daft punk - ALIVE (1997 > 2007 > 1997)

[mogwai]

work hard & be nice to people. yeah right.

[Chest Rockwell]

Well, I'm not super-familiar with French electronica but I don't think those guys were at all like Daft Punk (Garnier is arguable, I guess, but if anything Jarre influenced Air more than Daft Punk). Electronic yes, but that's just as vague a description as rock. But maybe you're right and I'm just mistaken.

So, mogwai, I don't care if you or Rockwell or whoever else likes to listen to shitty commercial music made by artists that were once cool back in 1996.

Is that really necessary? Anyway, thanks for the brief history. I realize they're all influenced by those forerunners, but to say Daft Punk is any less original because of it is doing them a bit of a disservice, in my opinion.

And by the way, I said they were over the hill. I don't really like the new Daft Punk stuff post-Discovery.

[mogwai]

didn't the members of daft punk make their third album as shitty as possible to just piss of their record label?

maybe the undeniable genius of REDACTED can answer that.

[cron]

i don't see any band in its right mind doing that.

[MacGuffin]

Daft Punk faces up to "French touch" legacy

Though barely in their 30s, the mysterious pair of Parisians who make up Daft Punk are having to come to terms with being the godfathers of a new generation of electro acts.

"The new generations are making some great music in a way that's completely without hang-ups and we're flattered these groups can be inspired by us," one half of Daft Punk, 32-year-old Thomas Bangalter, told AFP in an interview.

The first of the pair's three albums, Homework, released in 1997, became the foundation of the "French touch" movement that unfurled in the late 1990s as a series of French DJs leapt to international fame.

Daft Punk, whose trademark sound mixes house music, disco and distorted vocals, were joined by numerous others including Stardust and Cassius. The duo -- Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, 33 is the other half -- have sold six million records.

Nowadays, their influence is clear in the sound of Germany's Digitalism or Boyz Noise, Canada's MSTRKRFT, Australia's Midnight Juggernauts and most of all in the first album of France's new electro heroes, Justice.

But a recent performance in Paris, turned into a new live album, brought the two face-to-face with the inexorable march of time: some fans in the crowd would have been about five when Homework was released.

"It was strange and that doesn't make us feel any younger," smiles Bangalter.

Though flattered by their obvious influence on the latest crop of electro acts, Bangalter stresses that Daft Punk continues to evolve and has become an art project for the two founding members.

"Music has always had a relative importance in our project. Our approach is about an artistic evolution that goes far beyond the music," said Thomas Bangalter.

The Daft Punk pair like to mix music with art and pop culture -- evident in the robot masks the duo wear in public -- in their films, such as "Electroma", and in the way they explore the relationship between humans and machines.

Live shows are a visual spectacle with the two DJs, behind their masks and surrounded by laser lights, placed on a glowing pyramid in the middle of thousands of dancing fans.

Their current world tour takes them to Japan and Australia before the end of the year.

"We've always been fascinated by people like Andy Warhol and Pop Art or Led Zeppelin, who built a visual universe which was relevant to music," added Bangalter.

"Our universe was sometimes taken as marketing in the past, but has now been accepted as an artistic project."

Daft Punk last month released a new album and a DVD.

"Alive 2007" is a recording of a concert in Paris in June this year which some critics have described as one of the best live performances in France of the year.

The DVD is of their film "Electroma," which was shown at the Cannes film festival in France and revolves around the quest of two robots to become human.