Daft Punk Announces Split With 8-Minute “Epilogue” Video
After nearly three decades together, Daft Punk has split.
Daft Punk, the highly influential and popular French dance duo who created global hits like “Around the World” and “One More Time,” are breaking up. The pair announced they were splitting with an eight-minute video titled “Epilogue,” which shows members Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo donning their iconic robot suits and walking through what appears to be a desert, before one activates a self-destruct button on the other’s suit, leading to him blowing up. The video is excerpted from their 2006 film Electroma.
Kathryn Frazier, Daft Punk’s longtime publicist, confirmed to Pitchfork that the split was true, but did not provide any explanation for the duo breaking up. Daft Punk was formed in Paris in 1993; four years later they released their debut album Homework, which featured singles like “Around the World” and “Da Funk.” In 2001, they released Discovery, the follow-up to Homework, that propelled them even further into mainstream success, thanks to hit singles “One More Time” and “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger.”
But the duo’s biggest hit is arguably from their last album, 2013’s Random Access Memories — “Get Lucky.” Featuring Pharrell and Nile Rodgers, the single was one of the most played songs of the decade. The duo also won two Grammys for the single as well.
Shortly after the release of Random Access Memories, Pharrell spoke about working with Daft Punk on the album, and their process in working on music compared to his.
“Well, they’re robots. Think about it. The very definition of a robot, that’s the way they approach everything. Everything is concise, precise, everything is gridded, there are no gray areas for them. I’ve learned a lot from them. Just not settling. They don’t understand settling — they just don’t understand that,” he told Vulture. “They believe in doing it 200 times more than the previous 200. But that’s why this album is absolutely unbelievable, second to none. Will it change music? I don’t know, because music is a funny thing these days. But will it change man? Mankind? And mentality? Absolutely.”