best songs on homework daft punk

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All 16 Tracks On Daft Punk's 'Homework' Ranked

The French duo’s timeless debut came out 20 years ago today.

Daft Punk’s seminal debut album,  Homework,  was originally released on January 20, 1997. That’s *gasp* 20 years ago today. Hard to believe, right? We didn’t know it then, but the robotic duo from France—who still hadn’t yet donned their helmets—would later go on to become international pop icons. So considering the date, we figured it was very appropriate to return to, re-evaluate and rank the songs on this absolute classic of dance music. So how about it? How does your favorite cut stack up?

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2. Around The World

3. Burnin’

5. Daftendirekt

8. High fidelity

9. Indo Silver Club

10. Oh Yeah

12. Revolution 909

13. Rock’n Roll

14. Rollin’ & Scratchin’

15. Teachers

16. Wdpk 83.7 FM

Listen more:  Hear Daft Punk’s rare Rex Club recordings from 1997

A Conversation With Filmmaker Vincent Haycock

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Homework Tracklist

Daftendirekt lyrics, wdpk 83.7 fm lyrics, revolution 909 lyrics, da funk lyrics, phoenix lyrics, fresh lyrics, around the world lyrics, rollin’ & scratchin’ lyrics, teachers lyrics, high fidelity lyrics, rock'n roll lyrics, oh yeah lyrics, burnin' lyrics, indo silver club lyrics, alive lyrics, funk ad lyrics.

If you wanted Daft Punk, but something original, lets go back to the beginning. In ‘97, Britpop (a fusion of British music and pop music) dominated the world. Basically, one year later, OK Go and Coldplay would form. Homework was a startler to some, and ravers were not ready for it. But this album has a few more surprises than it’s tongue-in-cheek manner.

“Alive” steps away from sampled music, while “Da Funk” , with its fusion of samples and house, made it one of the best-selling singles Daft Punk ever released, “Teachers” , with its fusion of rap and pop, stands classic, and was featured in many YouTube videos, while “Daftenedirekt” along with “Wdpk 83.7 FM” opened us up to the world of Daft Punk.

Most recognizable was the successful “Around the World” , which charted highly in many countries and had wide-reaching impacts on increasing Daft Punk’s popularity. The music video , which received heavy airplay on MTV, was helmed by the French director Michel Gondry and choreographed by Blanca Li.

In retrospect, this album is a bit raw and sounds way distinct than its successors, but it’s an instant classic to love and listen to for its more-than-1-hour duration.

“Homework” Q&A

Album credits.

Random Access Memories (10th Anniversary Edition)

Homework (25th Anniversary Edition)

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The 20 Best Daft Punk Songs

Here’s a list of the 20 best Daft Punk songs for your listening pleasure.

By Kat Bein

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Farewell, Daft Punk !

The beloved French duo Daft Punk called it a day on Monday (Feb. 22) via an eight-minute video entitled “Epilogue,” though we’re fervently hoping it’s not a  breakup  breakup.

Either way, it’s time to pay our respects. Daft Punk is one of the most influential musical acts of the last 20 years. Dance and electronic music defines the musical movement of our era. It’s leaked into rock, rap and even country. It is the pop sound of the day, and Daft Punk has most certainly played a heavy hand in that sonic domination.

At almost every turn, and with almost every release in its career, Daft Punk has been derided by critics only to be hailed in years to come. Daft Punk is the kind of band other bands write songs about (looking at you, LCD Soundsystem). When Skrillex accepted his first Grammy, he was all “I think Daft Punk should have won Grammys.” The French duo invented the concept of the bedroom producer with its first album  Homework  in 1997, yet Daft Punk has had only two tours in 20 years, the second of which launched the modern dance music stage production concept.

See latest videos, charts and news

Daft Punk Break Up After 28 Years With Eight-Minute 'Epilogue' Video

Their latest (and apparently last) album, 2013’s  Random Access Memories,  reignited the careers of legends Nile Rodgers and Giorgio Moroder and sparked a return to live dance instrumentalism that continues to catch among a younger generation.

Pick any Daft Punk song or album from its 20-year history, and it sounds good enough to be released tomorrow. Daft Punk is conceptual, simple, cinematic, and timeless. Ranking this music is almost impossible, but here are Billboard ‘s top 20 Daft Punk songs.

This article has been updated.

20. “Doin’ It Right” feat. Panda Bear

Panda Bear is iconic as an experimental electronic artist both for his solo work and in his band Animal Collective. Guess what group sparked his interest in the genre? He admitted in an interview he’d asked Daft Punk to remix both an Animal Collective and Panda Bear song, though the duo declined both offers. The robots made up for it with an invite to Paris for the  Random Access Memories  recording sessions. “Doin’ It Right” was the final song recorded for the LP. It’s the sweetest ode to letting go, a perfect dance floor call for wallflowers the world over.

19.  “Phoenix”

Before Daft Punk, members Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo were in a rock trio called Darlin’. One critic reviewed the band as “a bunch of daft punk.” Darlin’ broke up, and Daft Punk was created in a nod to that review. The third guy, Laurent Brancowitz, eventually became famous as the guitarist of French alt rock band Phoenix. That has no relation, as far as we know, to this incredibly beautiful funk beat from the electronic duo’s debut album, but it is a good excuse to tell the story. This  Homework deep cut features one of Daft Punk’s best walking basslines underneath a signature rhythmic repetition. It is not to be overlooked.

18.  “Instant Crush” feat. Julian Casablancas

We actually really like Julian Casablancas’ synth pop solo stuff, but he left the electronics to Daft Punk on this titanic collaboration. The Strokes’ frontman does provide the lead guitar and, of course, the beautifully-pained, love-sick vocals. Daft Punk approached the singer with a demo and a clear storyline as far back as when recording the Tron: Legacy soundtrack. It all came together perfectly in the studio as one of RAM ‘s most inwardly infectious moments.

17. “Make Love”

Human After All , as a concept, is brilliant. It’s the duo’s harshest electronic sound, yet it explores the group’s most humanistic themes. It was initially panned by most reviewers who expected more disco funk in the wake of Discovery ‘s huge success, though, in hindsight, it’s jarring, heavy rock influence can be seen throughout the EDM community. “Make Love” is an exception. It’s a subtle, sensual take on the LP’s themes of repetition. Piano, drum machine, and funk guitar create an atmosphere of pure tenderness. Juxtaposed between “Steam Machine” and “Brainwasher,” two of the album’s hardest points, “Make Love” is a moment of sweet stillness.

16.  “Human After All”

Of course the title track of the album would be its most thematically relevant. Robotic voices sing a simple message of mankind’s universal commonality. Nothing sounds organic. Every noise is jagged and electric, even as they play the part of the chunky rock guitar. Human brains operate like highly-advanced computer technology. Human brains use computer technology to create soulful, synthetic sounds. Brilliant. This is the only single from Human After All not to have a proper music video, because what would have been the video turned into the mini-film Electroma . If you like Daft Punk, robots, you don’t mind silent films and you find yourself with an hour to kill, I recommend it. Minds blown — literally.

15. “Lose Yourself to Dance” feat. Pharrell

Dance music is all about dancing. It’s the name of the genre, and still sometimes people just do a lot of jumping, or fist pumping, or even just standing there. “Lose Yourself to Dance” is a primal call to get fun and funky on the floor. Pharrell is your friend dragging you out when you’d rather sink into the couch. “C’mon, c’mon” the vocoder urges. The song hits its peak with layered robotic vocal harmonies that throw back to Discovery- era textures. It’s got great groove, and to think, it’s only clocking 100 bpm.

14. “Revolution 909”

Not only is this groove totally stellar, “Revolution 909” features the absolute best song intro ever. The sound is muffled through warehouse walls. The cops come to break up the party, but they don’t succeed, and soon, you’re walking into a stuffy room filled with fresh-faced, carefree, cool kids. Just when you look around through the smoke and lasers in complete wonder, the bass kicks in. This song just conjures every late night adventure I’ve ever had. I can just see the bodies moving under strobe lights, the sweat-dripped smiles. Those times are as gritty as they are pretty, and so is this beat.

13.  “Superheroes”

What even is this song? It’s got a beat so heavy, it is sometimes reminiscent of hardstyle’s affront. The arpeggiated synth comes in like piñata candy that rains in slow motion. There are ray-gun pew pews, space-travel noises. There really is no other song like this I can think of, simultaneously anxiety-inducing and balls-to-the-wall fun. It is like the soundtrack to an interstellar superhero final fight. I spent my entire childhood trying to figure out what these lyrics were saying. Turns out, it’s Barry Manilow singing “something’s in the air,” from his 1979 deep cut “Who’s Been Sleeping in My Bed.” One of life’s great mysteries, finally solved.

12.  “Face to Face”

Just wow. How could you not love this song? All those samples cut up and mashed together to create this awesome, chunky melody. Much of this song’s signature style is thanks to Todd Edwards, the American house producer Daft Punk credits as one of its biggest influences. He co-produces and sings on this Discovery favorite, and c’mon. These lyrics? This is what great songwriting is made of.

11. “ Something About Us”

Any time my buddy plays a closing DJ set, this is the last track he plays. It’s honestly the perfect send-off, wrap-up jam. Try it next time you have the chance and watch everyone embrace their friends with happy tears in their eyes. This song expresses something so deep but not often celebrated. We’ve all had a love like this, the passionately doomed love you know can only fail, but it doesn’t really matter. Those loves matter, too. Also, this is the least cheesy smooth jazz funk love song I’ve ever heard. You know it emulates the weird stuff your parents listened to that made you feel slightly uncomfortable as a kid, and yet, this fits like a warm hug.

10. “Robot Rock”

Whenever people complain about sampled music, I ask them, “Do you like Daft Punk’s ‘Robot Rock’? And of course they say yes, because it’s amazing. And then I’m like, “Well, it’s basically one giant repetitive sample of Breakwater’s ‘Release the Beast,’ and it doesn’t make ‘Robot Rock’ any less of a dope-ass song that you love.” I can just see Daft Punk listening to that song, like, “Dude! That beat is so good. Loop it again!” Of course, they embellished it with original textures, hit it with some robot voices, hooked a guitar pedal up to a Moog and had some fun. It’s one of the most repetitive offerings in the Daft Punk song catalog, but dude, this beat is so good! Loop it again.

9. “Technologic”

“Technologic” came out in 2005. It was the beginning of a new era. Music, business and your social life had a completely new set of vocab words. Daft Punk dedicate these lyrics to the wild, new universe of Internet-based creation, collaboration and consumption. Having said lyrics memorized is a true testament to one’s Daft Punk fandom. The song became a bigger hit when it was sampled by Busta Rhymes for the track “Touch It.” In the video, we again see the robots blur the lines between humans and computers. That baby bot is the stuff of absolute nightmares. Like, you gave him gums, but not a mouth? What a twisted creator, indeed.

8. “Crescendolls”

The fifth track of Discovery is pure rising motion, hence the title, right? The song loops the funkiest break from Little Anthony and the Imperials’ “Can You Imagine” and amps the energy to 5 million. It’s the sound of rainbow pastel confetti in a ticker-tape parade. It’s a sugary cupcake smashed all over your face, and you have to jump up and down to get the icing off. Ironic how Daft Punk juxtapose this overwhelming joy with the complete disassociation of the main characters in Interstellar 5555 , the full-length anime counterpart to Discovery ‘s sonic majesty.

7. “Aerodynamic”

Can you say “best guitar solo in electronic music history”? Nah, dude. One of the best guitar solos of all time. This song came out in 2001, and I’m pretty sure the world had never heard anything like it. I know it rocked the face off of me and my friends. My dad was like, “Hey, this makes me think of Eddie Van Halen.” Thomas Bangalter noted that the song exists in three parts. The first is an edgy funk build, the second is a rampage of a double-hand heavy metal guitar solo. The two combine beautifully before giving way to the third of “completely baroque music, a classical composition we put into synthetic form.”

6. “Da Funk”

Back to Homework and Daft Punk’s fabulous use of street sounds and urban nightlife samples. This is the beginning of Daft Punk’s great love affair with repetition, layers and funky synthesized roars. Bangalter once quipped that “Da Funk” was the band’s attempt at a gangsta rap beat, inspired by the warped G-Funk of Warren G’s “Regulate.” Of course, it moves much faster than West Coast herb crushers care to drive. Don’t try to interpret the music video. Just enjoy it for what it is.

5. “Get Lucky”

The biggest hit and first single from Random Access Memories , “Get Lucky” is the full-circle moment of Daft Punk’s career. They’d spent two decades clipping, chopping and rearranging ’70s and ’80s disco and soul records. Suddenly, they move away from the computers and begin recording soul and funk grooves of their own, and holy crap, they’re doing it with Nile Rogers of Chic. Here, Daft Punk proves they can interpret these influences in wholly original compositions using the analog equipment of their youth. It was a big departure from the heavily electronic sounds of earlier work, and some fans were indeed alienated, but historically speaking, Daft Punk has been anything but predictable or a la mode.

4. “Digital Love”

There could not be a better teenage love song ever written. It’s the perfect song for every love you’ve ever been afraid to start. The sample is “I Love You More” by George Duke. The lyrics are written by DJ Sneak and performed by Daft Punk. The bridge was recorded on a Wurlitzer piano, the same that gave Supertramp its signature sound, and the solo was not played on guitars but by mixing the effects of music sequencers. Altogether, it becomes one of the sweetest, most romantic tunes of the last few decades. Collective “awww.”

3.  “Around The World”

Michel Gondry’s iconic choreography and cinematography helped launch the clubby tune into — wait for it — worldwide popularity. It also marks the beginning of the filmmaker’s own obsession with repetition and layered moving parts. You see these themes again in later videos he directs for the Chemical Brothers and Kylie Minogue . In 1997, “Around The World” was a game changer, and in 2017, it still will be. It’s quite simple, but it builds beautifully. You could listen to this song and focus on a different sonic element each time and have an endless amount of fun. For an audiophile, there’s a lot within to be discovered and enjoyed. Gotta say, though, that bassline takes the cake.

2.  “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger”

I, like many kids I know, fell in love with this song when it played on a special presentation by Cartoon Network’s Toonami . As I get older, it becomes ever-more relevant to my life. That robot voice really knows what’s up. This is a downright generational anthem, which is why A-Trak first tried to convince Kanye West not to sample it. It was “too soon,” or so he thought, but he was ultimately proved wrong when West’s “Stronger” went on to be a massive hit. It’s still the original I favor, though. It’s colorful, playful nature brightens any moment, and that killer vocoder-turned-guitar sample is just ultimate cool.

1.  “One More Time”

This is it, everybody. Daft Punk wrote the greatest party anthem of all time. You can make like “Revolution 909,” stop the music and go home. Nah, just kidding, let’s celebrate and dance so free one more time! Seriously, when I die, play this track at my funeral. This brilliant, timeless classic was written in 1998, and Daft Punk sat on it for two years because they are insane geniuses who wanted to be sure it would sound good two years later. Congrats, guys. “One More Time” is gonna sound great in 2098, 3098, whatever. This song rules. What other song has a one-and-a-half slow break that DJs will actually play through in its entirety? None. That is crazy talk, and yet to mix out of Daft Punk’s opus without allowing its heightened resolution is sheer blasphemy. When this song came out, people criticized its use of vocoder, but nothing could stop its meteoric rise on the charts. It just goes to show, if someone doesn’t get your genius at first, keep going. Eventually, they will.

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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.

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How the robots rocked: Daft Punk’s 10 best songs

Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter have hung up their helmets – but not before changing dance music forever

It’s no understatement to say that Daft Punk , who announced their split today , are one of the most influential electronic acts of all time. Since their 1997 debut album ‘Homework’ spawned instant hits including ‘Around the World’, Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo developed the sound of French house internationally. And the Parisian pair soon became world-renowned for their now-iconic displays of anonymity too.

They were sampled by Kanye West on ‘Stronger’; appeared fully masked on a surreal GAP advert; collaborated with The Weeknd and bagged an Album of the Year award at the 2014 Grammys for 2013’s ‘Random Access Memories’, which featured collaborations with Nile Rodgers and Pharrell Williams . More unpredictably, they also soundtracked the Disney movie Tron: Legacy. And that’s without delving into their countless iconic music videos which also changed the game in terms of visuals.

After 28 years of changing the music world, they announced the split with an eight-minute video called Epilogue , the pair seen in the desert in their trademark futuristic helmets. When one of them hits a button, an explosion goes off and the screen turns to black. The video finishes with a pair of robot hands alongside the dates 1993-2021. A fitting end.

In honour of their incredible legacy , here are 10 of the best Daft Punk tracks ever .

‘Da Funk’ (1995)

One of the first tracks to send the name Daft Punk stratospheric in the mid-90s, ‘Da Funk’ is an endlessly replayable piece of pop-culture history that will still be relevant in another 100 years. The acid-infused instrumental, which is widely considered as one of the 1990s house music classics, is a hard-rock song disguised as a huge dance banger. An impressive achievement that set them on the path to genre-fusing greatness.

‘Around The World’ (1997)

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Fusing the worlds of disco, funk and electro and ushering in a new age of dance music, this lyrically simplistic earworm – which built on the momentum of their breakthrough hit ‘Da Funk’ – proves that if you’ve got a great pulsing beat and a catchy vocal that impossible to get out of your heard, listening to virtually the same thing for more than seven minutes is a delight rather than a drawn-out chore. Two-and-a-half decades later, this highlight of their ‘Homework’ album remains one of their most memorable tracks, as does its iconic video.

‘One More Time’ (2000)

The ultimate party anthem, this instantly recognisable banger and stand out of their ‘Discovery’ album sounds just as massive today as when it was released 21 years ago. There’s just something about it that hits all the right spots: as soon as the immediately uplifting beat kicks in, the robots deliver a slice of electro euphoria that’s arguably not been beaten. Its cultural impact cannot be understated either: since landing at the turn of the century, this slice of dance-pop perfection has kept audiences across the globe dancing wildly and singing at the top of their lungs.

‘Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger’ (2001)

One of their more playful and experimental tracks, this ‘Discovery’ highlight employed an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach. It’s easy to picture the masked robots having an awful lot of fun tinkering around with the production on this one, pitch-shifting the vocals in a million different ways and adding multiple sonic layers to the same track. The track would introduce the work of Daft Punk to a new audience of hip-hop fans when Kanye sampled it.

‘Digital Love’ (2001)

Here’s a straight-up love song full of longing and desire. You’ll remember it, too, from the weird GAP television advert in which both members of Daft Punk dance with Juliette Lewis while wearing their robotic helmets and gloves as well as GAP denim shirts and jeans. Genius marketing. For the nostalgia fans out there, it was also used by Nokia for a commercial of the Nokia 5300.

‘Technologic’ (2005)

Taken from their 2005 album ‘Human After All’, ‘Technologic’ is classic Daft Punk: squarely aimed at the dancefloor and full of robotic repetition, their fusion of an irritating yet inescapable childlike vocal, pulsing house beats and vocoder funk. And who could forget the creepy music video which, with its lipless animatronic doll, turned the bizarre-o-meter up to 11.

‘Robot Rock’ (2005)

Although it’s taken from the same album, ‘Robot Rock’ is a total parallel to ‘Technologic’: riding on a massive guitar riff that crunches alongside syncopated drums and a trademark vocoded robotic vocal, it’s an undeniable stadium-sized anthem that veers away from their house and techno origins.

‘Get Lucky’ (2013)

A hybrid of their trademark roboticised electro with old school disco grooves, ‘Get Lucky’ introduced the French duo to a poppier audience. Teaming up with Pharrell and Chic’ s funky frontman Nile Rodgers, the summer smash dominated radio playlists, club DJ sets and the charts for the best part of a year. It was impossible to get the song out of your head and rightfully ranks among their biggest contributions to pop music.

The Weeknd feat. Daft Punk, ‘Starboy’ (2016)

Nobody could’ve predicted a team-up between falsetto-toned widescreen R&B star The Weeknd and the masked Frenchmen, but Abel Tesfaye’s step into their uninhibited genre-fusing universe made for a fitting opening to his 2016 album of the same name . The subtle, moody, syncopated production took the duo in a more minimalist direction.

The Weeknd feat. Daft Punk, ‘I Feel It Coming’ (2016)

A total contrast to their work on ‘Starboy’, and in a similar vein to their disco-flecked production on ‘Get Lucky’, this understated radio-dominating album closer showed a totally different side to The Weeknd and proved that Daft Punk could make something danceable without throwing everything at it. An instant-pop soul classic.

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Homework (studio album) by Daft Punk

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Daft Punk bestography

Homework is ranked 3rd best out of 15 albums by Daft Punk on BestEverAlbums.com.

The best album by Daft Punk is Discovery which is ranked number 140 in the list of all-time albums with a total rank score of 10,507.

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Rating metrics: Outliers can be removed when calculating a mean average to dampen the effects of ratings outside the normal distribution. This figure is provided as the trimmed mean. A high standard deviation can be legitimate, but can sometimes indicate 'gaming' is occurring. Consider a simplified example* of an item receiving ratings of 100, 50, & 0. The mean average rating would be 50. However, ratings of 55, 50 & 45 could also result in the same average. The second average might be more trusted because there is more consensus around a particular rating (a lower deviation). (*In practice, some albums can have several thousand ratings) This album is rated in the top 5% of all albums on BestEverAlbums.com. This album has a Bayesian average rating of 76.2/100, a mean average of 75.1/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 76.3/100. The standard deviation for this album is 15.7.

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Pedrada boa! Não perde o fôlego!

It's fallen a little bit for me since the last time I listened to it, but it's fun. The exact kind of music that you turn your brain off to, which sounds like a backhanded compliment, but it's true. You just let this course through you and have fun with the grooves.

Although not as strong as what might follow there is no harm in a band growing into itself and not burning out on their first album never to repeat the quality or standard again. This is a very good album - perhaps a little too long, but has some great tunes including Teachers - that is just amazing

Love how raw, chaotic and in your face this album is! Truly their best work and they never topped it. It's their most iconic sound. Phenomenal debut.

Daft Punk’s debut may be a little repetitive and derivative at times, but it’s still really creative and a lot of fun.

Fav. Tracks: Revolution 909, Da Funk, Fresh, Around The World, Rollin' & Scratchin', High Fidelity, Burnin', Alive.

Favorite Tracks:Burnin', Indo Silver Club

I haven't felt more frustrated waiting for an album to be over in my entire life. Up until "Around the World" I was enjoying it a little bit, but even then, I thought it was somewhat repetitive, but not in a good way. After that, I was pretty much done, and I don't think the album was half over by then. Don't get me wrong, I really like Daft Punk, but I just feel like this is just a collection of songs rather than an 'album' if that makes any sense. It's over an hour long, when it should've been around 50 minutes. "Da Funk" is great, "Around the World" is great, and maybe 'Alive' is alright, but by then, I was genuenly too tired to care. Discovery and Random Access Memories are much, much better albums.

It's a fine debut, but I pretty much agree with the consensus here: It sounds funky but is a bit monotonous, nonetheless they go onto much greater things.

Classic french house.

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Best Daft Punk Songs: 20 Tracks That Revolutionised Electronic Music

With clever samples, era-defining beats and a few guest collabs, the best Daft Punk songs are timeless retrofuturistic classics.

When it comes to dance and electronic music, Daft Punk rewrote the rulebook. After forming in 1993, the acclaimed French duo immortalised themselves through their classic retrofuturistic aesthetic and countless timeless records. From their humble bedroom-production beginnings ( Homework ), Daft Punk have grown to become one of the most in-demand acts of all time, collaborating with everyone from Kanye West to The Weeknd, Nile Rodgers, Strokes’ frontman Julian Casablancas and numerous other musical A-listers. With such an extensive collection of inspiring hits, choosing the best Daft Punk songs no easy task – but here are 20 that we think fit the bill.

Listen to the best of Daft Punk here , and check out our best Daft Punk songs, below.

20: phoenix (1997).

Before Daft Punk were Daft Punk they shared the stage with Phoenix band member Laurent Brancowitz under the band name Darlin’, before disbanding and going their separate ways. Released as the fifth single from their debut record, Homework , Phoenix is a fun, upbeat tune that samples Elton John and Kiki Dee’s 1976 hit, Don’t Go Breaking My Heart. You won’t hear it spoken about much, but the hook is iconic, its raw danceable tone shimmering alongside a thumping Chicago house beat. The song would later be remixed by Basement Jaxx as part of Daft Punk’s first remix album, Daft Club , placing it in the company of acts such as The Neptunes and Slum Village.

19: High Life (2001)

Perhaps not as well known as it should be, High Life nevertheless holds its own among the Daft Punk’s best songs. A pure serotonin boost spinning a short looped vocal sample that leads the disco-esque track’s bouncing positive energy, it appeared on the duo’s game-changing Discovery  album, which helped take Daft Punk away from their Chicago house roots, incorporating disco, electronica and 70s pop as it redefined dance music for the 21st century.

18: Human After All (2005)

As the opening track on Daft Punk’s third full-length (and most underappreciated) album, Human After All sets the tone for the rest of the record. Proving they are, indeed, human – not the giant-headed robots we know them as – Daft Punk created the album in a mere six weeks with two guitars, two drum machines, a vocoder and one eight-track recorder. Thomas Bangalter stated that the record was “about this feeling of either fear or paranoia” rather than “something intended to make you feel good”. Its title track was a natural-sounding demonstration of Daft Punk’s wider goals for the album: a more improvised piece of work reflecting the music they wanted to create at the time.

17: Lose Yourself To Dance (2013)

Channelling more than just an inkling of disco, Lose Yourself To Dance begins with the instantly recognisable rhythm guitar of disco legend and Chic band member Nile Rodgers, who is closely followed by Pharrell Williams, who also turned in a notable performance on Random Access Memories ’ lead single, Get Lucky . Again channelling a more natural-sounding tone, the quartet of Daft Punk, Rodgers and Pharrell craft a silky smooth 80s-style production “meant to evoke the sense of being unified and connected on the dancefloor”, as Bangalter put it. Evidence that some of the Daft Punk’s best songs arise from collaboration, Lose Yourself To Dance utilises live drum performance and recorded claps which drive the song forward for a lighter, more instinctive dance feel.

16: Superheroes (2001)

Superheroes is one of those tracks that seems to take you to another galaxy. It is thumping (to say the least) yet very smooth-sounding, while also creating an uplifting ascent. The track samples Barry Manilow’s 1979 song Who’s Been Sleeping In My Bed, accompanied by a minimalist acid-house instrumental that leans towards a more glossy pop production. Boasting uncontrollable grooves, spacey synths, disco samples and synth-guitars, it’s classic Daft Punk.

15: Revolution 909 (1997)

Named after the Roland TR-909 drum machine – used heavily on Homework – Revolution 909 sees Daft Punk craft the ultimate instrumental house groove for the album’s final single. The song begins with a skit featuring crowd noises, car horns, police sirens and an officer declaring through a megaphone, “Stop the music and go home,” before the beat erupts in typical Daft Punk fashion. The skit and music video is said to be a reflection on the French government’s attitude towards rave parties, which Bangalter summed up as a lack of understanding of house music and culture.

14: Instant Crush (2013)

While working on the Tron: Legacy soundtrack, Thomas Bangalter and Guy De Homem-Christo – both fans of The Strokes – met with the group’s frontman, Julian Casablancas, in their studio to present him a demo. With vocals, guitar and additional production from Casablancas, Instant Crush became a highlight on Daft Punk’s fourth album, Random Access Memories . With chilled-out melodic verses and choruses offering an infectious synth-pop groove, the track itself offers a masterclass in simplicity and is an iconic collaboration among Daft Punk’s best songs.

13: Something About Us (2001)

One of the more stripped-back, R&B-tinged productions you may hear from Daft Punk, yet also one the most impactful. Something About Us is a romantic head-bob of a track exhibiting the more soulful songwriting that made Discovery an album for the ages. Incorporating sweet keyboards, slow funk bass and wah-wahed lead melodies, the duo produced a surreal yet intimate retrofuturistic sound.

12: Voyager (2001)

Once again displaying Discovery ’s magnificent genre-splicing, the disco-orientated Voyager is fresh and extremely funky, suited to any setting – whether that’s a workout , dancing alone in your room or finishing off your homework. Incorporating ambient textures, rhythmic guitar and an addictive bassline that the likes of Bernard Edwards (Chic co-founder) would have been envious of, Voyager remains one of the best Daft Punk songs.

11: Face To Face (2001)

This glitchy disco-pop anthem features harsh samples from not one but two Electric Light Orchestra records, Evil Woman and Can’t Get It Out Of My Head, and was the fifth single from Discovery . Featuring vocals from American house producer Todd Edwards, of whom Daft Punk are passionate fans, this fruity number also found Edwards assisting on composition and overall production. Having found themselves fashioning one of the best Daft Punk songs together, the trio later reunited for another go on Random Access Memories ’ Fragments Of Time.

10: Robot Rock (2005)

The lead single from Daft Punk’s controversial third album, Human After All , Robot Rock consolidated everything that makes rock and dance music so powerful, with thrashing power chords, guitars, effects pedals and an outrageous synthesiser line lifted from Breakwater’s Release The Beast. It’s not Daft Punk’s most creative use of sampling, but there wasn’t much need for that with the pure gold they found on Robot Rock. As with Human After All , the single received a mixed response, though it’s probably the most typical Daft Punk-sounding track on the album.

9: Technologic (2005)

Arguably the most impactful single from Human After All , Technologic rocks in true Daft Punk fashion, its robotic hook touching on our reliance on technology (“Buy it, use it, break it, fix it, trash it, change it, mail, upgrade it/Charge it, point it, zoom it, press it, snap it, work it, quick erase it”). The single itself has been re-used and remixed several times, notably by Busta Rhymes on Touch It, produced by Swizz Beats, and by Dua Lipa on a performance of Hallucinate that made up part of her Studio 2054 concert, livestreamed in November 2020. Daft Punk later borrowed Rhymes’ Touch It back for their Alive 2007 live album, mashing it up with Technologic for a famed performance that included additional samples from Robot Rock and Voyager.

8: Crescendolls (2001)

Those familiar with Interstella 5555: The 5tory Of The 5ecret 5tar 5ystem , the anime film which accompanied Discovery , may recall that Crescendolls was the name of the movie’s intergalactic protagonist pop group. Not many songs can follow Harder Better Faster Stronger on a tracklist, yet Crescendolls manages remarkably well, crafting a knees-up party anthem with hard-hitting disco/house grooves, pulsating synths and epic soul samples that hold their own among the top Daft Punk songs.

7: Aerodynamic (2001)

Beginning with some ominous bell sounds, Aerodynamic’s unforgettable groove blends house, disco, electro and rock, and featuring a lavish guitar solo more obviously suited to a 70s-style progressive rock track. Even incorporating elements of baroque music (as is evident in the last minute of the tune), Guy Manuel De Homem-Christo described Aerodynamic as “a mix between the past and the future, maybe the present’”. Undoubtedly one of Daft Punk’s finest instrumental efforts.

6: Da Funk (1995)

Filthy in the best possible way, the electronic frenzy of Da Funk is built on a G-funk-type groove, urban nightlife samples and a hip-hop beat inspired by Warren G’s 1994 classic, Regulate. It’s crazy to think that Da Funk didn’t receive much attention following its release, in May 1995, but when The Chemical Brothers started including it in their live performances, the song received the wider attention it deserved. Cementing its status as one of the most iconic Daft Punk songs of all time was the Spike Jonze-directed music video, which featured a crutch-using, boombox-carrying anthropomorphic dog wandering the streets of New York City.

5: Get Lucky (2013)

If you haven’t heard Get Lucky by now, then please come out from under your rock. The first tase of Daft Punk’s long-awaited fourth album, Random Access Memories , it tore up even Daft Punk’s own rulebook, paying homage to the duo’s original 70s and 80s funk and disco influences. Scrapping their gritty electronica sound in order to record soul and funk grooves with disco-master Nile Rodgers, overlaid with vocals from hip-hop and pop icon Pharrell Williams, the group scored a global smash that immediately took its place among the best Daft Punk songs. At the time of its release, Get Lucky broke streaming records to become the most-played song in a single day on Spotify. It also saw Daft Punk win Record Of The Year and Best Pop Duo/Group Performance Grammys, with Random Access Memories also taking home the Album Of The Year and Best Dance/Electronic Album awards at the 56th Grammys ceremony.

4: Digital Love (2001)

One of the most romantic efforts among the Daft Punk’s best songs, Digital Love is enhanced by DJ Sneak’s lyrics, which speak on feelings of unresolved love and longing. Sung by Daft Punk in typical vocoder style, the tune evokes imagery of romanticising lost loves through a sea of time and space and, in the case of the Interstella 5555 movie, dreaming alone on top of your bed in a spaceship shaped like a Gibson Flying V. An utterly contagious sample of George Duke’s I Love You More induces feelings of nostalgia, but as the track continues, the beat feels heavier and more house-like, bouncing alongside rising pads, dreamy keys and soloing synth-guitar to produce an expertly structured and heartfelt anthem.

3: Around The World (1997)

Over 20 years after its release, Around The World remains a game-changer for both the electronic and dance music genres. Simple yet ever so effective, the duo repeated the song’s title 144 times over a backdrop of synth licks, thumping drums and what quickly became one of the most iconic basslines in 90s dance. Unsurprisingly, the single fulfilled the promise of its title and became a major club hit around the world, peaking at No.1 in the dance charts across the UK, US, Italy, Iceland and Canada. Michael Gondry also tapped into Daft Punk’s expert use of repetition in the track for its promo video, which featured four distinctive groups of dancers dancing in a circular motion, representing a vinyl record as well as each of the song’s individual instruments.

2: Harder Better Faster Stronger (2001)

Probably the most distinguishable (and undoubtedly one of the best) Daft Punk songs, Harder Better Faster Stronger delivers a springy, raw, disco-infused instrumental bolstered by synth-funk bass, trashy cymbals and the notable Edwin Birdsong sample (Cola Bottle Baby). For Alive 2007 , the duo remixed the tune with Around The World and Human After All ’s Steam Machine for a legendary – and Grammy-nominated – live performance that can still rock listeners to their core. Let’s also not forget Kanye West’s Stronger, which popularised Daft Punk’s already global hit even further after he sampled it for the second single from his 2007 album, Graduation .

1: One More Time (2000)

Few tracks have as much universal appeal as One More Time . Topping our list of the best Daft Punk songs, it remains instantly recognisable and confidently stands as one of the greatest party anthems of all time. The track itself boils down to clever sampling, futuristic effects-processing and an autotuned vocal from US DJ and singer Romanthony, whose vocals glide effortlessly across the booming side-chained beat. One More Time powered through the charts, paving the way for Discovery to become the duo’s most famed and critically well-received album. By 2013, the song had sold over a million copies – a first for Daft Punk – solidifying itself as the pair’s most celebrated and inspirational record.

Find out why One More Time is the gift that keeps giving.

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Few records combine sonic innovation with veneration for what came before as succinctly as Daft Punk’s 1997 debut, Homework. The title itself implies this duality: It’s a reference to both the bedroom studio where musicians Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo recorded their early house and techno productions, and a nod to the older artists the duo studied in preparation for their dance music breakthrough. Many of those musical ancestors are name-checked on the Homework track “Teachers,” on which Bangalter and Homem-Christo salute the (mostly) electronic music producers and DJs who inspired their work. That includes plenty of semi-obscure Chicago house music heroes and Detroit and UK techno champions, many of whom predated Daft Punk by a decade—but who were still active in the late-1990s rave scene. By tagging their peers, the members of Daft Punk were expressing solidarity with the many BIPOC artists whom they’d obsessed over for years. It was a declaration of belonging that could have come off as appropriation, had Homework not so fully elevated the genre. Bangalter and Homem-Christo might wear their influences on their sleeve, but their music transcends mere tribute; it’s some of the most unforgettable hook-laden house and techno ever put to wax. When it comes to the dance floor, if a record’s hot, that record is hot. And DJs across the globe pumped Homework’s 16 tracks, which included everything from playful filtered disco (“Revolution 909”) to throttling acid techno (“Rollin’ & Scratchin’”). Meanwhile, radio jocks and MTV programmers on the lookout for format-friendly versions of popular rave sounds swooned over Homework cuts like “Da Funk” and “Around the World,” which became breakout hits, thanks to inventive videos directed, respectively, by Spike Jonez and Michel Gondry. That near-impossible confluence of talent and timing allowed Homework to achieve its position atop every list of 1990s electronic music. As time went on, the members of Daft Punk would prove themselves worthy of every accolade Homework received as they continued to evolve from students to teachers to masters—elevating the state of electronic music every step of the way.

January 20, 1997 16 Songs, 1 hour, 14 minutes Distributed exclusively by Warner Music France / ADA France, ℗ 1997 Daft Life Ltd.

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• Indonesia (English)
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The 10 Best Daft Punk Songs of All-Time

Daft Punk has split up. However, there can be no doubt about the duo’s impact on dance music and thus modern music as a whole. Almost three decades have seen Daft Punk release more than 20 singles, which include some that promise to be remembered for a long time to come.

10. Teachers

“Teachers” is a song on Daft Punk’s debut album Homework. It wasn’t one of the singles. However, it was nonetheless notable because it was a shout-out to a huge number of musicians who had influenced the duo in one way or another, thus making it very clear why Homework was called Homework. For the most part, the musicians were pretty much what one would expect, but it is interesting to note that there were names such as Dr. Dre and Brian Wilson, which foreshadowed Daft Punk’s willingness to take inspiration from a very wide range of sources.

9. Disc Wars

Daft Punk was the perfect choice for the Tron: Legacy soundtrack. This is because of their sometimes retrofuturistic sound, which was very fitting for the follow-up to a sci-fi movie inspired by Pong of all things. As such, it was no wonder that both the movie’s director and the movie’s sound supervisor approached Daft Punk to do the job. “Disc Wars” is one of the best songs from the resulting soundtrack.

8. Digital Love

This Discovery single is an excellent example of Daft Punk’s ability to draw inspiration from the past before using that to create something new of their own. It is most notable for featuring a sample from George Duke’s “I Love You More.” However, “Digital Love” was also reminiscent of other past greats .

7. Get Lucky

“Get Lucky” was the lead single from Daft Punk’s fourth album Random Access Memories, which for the foreseeable future, is their final album as well. It was a huge hit in 2013, helped along by both Pharrell Williams’s vocals and Nile Rodgers’s guitar-playing. Moreover, “Get Lucky” seems to possess a considerable measure of staying power, seeing as how it remains well-liked even though that initial rush of enthusiasm has faded.

6. I Feel It Coming

Technically, “I Feel It Coming” is a song by the Weeknd . However, it still counts because it featured Daft Punk. “I Feel It Coming” isn’t the only song that the two acts collaborated upon, but it tends to be better-known than “Starboy,” which was the title track on the relevant album. Regardless, both songs make it very clear that the two acts made for a very good team-up.

“Da Funk” wasn’t Daft Punk’s first single, but it came out before their first album, on which it was also included. More relevantly, the song was a considerable success, meaning that it played a notable role in propelling Daft Punk to further prominence. Even now, “Da Funk” can be deemed a true classic of the house music of the 1990s, particularly because of its Spike Jonze-directed video that served to further cement it in the minds of both critics and consumers.

4. Crescendolls

“Crescendolls” is one of the songs off of Discovery. The name can seem rather strange because there aren’t a lot of things that immediately come to mind based on that particular jumble of word parts. Instead, everything makes more sense when one remembers that Discovery was paired with an actual, no-kidding anime movie called Interstella 5555 that had no dialogue but nonetheless managed to tell its story by just playing Discovery songs throughout. “Crescendolls” refers to the Crescendolls, which would be the name of the alien band whose members serve as the protagonists of the anime movie.

3. Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

“Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” is another song off of Discovery. Unlike “Crescendolls,” it is much better-known. In part, this is because it was one of the album’s six singles, meaning that it was always going to have an advantage in this regard. Even so, it is also important to point out that “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” was a huge critical and commercial success. For proof, consider how it walked away with the Grammy for Best Dance Recording in 2009, which is no mean achievement. Under those circumstances, it was no coincidence that it became one of Daft Punk’s most iconic tracks. Something that goes hand-in-hand with it being one of the better songs released in the 2000s.

2. Around the World

Songs don’t necessarily to be particularly complicated to be good. This is shown by “Around the World,” which is simple and repetitive in nature. Said description isn’t a matter of personal judgment. Instead, it was the assessment of a study of repetitiveness in Billboard Hot 100 hits. The relevant scientist Colin Morris looked into a total of 15,000 songs based on compression algorithms. His findings revealed that “Around the World” was the most repetitive of them all. Regardless, it is important to note that the song isn’t good in spite of this. Instead, one can argue that it is good because of this. Certainly, a lot of people agreed with the general positive assessment of “Around the World” in the late 1990s because its success further cemented the reputation that Daft Punk had already built for themselves.

1. One More Time

If people are asked to name the Daft Punk song, there is a very good chance of “One More Time” coming up. Amusingly, it was actually criticized at the time of its release because of its use of a vocoder. However, its silence has managed to silence all criticism in that regard. Regardless, “One More Time” is also well-known because of the vocals provided by Romanthony, who apparently found it fascinating to hear the way that his vocals were changed to make them more in-line with Daft Punk’s vision for the song. Speaking of which, it is said that the duo didn’t release the song right away but instead kept it close for two years’ choice. Something that proved to be more than worthwhile in the end.

You can also read:

• Ranking All of the No Doubt Studio Albums
• The 10 Best Cody Johnson Songs of All-Time
• Ranking Every Usher Studio Album
• The 10 Best Kacey Musgraves Songs of All-Time
• Ranking All of the Limp Bizkit Studio Albums

Linda has been writing professionally since November 2012. She began at a small local paper covering up and coming bands. She covers numerous genres of music but her favorites are Pop, Rock, Heavy Metal, Rap, and even the classics. If you catch Linda at a wedding be sure to check out the dance floor. She doesn't hold back.

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Darkness, drama and Daft Punk: the Weeknd’s best songs – ranked!

20. Kiss Land (2013)

Abel Tesfaye’s first album proper was released to a muted reception and middling sales – a relative misstep. But it’s not without its charms, among them the seven-minute, two-part title track: too opaque and ambitious to release as a single, perhaps, but with a dark power to its churning synth backing.

19. Tell Your Friends (2015)

Co-written by Kanye West, among others – the 70s soul-influenced intro could have slotted perfectly on to The College Dropout – Tell Your Friends is a ballad that ruminates on fame in equivocal terms: it’s intriguingly unclear whether the lyrics are boastful or jaded, a litany of success’s spoils or a comment on said spoils’ meaninglessness.

18. Take My Breath (2021)

The lead single from Dawn FM , Take My Breath is fantastic: euphoric disco-house with a synth riff that recalls Daft Punk’s Da Funk , lent an iciness by the lead vocal. But it’s best heard on the album: the segue into it from the wracked How Do I Make You Love Me? is, well, breath-taking.

17. Starboy (ft Daft Punk) (2016)

It says something about how smooth and successful the Weeknd’s collaboration with Daft Punk was that Starboy was written in 30 minutes, based on a beat that was on Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo’s phone: the result – mid-tempo, sleek but sad – went on to sell a staggering 11m copies in the US.

16. Save Your Tears (2020)

On any other album – or rather an album that didn’t also feature Blinding Lights – Save Your Tears would be the unequivocal smash hit: a fabulous retooling of clipped synthpop with a killer melody, that smartly digs deep into the ineffable melancholy that lurks around a lot of 80s anthems.

15. Call Out My Name (2018)

A triple-platinum single that eventually occasioned a plagiarism lawsuit from a duo called Epikker – their case, which alleged all kinds of shady dealings, was settled out of court. But forget the legal drama and listen to the actual song: it’s a powerful, emotive ballad with a monochrome spookiness to the production that hits hard, whoever wrote it.

14. Reminder (2016)

Another multimillion seller from Starboy, and as close to straightforward R&B as that album got, Reminder faced down critics who claimed the Weeknd was going too pop – “I’m like, goddamn, bitch, I am not a Teen Choice” – and co-opted a succession of huge hip-hop names as cameos in its video to underline the point.

13. House of Balloons / Glass Table Girls (2011)

An early sign of Tesfaye’s enduring interest in the 80s – it’s built around a sample from Siouxsie and the Banshees’ Happy House, while the lyrics leaned into that track’s suggestion that happiness is seldom what it seems: as the song progresses, it’s increasingly clear the party it depicts is darkly out of control.

12. Faith (2020)

Falsetto vocals and a fantastic, slowly building production, courtesy of Metro Boomin, frame the apparently saga of a lost weekend in Vegas, and indeed of the Weeknd lost in Vegas: intended as Tesfaye’s farewell to a hedonistic era of his life, it all ends in grief in the back of a police car.

11. The Party and the After Party (2011)

A lengthy two-part track that embodies the sleazy persona debuted on Tesfaye’s initial trio of mixtapes: coercive, manipulative, damaged, drugged-out. The skill lies in surrounding the lyrics with music that somehow makes a total creep seem oddly irresistible: an appealingly spacey, disjointed production based on a sample from indie band Beach House.

10. Earned It (2014)

Given the persona he projected, Tesfaye was perhaps a natural choice for the soundtrack of glossy S&M-themed movie Fifty Shades of Grey. Nevertheless, he really pulled out the stops on Earned It – the dramatic 60s pop ballad strings were an unexpected departure, his vocal heartfelt and powerful.

9. High for This (2011)

The opening track on his debut mixtape, and thus the world’s introduction to the Weeknd, is an immediately striking entrance: the music offers murkily disturbing electronics, the lyrics attempt to talk an apparently unwilling partner into either taking drugs or having sex or both. It’s incredibly bleak, disturbing and unforgettable.

8. Less than Zero (2022)

Its title swiped from Bret Easton Ellis’s debut novel – a marathon of coked-out ennui – Less than Zero was the Dawn FM track that most obviously recalled After Hours’ obsession with 80s synthpop. It’s a brilliant piece of songwriting: maddeningly catchy, richly melodic, far more downcast than its snappy rhythm suggests.

7. The Birds, Pt 1 (2011)

The highlight of the Weeknd’s second mixtape, The Birds, Pt 1 throws a clattering military drumbeat against moody synths and feedback-drenched guitar, made all the more unsettling for being kept low in the mix. The lyrics warn off a besotted girl: the acoustic coda speaks of genuine self-loathing and desperation rather than you-can’t-handle-me grandstanding.

6. Can’t Feel My Face (2015)

Pop super producer Max Martin earned his keep here: Can’t Feel My Face propelled the Weeknd from acclaimed R&B star to pop sensation, loading a song that anyone could work out was a metaphorical paean to cocaine with so many exuberant hooks that its subject ceased to matter.

5. I Feel It Coming (2016)

Another collaboration with Daft Punk, I Feel It Coming channels the spirit of Off the Wall-era Michael Jackson over a slowed-down take on the super-smooth disco sound the French duo had pursued, and offered the listener the unusual sound of the Weeknd being straightforwardly romantic: deservedly a huge hit.

4. After Hours (2020)

After Hours begins in trademark Weeknd style: echoing guitar, falsetto vocals, creepy electronic atmospherics. But it gradually gathers pace over six minutes, transforming into an electro-house track without ever quite shaking the initial sense of unease: it still feels shadowy and ominous even as it propels you towards the dancefloor.

3. Blinding Lights (2019)

Its record-breaking success made Blinding Lights less a hit than a fact of daily life. You couldn’t escape it, or its subsequent influence: its 80s pastiche sound inspired a string of hits by other artists. That it somehow withstood being overplayed and imitated says something about its quality: it still sounds weirdly fresh.

2. Wicked Games (2011)

The Weeknd’s debut single offered the sound and mood of Tesfaye’s initial mixtapes in a nutshell: murky, lo-fi music, impassioned vocals, lyrics that are alternately wilfully reprehensible and racked at their own lack of morality. It carves authentically appealing pop music out of deeply unlikely source material: no wonder it attracted attention.

1. The Hills (2015)

In a sense, The Hills was the Weeknd returning to the style that had made his name – it’s certainly substantially less poppy than I Can’t Feel My Face or Earned It. But it offered a kind of widescreen take on the sound of his mixtape Trilogy, the musical equivalent of an acclaimed indie director successfully transitioning to mainstream Hollywood. Everything is sharper, bigger, more striking, without losing any of the unsettling power that drew people to it in the first place; it condensed his episodic song structures into four incident-packed minutes. He’s had bigger hits, but The Hills might be the track you’d play to explain to someone why the Weeknd stood out.

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A vibrant journey through the life of cultural icon Pharrell Williams, told through the lens of LEGO animation. A vibrant journey through the life of cultural icon Pharrell Williams, told through the lens of LEGO animation. A vibrant journey through the life of cultural icon Pharrell Williams, told through the lens of LEGO animation.

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• Trivia Released the same year as Illumination's Despicable Me 4 (2024) ; coincidentally, both films have music by Pharrell Williams and are distributed by studios owned by Comcast (Universal Pictures and Focus Features, respectively). Additionally, "Happy", from Despicable Me 2 (2013) , will be featured in the film.

2024 TIFF Festival Guide

• October 11, 2024 (United States)
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Music and Concerts | The 5 San Diego concerts you won’t want to…

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Music and concerts | the 5 san diego concerts you won’t want to miss this week, our picks include the messthetics and james brandon lewis at soda bar, nathan and noah east at the 13th annual jazz at the creek festival, tower of power at humphreys, sylvie simmons at folk arts rare records, and the bellrays at the casbah.

The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis, with The Hector Penalosa Gang

On paper, the teaming of James Brandon Lewis and The Messthetics makes little sense.

So little, in fact, that some might well wonder what the 41-year-old Lewis — one of the most acclaimed jazz saxophonists, composers and band leaders of his generation — is doing with The Messthetics, a trio whose bassist and drummer, Joe Lally and Brandon Canty, rose to prominence in the late 1980s as members of the highly influential post-hardcore punk band Fugazi.

And how does cutting-edge electric guitarist Anthony Pirog, the Messthetics’ third member, fit into the picture? Very well, fortunately, as do Lewis, Lally and Canty.

Jazz, rock, funk, reggae and more are all qualitative equals for these four musicians, whose enthusiasm for performing together is palpable throughout their terrific recent debut album, “The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis.”

It was released, significantly, by Impulse! Records, the same label that was once home to such jazz-and-beyond giants as Charles Mingus, Pharoah Sanders Sun Ra and Alice Coltrane.

By turns charged and contemplative, carefully arranged and freewheeling, Lewis and The Messthetics’ eight-song album is an all-too-rare collaboration that should appeal to jazz and adventuresome rock fans alike. The group’s music uses familiar components in fresh and unfamiliar ways, creating an inviting blend that never quite goes where you might expect but often lands somewhere even better.

One can only imagine what happens when this band ignites on a concert stage, even (and especially) in an indie-rock-oriented venue like Soda Bar. The Messthetics last performed at this earthy City Heights nightspot in 2019. The chance to hear them here with Lewis, whose San Diego appearances are rare at best, may confer bragging rights on anyone savvy enough to attend.

7:30 p.m. Thursday. Soda Bar, 3615 University Ave., City Heights. $24.21 (you must be 21 or older to attend). sodabar.com

Nathan & Noah East

On Oct. 8, San Diego-bred bass guitar great Nathan East will perform at Pechanga Arena San Diego with Eric Clapton, whose band he has been a mainstay in since 1986.

On Saturday, you can see East perform in a far more intimate setting when he and his musician son, singer and keyboardist Noah East, headline the opening day of the 13th annual Jazz at the Creek festival on the south lawn of San Diego’s Educational Cultural Complex.

Noah has been working on a duo album with his acclaimed father, Nathan, whose many musical collaborators over the years have ranged from B.B. King, Daft Punk, Barbra Streisand and The Weeknd to Herbie Hancock, Ringo Starr, Michael Jackson, Joe Satriani and Donna Summer.

A 2022 UC Berkley graduate, Noah is now a member of The Cream of Clapton, a band that teams him with Eric Clapton’s guitar-playing nephew, Will Johns. Nathan memorably joined his son on stage during Cream of Clapton’s concert last year at the Balboa Theater .

Saturday will provide the welcome opportunity to hear this talent-rich father-and-son musical team perform their own music at what, at least for Nathan, should be a celebratory homecoming gig. Sunday’s Jazz at the Creek lineup includes Jonathan Butler and Poncho Sanchez.

13th annual Jazz at the Creek festival. 1 to 7 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. South lawn of the Educational Cultural Complex, 4343 Ocean View Blvd., San Diego. $74.61 per day (general admission), $214.99 per day (VIP dinner package); must be 21 or older to attend. eventbrite.com

Tower of Power

Oakland’s Tower of Power is on a new roll.

Two years after teaming up with the San Diego Symphony for the first orchestral concert in its six-decade history, the Bay Area-bred funk and soul band is returning with what is — depending on who is counting — either the 50th or 51st lineup to date.

Now on board is new drummer Pete Antunes and new lead singer Jordan John, who was all of 16 when he played at a jam session with Prince. Antunes has especially big shoes to fill. He replaces Tower of Power co-founder David Garibaldi, whose propulsive funk chops and jazzy syncopations set a very high bar.

Is he up to the task? You can soon find out.

7:30 p.m. Friday.. Humphreys Concerts by the Bay, 2241 Shelter Island Drive, Shelter Island. $70. ticketmaster.com

Sylvie Simmons

Folk Arts Rare Records is a not-so-missing link between former San Diego singer-songwriter Tom Waits and acclaimed music scribe and best-selling author Sylvie Simmons, who has written about Waits (and interviewed him) with impressive skill and insight.

A top contributor to England’s Mojo magazine — and, in prior years, the weekly Sounds — Simmons is the author of such memorable books as 2012’s “I’m Your Man: The Life of Leonard Cohen” and 2001’s “Serge Gainsbourg: A Fistful of Gitanes.” She is also a singer-songwriter with several softly inviting albums to her credit.

It is in her capacity as a lilting troubadour that Simmons will be featured Saturday afternoon at Folk Arts, the fabled record store where the young Tom Waits often hung out and was mentored by Folk Arts founder Lou Curtiss, who died here in 2018 .

“Folk Arts is a soul-food library and seed bank, much like the Library of Congress, where you go to light your torch,” Waits told the Union-Tribune in 2003. “All the secrets of the universe are there…”  This weekend, Simmons will light that torch anew.

5 p.m. Saturday, Folk Arts Rare Records, 3610 University Ave. North Park. Free. (619) 282-7833   

The BellRays, with Scary Pierre and River Mouse

Tenacity and unfaltering aural combustion are the twin hallmarks of The BellRays, the Riverside-bred band that next year celebrates its 35th anniversary.

The one-woman, three-man group’s longevity is all the more impressive in light of the fact that, its music has yet to catch on with a broader audience.

Led by the husband-and-wife team of vocal powerhouse Lisa Kekula and guitarist Bob Vennum, the BellRays hail from Southern California, but their heart clearly resides in the music of Detroit circa 1969 and 1970.

This, after all, is a band that has sounded equally at home covering songs by The Temptations (“Ball of Confusion”) and proto-punk-rock pioneers MC5 (whose 2005 iteration included Kekula on vocals).

The BellRays’ own, proudly no-frills songs may not rise to that level, but few do. And when this band gets cooking on stage, its raw, high-octane songs create considerable combustion.

8:30 p.m. Thursday. The Casbah, Kettner Blvd., Miiddletown. $15 (you must be 21 or older to attend). casbahmusic.com

More in Music and Concerts

Music and Concerts | A playlist of songs to listen to at the beach, inspired by San Diego

Arts & Culture Newsletter: Casbah music club at 35 is happy to stay put

Music and Concerts | Def Leppard, Journey, Steve Miller Band: 15 things to know if you are going to Friday’s Petco Park concert

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Music and concerts | exclusive: san diego symphony set for new era, after $125 million-plus concert hall redesign.

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Recommended artists/songs that sound like "Homework"?

I'm desperately trying to find more artists or songs that sound like "Homework" and hope you guys can help!

Specifically, something like "Alive" and "Rollin' & Scratchin'" or "Rock'n Roll." But I'm just as interested in finding more songs in the spirit of "Da Funk" or "Around The World."

The closest in the spirt of this has been Digitalism (songs like "Jupiter Room" and "The Pulse") and Justice, plus certain songs from Deadmau5 ("Some Chords", "Superliminal," etc), Boys Noize ("& Down" etc), and one-offs from Moderat ("A New Error"), Deorro ("Five Hours"), and even Calvin Harris ("Slow Acid").

An earlier thread in this subreddit helped point me to more "modern" Daft Punk similar artists, like Cherokee and Uppermost, which is fantastic, but I'm looking for the spirit of old school Daft Punk. I've searched pretty exhaustively but there's so much EDM out there now that it's really hard to dig through the lame stuff to find smaller artists that may fit this bill.

Thanks for any help!

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