daft punk homework 30th with robot rock alive

• Something about us

ROBOT ROCK ALIVE AIMS TO BRING YOU THE EXPERIENCE OF AN ORIGINAL ALIVE SHOW BY FRENCH ELECTRONIC DUO DAFT PUNK. USING CURRENT TECHNOLOGY OUR TEAM HAVE CREATED A DEFINITIVE SHOW WITH SOUND, LIGHTS AND VIDEO PERFORMING ON REAL TIME USING HARDWARE EQUIPMENT FOR A COMPLETE LIVE PERFORMANCE, RECREATING THE ROBOTS SOUND AND PAYING TRIBUTE TO DAFT PUNK’S MUSIC. WE WANT TO COMPLETE THE MISSION STARTED AT 2007, TO BRING THE DAFT PUNK’S ALIVE EXPERIENCE FOR ALL AUDIENCES LOOKING FOR A COMPLETE LIVE ELECTRONIC MUSIC EXPERIENCE NEVER SEEN BEFORE. COME TO CATCH US AROUND THE WORLD! WE’RE ROBOT ROCK ALIVE!

IMAGE GALLERY

SHOP ONLINE

2024 LIVE TOUR

• mayo 4, 2024 Bilbao, Santana27 / Fever Robot Rock Alive @ Santana 27 (BILBAO) SP
• mayo 11, 2024 Barcelona, Razzmatazz 1 Robot Rock Alive @ Razzmatazz 1 (BARCELONA)
• julio 13, 2024 Ostend Ostend Beach Festival (Belgium)

Robot Rock Alive

Find anything you save across the site in your account

By Larry Fitzmaurice

December 2, 2018

Daft Punk ’s Homework is, in its pure existence, a study in contradictions. The debut album from Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo arrived in 1997, right around the proliferation of big-beat and electronica—a twin-headed hydra of dance music fads embraced by the music industry following the commercialization of early ’90s rave culture—but when it came to presumptive contemporaries from those pseudo-movements, Homework shared Sam Goody rack space and not much else. Daft Punk’s introduction to the greater world also came at a time when French electronic music was gaining international recognition, from sturdy discotheque designs to jazzy, downtempo excursions—music that sounded miles away from Homework ’s rude, brutalist house music.

In the 21 years since Homework ’s release, Daft Punk have strayed far from its sound with globe-traversing electronic pop that, even while incorporating other elements of dance music subgenres, has more often than not kept house music’s building blocks at arms’ length. 2001’s Discovery was effectively electronic pop-as-Crayola box, with loads of chunky color and front-and-center vocals that carried massive mainstream appeal. Human After All from 2005 favored dirty guitars and repetitive, Teutonic sloganeering, while the pair took a nostalgia trip through the history of electronic pop itself for 2013’s Random Access Memories . Were it not for a few choice Homework tracks that pop up on 2007’s exhilarating live document Alive 2007 , one might assume that Homework has been lost in the narrative that’s formed since its release—that of Daft Punk as robot-helmeted superstar avatars, rather than as irreverent house savants.

But even as the straightforward and strident club fare on Homework remains singular within Daft Punk’s catalog, the record also set the stage for the duo’s career to this very day—a massively successful and still-going ascent to pop iconography, built on the magic trick-esque ability to twist the shapes of dance music’s past to resemble something seemingly futuristic. Whether you’re talking about Bangalter and Homem-Christo’s predilection for global-kitsch nostalgia, their canny and self-possessed sense of business savvy, or their willingness to wear their influences on their sleeve like ironed-on jean-jacket patches—it all began with Homework .

It couldn’t possibly make more sense that a pair of musicians whose most recent album sounds like a theme park ride through pop and electronic music’s past got their big break at Disneyland. It was 1993, and schoolboy friends Bangalter and Homem-Christo’s rock band with future Phoenix guitarist Laurent Brancowitz, Darlin’—named after a track from the 1967 Beach Boys album Wild Honey that the three shared an affinity for—had disbanded after a year of existence that included a few songs released on Stereolab ’s Duophonic label. (Melody Maker writer Dave Jennings notoriously referred to their songs as possessing “a daft punky thrash,” which led to the pair assuming the Daft Punk moniker.)

While attending a rave in Paris, Bangalter and Homem-Christo had a chance encounter with Glasgow DJ/producer Stuart McMillan, the co-founder of the Soma Recordings dance label; like any aspiring musicians would, they gave him a demo tape of early Daft Punk music. The following year Soma released Daft Punk’s debut single “The New Wave,” a booming and acid-tinged instrumental that would later evolve into Homework cut “Alive.”

A follow-up, “Da Funk” b/w “Rollin’ & Scratchin’,” hit shops in 1995; according to a Muzik profile two years later, its initial 2,000-platter pressing was “virtually ignored” until rave-electronica bridge-gap veterans the Chemical Brothers started airing out its A-side during DJ sets. A major-label bidding war ensued, with Virgin as the victor which re-released “Da Funk” as a proper single in 1996 with non- Homework track “Musique” as its B-side. During this time, Bangalter and Homem-Christo casually worked on the 16 tunes that would make up Homework in the former’s bedroom, utilizing what The Guardian ’s Ben Osborne referred to in 2001 as “ low technology equipment ”—two sequencers, a smattering of samplers, synths, drum machines, and effects, with an IOMEGA zip drive rounding out their setup.

Bangalter and Homem-Christo’s work ethic while assembling the bulk of Homework was of the type that makes sloths appear highly efficient by comparison: no more than eight hours a week, over the course of five months. “We have not spent much time on Homework ,” Bangalter casually bragged to POP . “The main thing is that it sounds good… We have no need to make music every day.” The songs were crafted with the intention of being released as singles (“We do not really want to make albums,” Bangalter claimed in the same interview), Homework ’s eventual sequencing a literal afterthought after the pair realized they had enough material to evenly fill four sides of two vinyl platters. “Balance,” the pair said in unison when asked about Homework ’s format-specific sequencing in Dance Music Authority following the album’s release. “It is done for balance.”

Indeed, Homework is practically built to be consumed in side-long chunks; taking the album in at a single 75-minute listen can feel like running a 5K right after eating an entire pizza. Its A-side kicks off with the patient build of “Daftendirekt”—itself a live-recording excerpt of introductory music used during a Daft Punk set at 1995’s I Love Techno festival in Ghent—and concludes with the euphoric uplift of “Phoenix”; the B-side opens with the literal oceanic washes of “Fresh” before stretching its legs with the loopy, Gershon Kingsley-interpolating “Around the World” and the screeching fist-pump anthem “Rollin’ & Scratchin’.” The third side keeps things light with the flashy, instructional “Teachers” before getting truly twisted on “Rock’n Roll,” and the fourth side takes a few rubbery detours before landing on the full-bodied “Alive”—the thicker and meaner final form of “The New Wave”—and, quixotically, a slight and rewound “Da Funk” return, aptly titled “Funk Ad.”

Bangalter explained to POP that the title of Homework carries a few meanings: “You always do homework in the bedroom,” he stated, referencing the album’s homespun origins before elaborating on the didactic exercise that creating the album represented: “We see it as a training for our upcoming discs. We would as well have been able to call it Lesson or Learning .” That instructional nature is reflexive when it comes to listeners’ presumptive relationship with the album, as Homework practically represents a how-to for understanding and listening to house music.

Nearly every track opens with a single sonic element—more often than not, that steady 4/4 rhythm inextricably tied to house music—adding every successive element of the track patiently, like a played-in-reverse YouTube video showcasing someone taking apart a gadget to see what’s inside. Such a pedagogic approach can have its pitfalls; there’s always a risk of coming across as too rigid, and Daft Punk arguably fell victim to such dull, fussy didacticism later in their careers. But they sidestep such follies on Homework by way of the purely pleasurable music they carefully assembled, piece-by-piece, for whoever was listening.

Under the umbrella of house music, Homework incorporates a variety of sounds snatched from various musical subgenres—G-funk’s pleasing whine, the cut-up vocal-sample style of proto-UK garage made popular by frequent Daft Punk collaborator Todd Edwards , disco’s delicious synths and glittery sweep—to craft a true musical travelogue that also hinted at the widescreen sonic scope they’d take later in their careers. Above all, the album represents a love letter to black American pop music that’s reverberated through Daft Punk’s career to date—from Janet Jackson ’s sample of “Daftendirekt” on her 2008 Discipline track “So Much Betta” to Will.i.am’s failed attempt to remix “Around the World” the year previous, as well as the duo’s continued collaborations with artists ranging from Pharrell to Kanye West and the Weeknd .

The spirit of house music’s Midwestern originators is also literally and musically invoked throughout. Over the winding house-party groove of “Teachers,” Daft Punk pay homage to their formative influences, ranging from George Clinton and Dr. Dre to Black house and techno pioneers like Lil Louis, DJ Slugo, and Parris Mitchell—and in a meta twist, the song’s structure itself is a literal homage to Mitchell’s 1995 Dance Mania! single “Ghetto Shout Out,” an interpolation clearly telegraphed in the middle of Daft Punk’s astounding contribution to BBC’s Essential Mix series in 1997 .

Alongside Daft Punk’s preoccupations with American popular music, Homework also carries a very specific and politically pointed evocation of their native Paris in “Revolution 909,” the fourth and final single released from Homework that doubled as a critique of anti-rave measures taken by the French government after Jacques Chirac assumed power in 1995. “I don’t think it’s the music they’re after—it’s the parties,” Homem-Christo told Dance Music Authority , with Bangalter adding, “They pretend [the issue is] drugs, but I don’t think it’s the only thing. There’s drugs everywhere, but they probably wouldn’t have a problem if the same thing was going on at a rock concert, because that’s what they understand. They don’t understand this music which is really violent and repetitive, which is house; they consider it dumb and stupid.”

“Revolution 909” opens with ambient club noise, followed by the intrusion of police sirens and intimidating megaphone’d orders to “stop the music and go home.” The accompanying Roman Coppola-helmed music video was even more explicit in depicting the frequent clash between ravers and law enforcement that marked dance music’s rise to the mainstream in the early-to-mid-’90s; amidst a kitschy instructional video on making tomato sauce, a pair of cops attempt to disperse a rave, a young woman escaping one of their grasps after he becomes distracted by a tomato sauce stain on his own lapel.

It’s been rumored, but never quite confirmed, that Bangalter himself appears in the video for “Revolution 909”—a slice of speculation gesturing towards the fact that Daft Punk’s Homework era was the time in which the duo began embracing anonymity. The now-iconic robot helmets wouldn’t be conceived of until the Discovery era, and the magazine stories that came during Daft Punk’s pre- Homework days were typically accompanied by a fresh-faced photo of the pair; during Homework ’s promotional cycle, however, they donned a variety of masks to obscure their visages, including frog and pig-themed disguises .

In conversation with Simon Reynolds for The New York Times in 2013, the pair cited Brian De Palma’s glam-rock masterpiece Phantom of the Paradise as artistic inspiration for their decision to retain visual anonymity, and Daft Punk’s press-shy tendencies (since Homework , the interviews they’ve chosen to take part in have been few and far between) are firmly situated in a long tradition of letting the music do the talking in dance culture—from the sci-fi evasiveness of Drexciya and Aphex Twin ’s relative reclusiveness to the preferred reticence of Burial and his contemporaries in the UK bass scene.

But refusing to turn themselves into rock stars upon Homework ’s release also afforded Daft Punk a crucial element that has undoubtedly aided their perpetual ascent to the present-day: control. Retaining a sense of anonymity was but one of the conditions that the pair struck with Virgin upon signing to the label before Homework ’s release; while the music they released under the label (before signing to Columbia in 2013) was licensed exclusively to Virgin, they owned it through their own Daft Trax production and management company.

But Homework proved influential in other, more explicitly musical ways. G-house, an emergent dance subgenre in the mid-2010s dominated by acts like French duo Amine Edge & Dance, borrows liberally from Daft Punk’s own musical mash of hip-hop’s tough sounds and house music’s pounding appeal; the dirty bloghouse bruisers of Parisian collective Ed Banger—founded by Pedro Winter aka Busy P, who acted as the group’s manager until 2008—would literally not exist were it not for Homework , and that goes double for the party-hardy bloghouse micro-movement of the mid-late 2000s, which Ed Banger’s artists practically dominated. Parisian duo Justice , in particular, owe practically the entirety of their 2007 landmark † to the scraping tension of “Rollin’ & Scratchin’.”

It’s tempting, too, to tie a connective thread between Homework and the brash sounds that proliferated during the peak heyday of the financial descriptor-cum-music genre known as EDM; close your eyes while listening to “Alive”’s big-tent sweep and try not to imagine the tune destroying a festival crowd. But for all of Homework ’s aggressive charms, it’s also retained a homespun intimacy in comparison to how positively widescreen Daft Punk’s music became afterwards. “We focus on the illusion because giving away how it’s done instantly shuts down the sense of excitement and innocence,” Bangalter told Pitchfork in 2013, and the fact that two Beach Boys fans fiddling around in their bedroom could conceive of something so generously in-your-face and playful as Homework might still stand as Daft Punk’s greatest illusion yet.

All products featured on Pitchfork are independently selected by our editors. However, when you buy something through our retail links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

By signing up you agree to our User Agreement (including the class action waiver and arbitration provisions ), our Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement and to receive marketing and account-related emails from Pitchfork. You can unsubscribe at any time. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Robot Rock Alive - Daft Punk Tribute

Daft Punk’s Debut Album ‘Homework’ Turns 25 | Anniversary Retrospective

Happy 25th Anniversary to Daft Punk’s debut album Homework , originally released January 20, 1997.

Somewhere in my early 20s, in a parallel universe, a scintillating soundtrack still spins. At its core throbs a perpetual propulsion—the boundless verve of fervent youth. 

With their 1997 debut Homework , a then-unknown French duo managed the unimaginable. At the far end of a decade bustling with blips, glitches, and other electronic etches, Daft Punk divined a head trip of unfettered vision—delectable to raver kids and living-room loungers alike. Perhaps even more impressive, the creators—nascent adults themselves—cultivated a powerful digital vernacular, galvanizing something fundamentally human that taps into our primal, spiritual, and musical tendencies and twirls them into one.

In terms of socializing my sophomore and junior years of college, the time of Homework ’s release, my friend circles were among the more jumbled, a web of connections spanning different life phases, schools, and backgrounds, and invariably diverse musical tastes. The Cure to Madonna to Sleater-Kinney . But, somehow, Homework emerged a unifying principle—a glittering go-to record radiating its machine glow aura in seemingly all friends’ dwellings. The antecedent to everything from weed-lidded, 50-cent-ride evenings at the Santa Cruz boardwalk to crimson-lit cobblestoned late nights in Europe to impromptu house dance parties in LA, Daft Punk became synonymous with fun.

Homework had us all equally rapt—our minds tickled by its taut dichotomies, perhaps themselves trappings intrinsic to any duo: Slick yet gritty, chaotic yet clean, erratic yet predictable. 

Eventually topping charts across Australia, Europe, and North America, Daft Punk had awakened some tacit magic around the world.

And let’s just start there, for those who haven’t yet had the privilege. Meet Homework ’s second single, “Around the World,” in all its axon-activating joy. Indulgently repetitious, echoing the phrase “around the world” precisely 144 times like some soothing vocoded mantra, the song rallies the collective as together we teetered toward the turn of the millennium. 

“Around the World” spooled the energies of our increasingly global, connected society. On the heels of the major-label 1997 rerelease of “Da Funk,” a track that debuted as a 12-inch two years prior, “Around the World” was Daft Punk’s second-consecutive single to sashay to position one on several continents’ dance charts.  

Despite the duo’s unassailable talents, commercial success was a multiyear journey. They’d been steadily amassing a fanbase since 1993, the year Parisians Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo became Daft Punk. Not yet 20 years old, the two long-time friends had abandoned previous indie rock project Darlin’, in favor of turntables, samplers, and drum machines. 

Although inspired by the experimental glamour of club culture, Daft Punk drew from a broad array of influences, including Serge Gainsbourg, Primal Scream , Television, Stevie Wonder , disco, funk, hip-hop, rap, pop and underground house/techno—just to a name few.

In fact, the band’s first single, released in 1994, “The New Wave,” which would later reappear refashioned as “Alive” on Homework, even flirts with an industrial feel that could easily slink its way into a fishnet-laced subterranean den.

Undoubtedly, this confluence of styles lent to Daft Punk’s universal appeal. It wasn’t just the immense variety, but their easy ability to foster immediacy. Despite their synthesized, futuristic robot-faced dynamic, there’s something inherently accessible, even intimate, about their sound, perhaps the byproduct of their preferred home recording setup. 

“We have received faxes from Denmark, Sweden, Spain, Japan, New York whereas we sold 15,000 discs!” Bangalter said in a 1995 interview . “So, it is very funny. But also really shows that, at the same time, there is a public, there are people who are interested in this music everywhere. And we can reach [them] by making things in our bedroom, reach people [at] the other end of the Earth.”

Encouraged by the rising triumph of “Da Funk,” Daft Punk enlisted nightclub DJ and promoter Pedro Winter as their band manager and ultimately signed to Virgin Records, jumping from the smaller Soma Quality Recordings where they’d gotten their start, in hopes of reaching a wider audience.

All parties involved, including the artists themselves, had more than an inkling of Daft Punk’s potential. Homework flowed from them organically—a necessary eruption that had likely been brewing for years. 

Tucked into Bangalter’s modestly outfitted home studio, the two set about making more singles. But, after just five months of casual composition, they’d devised ample material for an album. Without intending to, the young Daft Punk had far surpassed their original goal. Instead of concocting another couple hits—a feat in and of itself—they’d effortlessly minted a 74-minute masterpiece.

Daft Punk had purposefully traded their derivative fuzzy rock sound for electronic expression, and, in dashing off Homework , it quickly became clear they didn’t need to learn this new language—they already owned it. 

Twenty-five years later, the French house breakthrough album still sounds bold, flawless, and compellingly quirky.

For the swelling storm of energy it impels, Daft Punk’s music is focused, lean, and deliberate, deriving its magnetism, at least in part from its repetition. “We could decorate our music with a lot of sounds that do not fulfill any function,” reflected Bangalter in a 2010 interview . “Then people would not complain that it is monotonous. But it is the monotony that gives the songs their power. A ta-ta-ta-tam that is played over and over again never sounds exactly the same. The brain perceives it differently each time. The arrangements that we put effort into do not appear until you have gotten into the rhythm properly.”

These rhythmic properties reveal themselves right from the album’s start. The compact “Daftendirekt” opens Homework , playfully building—similar to “Around the World”—around the sole line: “Da funk back to the punk, c’mon.” Borrowed from a Belgian performance in 1995, the track seems an animated entity. More than just inviting the listener to engage, Daft Punk have an innate ability to conjure living atmosphere—something meant to fuse with human emotion and movement to ultimately engender some greater power. 

“​​Even 15 years ago when we were having our studio on the stage, and all these drum machines and all these synthesizers, I think we were already asking ourselves the relevancy of live music that we’re playing by activating [and] triggering [devices]—where we seemed to be more operators of a system, you know?” remarked Bangalter in a 2009 interview . “Where it’s the machines that play. It’s maybe transforming what seems to be a very mechanical reproduction into an emotional connection. Or a physical one. That maybe puts us into the role of an artist. It’s interesting to see how much emotion you can get out of a machine, in that sense.”

The funky vibrancy of “Daftendirekt” offers a malleable entrance to Homework , paving the way for a variety of freeing feelings and tantalizing tempos. After “WDPK 83.7 FM,” a half-minute sampled bit, the album launches into two exuberant singles, “Revolution 909” and “Da Funk.” The former kicks off with the voices of law enforcement breaking up a party—an all-too-common, highly unwelcome sound of our youth, which serves well to defiantly light the dance floor afire.

From here, Daft Punk offer track after track of hypnotic energy, allowing our minds and bodies to cathartically commingle. And as much as I enjoy the bouncy singles from Homework , with “Around the World” being my unequivocal favorite, I’ve long been partial to the more understated tracks like “Phoenix,” “High Fidelity,” and “Alive,” which boast their own brand of euphoric release. It’s in this dreamier vein, I most acutely feel the liberating invincibility of being 19 and 20. And although life is always moving and I have no desire to return to any past age, I like to picture that parallel universe where my juvenile self still rambles—an unhinged soul electrically charged, hurtling with abandon, chasing the endless beauty of the cosmos. 

Sadly, I must note that Daft Punk dissolved last year in yet another unsettling pandemic-era blow. To officially announce their ending, they released Epilogue , a poignant video featuring lyrics from Random Access Memories (2013) song “Touch”: “Hold on, if love is the answer, you're home.” Though heartbreaking, it’s a fitting conclusion—for as much as Daft Punk urged us to move, they also reminded us to meld.

And, in this eternal spirit, I truly believe Daft Punk are shimmying away in alternate privileged galaxies, delighting new creatures with fresh formulations every bit as persuasive as their gift to us humans on Earth— Homework .

Enter your email below to be the first to hear about new releases, upcoming events, and more from Dig!

Yes, I want to receive marketing messages with the latest news, events and releases from Dig!. I understand that these emails are based on my information, interests, website activities and device data that is handled in accordance with the Privacy Policy . I understand that I can opt-out at any time by emailing [email protected] .

By submitting my information, I agree to receive personalized updates and marketing messages about WMX based on my information, interests, activities, website visits and device data and in accordance with the Privacy Policy . I understand that I can opt-out at any time by emailing [email protected] .

Homework: How Daft Punk Schooled Us In The Future Of Dance Music

With their debut album, ‘Homework’, Daft Punk cemented their place in history, even while shaping what that history would become.

There are those who ride the waves of a scene, and there are those who create a new scene in the first place. Daft Punk have always been the latter, particularly in the formative years surrounding their debut album, Homework .

Listen to Homework here

Scrappy, raw and experimental.

Few musical acts have changed so much between albums as Daft Punk did in the four years between the release of Homework , on 20 January 1997, and its follow-up, Discovery . Reinvention is often the key to longevity in music, but it usually comes after years of exhausting the same tried and tested formula. For Daft Punk, however, their first two albums feel like the works of entirely different artists: meticulously detailed and polished, Discovery was stuffed with instant classics that aimed for the big leagues. Homework , however, represents everything that’s exciting about the best debut albums: scrappy, raw and experimental, it perfectly captured the spirit of Daft Punk’s live sets in their early years, with tracks mixing into each other perfectly, building and maintaining energy as if tooled for a club appearance.

Video footage from a live show in Wisconsin, in 1996, demonstrates this perfectly. Claiming to be the earliest evidence of Daft Punk on stage, there isn’t a mirror ball or robot mask in sight. Aesthetically, it could be any boiler-room gig – a small audience going wild as Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel De Homem-Christo rip through their set with absolute conviction. Sonically, it’s a wild ride: the beat is the only constant; everything else can be thrown in and pulled away again in an instant. Tracks like Homework ’s Rock’n Roll, with its pulsating scratch loop, brought the excitement of these shows to listeners’ stereos.

Hints of the Daft Punk to come

However, Homework isn’t just a recorded version of an early gig. Across its 75 minutes, there are plenty of hints of the Daft Punk to come, particularly with the standout hits Alive, Da Funk and Around The World. The ambition alone of these early singles was enough to change the dance music scene at the time, pushing house back into the mainstream.

Recorded on the cheap at home (a process that gave the album its title), Homework wasn’t truly intended to be an album: the singles are placed between the more experimental tracks in an attempt to form something that felt more traditionally cohesive. Even so, it’s clear there were two very difference sides to Daft Punk, even in these early stages.

Few artists could produce their debut album at home while ensuring it sounded perfect wherever it was played, but, channelling huge amounts of energy and live experience for the recording, Bangalter and De Homem-Christo already knew what would work and what wouldn’t on their limited set-up. It’s this adaptability that made Daft Punk’s journey from club act to festival headliners a smooth one. But while it’s one thing to make an album at home, it’s an entirely other thing to have it cement your place in musical history.

Here are some of the standout tracks that make Homework a lesson in the evolution of dance music…

Homework : the tracks you need to hear

Revolution 909.

There’s a drum sound so industrial it could have been recorded in a factory, landing with such a satisfying clang that it’s hard to focus on anything else. Revolution 909 sits perfectly as one of Homework ’s opening tracks, setting the energy for the rest of the album and leading flawlessly into Da Funk…

… Which is not only a highlight on Homework , it’s a highlight of Daft Punk’s entire career. When a band discovers a truly great riff, they strip down everything else and squeeze every last drop out of it. Da Funk is one of those: instant, direct, and memorable – everything you want from a house track. Also, shout-out to the music video by the masterful Spike Jonze, in which a dog with its leg in a cast gets treated with complete indifference by a load of strangers.

Nothing sums up the early Daft Punk sound quite like Phoenix. Though subtler than some of the Homework ’s later tracks, it’s fully earned its place amongst the group’s bigger hitters.

Around The World

What more is there to say that hasn’t already been said? Around The World remains a juggernaut in dance music. Every part has been tightened to perfection, making it the perfect instrumental for the duo to introduce their trademark robot voice on.

With a twitching bassline that props up an ever-growing beat, Burnin’ is surrounded by all kinds of pops, scratches, slides and squeaks. If Homework builds in intensity as a live set would, this is the peak of that experience.

One of the original singles dropped ahead of Homework’s release, Alive still sounds as huge as ever. There’s a reason they name their tours after this song…

Check out the best Daft Punk song of all time to discover how they got harder, better, faster, stronger.

• Album Stories

More Like This

‘Caustic Love’: Behind Paolo Nutini’s Bold And Adventurous Third Album

Sharp-tongued and full of vigour, Paolo Nutini’s third album, ‘Caustic Love’, broke a four-year silence from the Scottish singer-songwriter.

‘Twisted Tenderness’: How Electronic Bowed Out On A Creative High

Electronic’s third album was also their swansong, but ‘Twisted Tenderness’ contained some of Johnny Marr and Bernard Sumner’s finest songs.

Be the first to know

Stay up-to-date with the latest music news, new releases, special offers and other discounts!

Yes, I want to receive marketing messages with the latest news, events and releases from Dig!. I understand that these messages are based on my information, interests, website activities and device data that is handled in accordance with the Privacy Policy . I understand that I can opt-out at any time by emailing [email protected] .

Sign up to our newsletter

Be the first to hear about new releases, upcoming events, and more from Dig!

• Human After All
• Daft Punk songs
• Articles related to Robot Rock
• Songs written by Thomas Bangalter
• Songs written by Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo
• Songs created with samples
• Singles released with Virgin Records
• Singles released in 2005
• View history

" Robot Rock " is the third track and the first single from Daft Punk 's third studio album Human After All . It was released on April 11, 2005.

The song is built around a sample of "Release the Beast" by Breakwater, intertwined with a robotic voice chanting "Rock. Robot Rock."

A mix made by Daft Punk themselves was released for the album Human After All: Remixes , entitled "Robot Rock (Maximum Overdrive) in which the original song is heavily looped. Conceding with the release of the album, a music video for the remix was created as well.

The 12" vinyl single release came with a track called "Rockapella", which has a non-stop repetitive lyrics of the song without instruments, made for music producers to remix it. [1] [2]

The track was also used as the opening of the Alive 2006/2007 tour , alongside the Homework track, " Oh Yeah ".

• 2 Composition
• 3.1 Robot Rock (Maximum Overdrive Daft Punk mix)
• 4 Tracklist
• 5 Samples used
• 6 Reception
• 7 Other media
• 8 References
• 9 External links

Composition [ ]

"Robot Rock" contains a sample of the Breakwater song "Release the Beast". [3] The sample features a synthesizer riff with an oscillator sync timbre, as well as percussion and power chords on an electric guitar. Daft Punk incorporated a vocoder [4] into the production, repeating the title phrase of "Robot Rock". Aside from the sampling, Thomas Bangalter noted that the duo used a Moog synthesizer with guitar pedals for the song. [5]

The Breakwater sample is credited on the single's sleeve and on the liner notes of the parent Human After All album. [3] [6] Bangalter explained that on his Roulé label, "we've been doing records that are 9 minutes with only [a single] one-second loop, with even less foundation than there is on 'Robot Rock'. It's always been a way to reinterpret things—sometimes it's using [an] element from the past, or sometimes recreating them and fooling the eyes or the ears, which is just a fun thing to do." [7] He elaborated that the song "is a tribute to the power of heavy rock chords. In a way I think we were exploring if you can take the essence of rock—that power—and mix it with dance. But to take a riff and loop it is to explore the core of rock." [8]

The Breakwater synthesizer riff is absent from the "Maximum Overdrive" remix of "Robot Rock", which consists of the song's other elements for a duration of nearly six minutes. A music video for this remix has been shot and included on the Daft Punk Musique Vol. 1 (1993-2005) compilation CD and DVD. "Robot Rock" was later used in the film Iron Man 2 , in a scene where James Rhodes fights Tony Stark while both wearing versions of the Iron Man suit. The song is also featured on the game DJ Hero mixed with band Queen 's "We Will Rock You" and is called "We Will (Robot) Rock You".

Music video [ ]

Daft Punk - Robot Rock (Official Video)

The music video, directed by Daft Punk themselves, features Daft Punk performing the song on a heavily lit stage, with various televisions emblazoned with the Daft Punk logo surrounding them. Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo plays the drums, while Thomas Bangalter plays the double-necked guitar featured on the "Robot Rock" single cover.

Robot Rock (Maximum Overdrive Daft Punk mix) [ ]

Daft Punk - Robot Rock Maximum Overdrive

A music video was also made for the Daft Punk remix of the song.

The video features Daft Punk themselves, with the same instruments, playing instruments in front of a green screen while video "echo" effects are in the background. The entire video is in black and white.

Tracklist [ ]

Samples used [ ].

• "Release the Beast" by Breakwater

Reception [ ]

"Robot Rock" had moderate success on the UK and U.S. dance charts, (Number 1 in the UK Dance Charts) but it did receive some criticism. Rolling Stone  declared "nothing builds to achieve the prior glories of 'Da Funk' or 'One More Time'" [9] and  Pitchfork Media  noted that the single "is a poor man's 'Aerodynamic'." [10]  However, a  Sputnikmusic  review noted that "although annoying in nature, [it] is also very rewarding to listen to." [11]

Other media [ ]

The song was indirectly sampled in the song "Rock It" by Sub Focus and other songs.

It was used in the movie Iron Man 2 , when DJ AM drops the song during a fight scene.

The song is also featured on the game  DJ Hero  mixed with band Queen's "We Will Rock You" and Hashim's "Al-Naafiysh (The Soul)"

References [ ]

• ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named discogs
• ↑ " Robot Rock Acapella ". Thread created by username Robot Rocker. 25 June 2009. Retrieved 12 August 2017.
• ↑ 3.0 3.1 "Robot Rock" (liner notes). Daft Punk . Virgin Records , a division of Universal Music Group. 2005.
• ↑ Doris, Jesse (May 21, 2011). Robocall: A Conversation with Daft Punk . Time . entertainment.time.com. Retrieved on June 8, 2013.
• ↑ "Technology cannot be trusted" . February 21, 2008. thedaftclub.com. Retrieved 2 April 2008.
• ↑ Human After All (liner notes). Daft Punk . Virgin Records , a division of Universal Music Group. 2005.
• ↑ Nadeau, Cheyne and Nies, Jennifer (July–August 2013). "The Work of Art Is Controlling You" . Anthem (29): 36–37 . http://anthemmagazine.com/the-work-of-art-is-controlling-you/ .  
• ↑ "A Round with Daft Punk". Q , issue 257 (December 2007).
• ↑ Barry Walters,  Human After All  review  Rolling Stone  (April 7, 2005)
• ↑ Mark Pytlik,  Human After All  review Pitchfork Media (March 15, 2005)
• ↑ Daniel Incognito,  Human After All  review Sputnikmusic . Retrieved on June 26, 2007.

External links [ ]

• W   Media related to Robot Rock at Wikipedia .

• 1 Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem
• 2 Veridis Quo