Human After All

What Daft Punk can teach us about humanity, the dance floor, and the French.

Guy-Manuel de Homem Christo (L) and Thomas Bangalter (R), also known as Daft Punk, photographed in Paris in 1995.

I’ve had the immense fortune to have partied in many, many different environments in the course of my three charmed decades. Pitch-black techno palaces in Berlin, illegal warehouses on the outskirts of Los Angeles, sticky-floored dives in New York, cavernous clubs that only ‘get started’ around 3am in Barcelona, elegantly gilded boîtes accessible via a multi–story descent beneath Paris, crumbling Venetian palazzos, tropical Miami discos, and one of London’s most famous museums have all seen me drip sweat, form blisters, and dance until my eyeliner is smeared and my lungs can scarcely produce breath.

While all of these environments have their own flavor, there is one universal truth that I have discovered through all of this nocturnal experience: that there is no greater song to dance to than “One More Time” by Daft Punk. I am not the only one, as evidenced by the fact that I have seen every room the song has played explode into a state of euphoria upon hearing mere seconds of its iconic opening notes.

Formed in 1993, disbanded in 2021, Daft Punk are one of the most iconic French musical acts of all time. Composed of two life-long friends – Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem Christo – they made a name for themselves as purveyors of a new type of dance music, often made up of hundreds of intricate samples, interwoven with beats heavily inspired by rock, disco, and funk music. Daft Punk, along with their contemporaries Etienne de Crécy, Air, Cassius, Modjo, and later Justice, made up the vanguard of the genre that is now referred to as “French Touch.”

According to the lore, Thomas and Guy-Man (as fans call him) were quite shy, and as their success grew, so did their desire to remain anonymous. As such, they greatly restricted the amount of interviews they gave – if any – and only appeared in public with their faces obscured by their now-signature robot helmets.

While their robot guises are now a quick visual shorthand for the duo themselves, it’s also cheekily indicative of the larger reason as to why they, along with their Gallic peers, were able to absolutely dominate the dance music space.