk also launched a members' website, Daft Club, and made the anime film Interstella 5555 with Leiji Matsumoto, which uses the whole album as its soundtrack.
Discovery reached number 2 in the UK and France and number 23 on the Billboard 200. It earned gold certification from the RIAA on 11 October 2010. Reviews were mixed. Q praised it as a tour de force, and Mixmag called it "the perfect non-pop pop album". Rolling Stone's Ben Ratliff found most of it muddled. Pitchfork rescored its original 6.4 review to 10 out of 10 in 2021, and Rolling Stone placed it at number 236 on its 2020 list of the 500 greatest albums.
Track listing
- One More Time
- Aerodynamic
- Digital Love
- Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger
- Crescendolls
- Nightvision
- Superheroes
- High Life
- Something About Us
- Voyager
- Veridis Quo
- Short Circuit
- Face to Face
- Too Long
Personnel
- Daft Punk vocals, vocoders, sequencers, sampling, synthesizers, Wurlitzer electric piano, guitars, bass, talkbox, drum machines, production, concept, art direction
- Romanthony vocals, co-production on Too Long
- Todd Edwards vocals and co-production on Face to Face
- Nilesh Patel mastering
More from Daft Punk
Homework (1997), Human After All (2005), Random Access Memories (2013)
Sources
- Discovery (Daft Punk album), Wikipedia
- Daft Punk were the most influential pop musicians of the 21st century, The Guardian (2021-02-23)