These days, there is no shortage of masked DJs, from Marshmello to Germany’s Claptone. But perhaps the most influential of the bunch is the sharply dressed French duo Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter—better known as Daft Punk—who started making serious waves in the late 1990s as part of the French house influx. But nearly three decades of appearances, albums, features, and general party-starting is just a long time for anyone, and the duo’s tired. So, they’re calling it an indefinite night: On Monday, Daft Punk confirmed their retirement.
But Instagramming an iOS press release stating as much wouldn’t have been enough of a statement, obviously. Instead, pair released a short film titled “Epilogue.” In the mostly silent clip, the two are seen traversing an unremarkable desert. Suddenly, they stop and one removes their jacket to reveal a simple energy switch. His partner reluctantly pushes a self destruct button. After a resolute walk to a safer standing point, the guy just… explodes. He fucking explodes. No riding off into the sunset. No hanging up the helmet. He just disintegrates, and the scene fades to black with an illustration of their two hands coming together—underneath it, the date span “1993-2021.” You can check out the full announcement below.
The parting song is a version of the track “Touch” from their 2013 Grammy-winning album, Random Access Memories. Since then, they’ve popped up sporadically with their biggest hit being The Weeknd’s “Starboy.” As Variety notes, their rep has not confirmed whether the pair is permanently done or if they plan on releasing music on an irregular basis under different name (or if they’ll work separately as, you know, non-robotic people). After all, they wouldn’t be the first musicians to rescind a retirement announcement. But for now, Daft Punk is done. The silver lining: We’ll always have the 2014 Grammy Awards performance of “Get Lucky,” featuring Pharrell Williams, Stevie Wonder, Nile Rodgers, and one of Daft Punk’s coolest entrances.
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“The party is over: Daft Punk have split”“On Monday, Daft Punk confirmed their retirement.”
So which is it? Did they split up or retire? Because those AREN’T THE FUCKING SAME THING.
Has David Crosby heard about this?
Yeah, he said “meh” twice.
I believe he said one more time he’s going to celebrate.
EVERY person under 30: Who that?
He’s America’s Dad. Duh!
Best news I have heard today other than that Trump’s tax crimes can be investigated.
While it’s okay to be sad about this, it’s important to remember that both members of Daft Punk still love you very much, and that you’ll always be their number one guy.
Also, this isn’t your fault, okay buddy? You didn’t do anything wrong, sometimes bands just can’t work together anymore, that doesn’t mean they don’t love you.
My Chemical Weekend With The Absurd Arctic Vampire Dragons most assuredly do not love any of you.
It’s always a mistake to stay together just for the sake of the fans
YOU’RE NOT MY REAL BAND!
*slams door to bedroom*
This thread is peak Kinja, pure gold, and worthy of entry in to the Library of Congress.
Touch is one of their most beautiful songs, so that being used again was breathtakingly fitting.
As for the split, I guess it sadly makes a lot of sense. They have spent the majority of their lives collaborating, their work has gotten more sporadic, they’re both getting older, and I was reading that one of the pair (I forget which is which) is generally getting more outgoing and developing a career doing film scores as a solo gig. We will always have the music. The wonderful wonderful music. As well as the knowledge that they were consistently high quality.
TRON 3 can fix this
Someone call Disney and bring the dump truck’s full of money to Daft Punks houses.
It’s a bummer, but not exactly a surprise given how sporadic their output has been.The Grammys performance of “Get Lucky” is great, but I’m also partial to their appearance with Kanye:
Great performance in general. I miss this Kanye West. He’s obviously tripping on his own ego there, but he weaponized it to a) deliver an energetic performance that a shitshow like the Grammys doesn’t deserve and b) upstage everyone else (hell, even himself) by revealing he’s actually got Daft Punk on stage.
Meanwhile, Kraft Punk will not break up because he cannot die.
I wasn’t aware he’d finally found a cheese wife.
W H A T U P T I T T Y B O I
I ‘ M H E R E TO N E T W O R K
So cool.
Time for me once again to complain to my friends (who absolutely do not care) about how I feel Daft Punk should have had an Oscar nomination for Tron: Legacy. In this essay, I will
Inventory: Films whose soundtracks are infinitely better than the actual film.
See also, Superfly, Trouble Man.
My touchstone for this topic is Titanic. It steamrolled over the competition and made a victory lap over the remains for fun.
How is it not Purple Rain.
Compared to the average consumer, I don’t watch very many movies or listen to much music.
Even though I’ve never watched Titanic, the earworm that is “My Heart Will Go On” was inescapable.
Movie: mediocreThe Game Has Changed: banger
Immortal Beloved. It’s not a bad film, Oldman’s performance is really good, but the soundtrack is wall-to-wall Beethoven’s Greatest Hits, so there’s no competition, and at times you end up just waiting for the next bit of music. The Pink Panther. The film has a certain goofy charm the first time you watch it, but the theme tune is an all-time classic. There was also a film remake of Peter Gunn called Gunn, which I doubt anyone’s ever seen, but features the coolest piece of music ever. And Mancini also wrote the score for Hatari, which is more than just the famous Baby Elephant Walk.I guess a lot of the pre-war hollywood films don’t hold up as well as their iconic soundtracks – perhaps Steiner’s King Kong or Korngold’s The Adventures of Robin Hood?And a whole bunch of Soviet films, but particularly Shostakovich’s The Gadfly, several themes of which remain famous and popular.
Tron: Legacy will always be a part of my life. Every time I improve a piece of audio equipment in my system it gets played again at neighbor-disturbing volume. What is it about, anyway?
I still regularly listen to the Tron: Legacy soundtrack. It is so amazing.
And Interstella 5555 is a great Anime and deserves a lot more attention as a masterwork of visual storytelling.
Ah dammit , not only do I love their music , the ‘bots thing was always fun .(right I’m off to put the tron legacy soundtrack on repeat)
Me too, maybe watch Interstella 5555 tonight too
We watch this every summer outside with our kids on the projector with a lil bon fire… its heaven.
As a filthy casual fan, is there some symbolism I should understand attached to one of them self-destructing and the other one walking away? Or are they saying that one member is out and the other one is going to continue solo?
I kind of thought that myself.(that the one who didn’t explode , Guy , is keeping the robot look and maybe releasing stuff as say “The Daft Punk”)
The clip is part of a longer film they released called Electroma. The two robots live in a quaint robot town. One day they buy human masks, and strut their stuff around town, but the masks break. So they go out to the desert and explode. I’m not sure why they decided to use it to announce their retirement, other than the fact that it has an explosion.
These breakups are always hardest on the kids.
They had a great run.
This is fine.
Having watched video, is it weird to feel a part of something bigger than myself?
Oh, look. It’s raining.
so was Daft or was Punk a suicide bomber all this time?
We’ll always have the 2014 Grammy Awards performance of “Get Lucky,” featuring Pharrell Williams, Stevie Wonder, Nile Rodgers, and one of Daft Punk’s coolest entrances.That entrance? Stevie definitely didn’t see that coming …
He also didn’t see what you did there.
I want to live with Punk but still see Daft on the weekends.
God damn it! I knew it couldn’t last forever but this is another disappoint the past 11 months didn’t need. I’ll never deny anyone their happiness so all the best to them. Loved the music for 3 decades, and I’ll wait for the inevitable reunion album/tour within 5 years. 🤞
They will now become denizens of the labyrinthine sublevel of the Venture Compound.
The world is now softer, worse, slower, weaker.
So I guess we might see Stardust reform?
so so so so happy i got to see them in 2007.
I feel like this is news that would have shattered 2011.
Well, this sucks.
I guess on the bright side we can stop hearing rumors about which big festival they won’t end up playing each year.
I told the creators it was a mistake to include a retirement feature and now look what happened. Your robot music slaves have blown themselves up. You were so busy thinking about if you could, you never stopped to think about if you should!
“Touch” is my favorite song they ever done. Eight minutes of pure bliss, with incredible, raw, openly vulnerable vocals by Paul Williams, and lyrics that just get me every time. I love listening to this song while tripping on acid.I always respected them, but their earlier stuff was too “electronic” for me, if you pardon my ignorance. But Random Access Memories is that one album of theirs that I really enjoy. We were lucky to have them around.
Hmmm, I could see their songs lasting forever in bliss. When I tripped I could only listen to Steely Dan and Alan Parsons
I’ll miss them more than anyone in my life
I’m not buying it. It’s a publicity stunt for their next album entitled. Resurrection.
Nah, that’s Bowie’s plan.
I have 13 progressive levels. Try me…if you dare.
I’m sure this will be just as permanent as any other musician’s retirement.
Glad I saw them at the trash fence!
It’s been almost eight years since Random Access Memories. I’m holding out hope that they’re about to drop a surprise final album and they just didn’t want to do any press. Haha.
Half-ed Punk
Somewhere, a college student in his 30s is preparing to present his analysis of this video to his Symbolism in Visual Communications class. I’d be that guy if I were in school right now.Also, could they win a VMA for this? I found it pretty compelling.
I’m sorry but four albums in 28 years is some lazy-ass shit
I was going to say; I love their music but they basically release like one album a decade so I can’t really consider this too much of a loss.
So glad I got to see them live in Coney Island back in 2007. One of the best concerts I have ever attended.
Does this mean they had not, in fact, come too far to give up who they are?
i think their album alive 2007 might be my favorite live album of all time. it was a good run, boys. been with them since the start.
I’d been hoping that they had another Alive left in them. Would love to have heard what they did with their RAM stuff.
I have a quiet suspicion they might’ve been planning for a farewell tour, until the world said no.
I’d been hoping that they had another Alive left in them. Would love to have heard what they did with their RAM stuff.
What exactly did those two guys contribute to that Grammy performance?
Daft Punk is NOT playing at my house, my house!I have retrieved the furniture from the garage.
Daft Punk didn’t split. The silver helmeted one leveled up.Now he gets into his time machine to go back 30 years and start over as the gold helmeted one.(Its why the announcement only shows the gold helmeted one being exploded, he has to make room for.. himself).
This was one of the most absurd moments of my life. I watched the recently leaked Alive 07 concert above in the middle of a raging thunderstorm. As the video finished, the Epilogue was released at the exact moment this finished – and in time for it to autoplay Up Next. Being that it used footage from Electroma I thought it was old. It wasn’t until the 2013 – 2021 title card before I realised what had happened.A real life surreal “Daft Punk has left the music business” moment. I think I am still in shock.
I feel some kind of small personal satisfaction in knowing that they went out with “Touch”, seeing as it’s probably my favourite track from Random Access Memories.