Maps of Music

Discovery (2001)

Where the lyrics of Discovery take you, and where it was really made.

Some of the 'samples' on Discovery were made by Daft Punk themselves, and listeners assumed they came from old disco or funk records.

Key places

Daft House, Paris (2001)

Recording site Pathé Marconi studios — Daft Punk recorded Discovery at Daft House, their studio in Bangalter's home in Paris, from 1998 to 2000. The map point is set at Paris city-center level, not at the exact building. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Album story

Overview

• Discovery: second studio album by the French electronic duo Daft Punk
• Released 12 March 2001 by Virgin Records
• Moved from the Chicago house of Homework (1997) toward a house style inspired by disco, post-disco, garage house, and R&B
• Concept album tied closely to the duo's childhood memories of cinema and character
• Six singles were released from the album

Background

• Bangalter described it as an exploration of song structures, musical forms, and childhood nostalgia
• Compared to the raw electronic music of Homework
• Bangalter said Homework inspired many artists to copy its sound, so Daft Punk chose a different direction
• Album designed to reflect a playful, honest, and open-minded attitude toward listening to music
• Bangalter compared the attitude to childhood, when one does not judge or analyse music
• Aphex Twin's Windowlicker inspired the goal of exploring song structures

Recording

• Recorded at Bangalter's home in Paris between 1998 and 2000
• The studio was called Daft House
• Work started in 1998 and lasted two years
• Rejected the TR-808 and TR-909 drum machines typical of house, using an Oberheim DMX, a LinnDrum, and a Sequential Circuits Drumtraks instead
• Used samplers such as the Akai MPC and E-mu SP-1200, plus Fender Rhodes and Wurlitzer electric pianos and vocoders
• Used the Auto-Tune software on vocals in a way it was not designed for
• Mastered by Nilesh Patel, who also mastered Homework
• Romanthony, Todd Edwards, and DJ Sneak contributed to some tracks

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Tracklist

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Formation

• Daft Punk is a French electronic music duo formed in 1993 in Paris by Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo.
• The duo grew out of their earlier band Darlin', which disbanded after around six months. The name Daft Punk came from a Melody Maker review of Darlin' that called their music "a daft, punky thrash."
• They were managed from 1996 to 2008 by Pedro Winter, head of Ed Banger Records.

Members

• Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo are the two core members.
• From 1999 to 2021 they performed in robot personas, with Bangalter in a silver helmet and Homem-Christo in gold.

Career

• The debut album Homework (1997) on Virgin Records was backed by the singles "Around the World" and "Da Funk".
• Discovery (2001) earned acclaim and hit singles including "One More Time", "Digital Love" and "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger". It became the basis for the animated film Interstella 5555 (2003).
• Human After All (2005) received mixed reviews. The duo also directed the film Electroma (2006).
• The Alive 2006/2007 tour is credited with broadening the appeal of dance music in North America. Alive 2007 won a Grammy.
• They composed the score for Tron: Legacy (2010).
• Random Access Memories (2013), released on Columbia Records, won five Grammy Awards in 2014, including Album of the Year. Its single "Get Lucky" was their first UK number-one.
• "Starboy" with the Weeknd (2016) was their only US Billboard Hot 100 number one.
• They announced their split in February 2021 after 28 years.
• Rolling Stone ranked them the 12th-greatest musical duo of all time in 2015.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Reception

At release

• Metacritic: average score of 74 out of 100, based on 19 reviews
• Some listeners were confused by the more polished sound, the heavy metal element of Aerodynamic, and the use of Auto-Tune
• AllMusic's John Bush said the duo had developed a sound worthy of past electro-pop technicians
• Q called it vigorous and innovative, and a towering, persuasive tour de force that transcends the dance label
• Spin's Joshua Clover called it disco's latest triumph, but said it flags a bit near the end
• NME's Stephen Dalton found the pop art ideas enthralling
• Entertainment Weekly's Will Hermes said the beat editing and EQ wizardry still wowed, while asking for less comedy and more ecstasy
• Mixmag called it the perfect non-pop pop album
• Rolling Stone's Ben Ratliff wrote that few songs matched the grandiosity of One More Time and found most of them muddled
• The Guardian's Alexis Petridis felt it was less coherent and successful than Homework

Reappraisal

• In 2021, Pitchfork listed Discovery among review scores it would change, upgrading its score from 6.4 to 10 out of 10
• In 2020, Petridis said he had reconsidered his Guardian review
• In a retrospective review for The Rolling Stone Album Guide (2004), Douglas Wolk gave it three and a half out of five

Records

• UK Albums Chart: number 2
• French Albums Chart: number 2
• US Billboard 200: number 23
• Canadian Albums Chart: debut at number 2, 13,850 copies in the first week
• France: triple platinum in 2007 for 600,000 copies
• United States: gold certification on 11 October 2010
• As of May 2013, 802,000 copies sold in the US
• At least 2.6 million copies sold as of 2005
• One More Time: number 1 on the French charts and Billboard Hot Dance Club Songs
• Face to Face: number 1 on Billboard Hot Dance Club Songs in 2004

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• Bangalter said Daft Punk also created fake samples that listeners assumed came from disco or funk records.
• Daft Punk told the press that their sampler exploded at their studio at 9:09 am on 9 September 1999, after which they woke as robots; Bangalter later blamed the 9999 bug, a precursor to Y2K.
• Every Discovery CD included a Daft Club membership card with a unique number for personalised access to the Daft Club website.
• Daft Punk brought the album and the finished story to Tokyo, hoping to make the anime film with their childhood hero Leiji Matsumoto.
• Todd Edwards recalled that he and Daft Punk each curated 70 samples to incorporate into Face to Face.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

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