THROWBACK THURSDAY: Daft Punk – ‘Drive’ [1994]
This week marks 21 years since the launch of Homework, the album that catapulted two young Parisians, Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter, to superstardom as Daft Punk.
Two years previously, around the time the duo released their first single, The New Wave (a reworked version would appear on Homework under the title Alive), they recorded a track called Drive – a screeching, distorted techno stomper that was allegedly slated as a B Side for Rollin and Scratchin.
Of course, the fact that Rollin and Scratchin (itself an absolute beast) ended up as a B-side itself – to breakthrough single Da Funk – meant that Drive was never released…
…until 2011 that is. In September of that year, to commemorate 20 years of Soma Records, Drive was finally unleashed onto an unsuspecting public; further evidence, if it were needed, of the would-be robots legendary status in the annals of electronic music.
Since then, of course, Thomas and Guy-Manuel have teamed up with Nile Rodgers, Pharrell Williams and co to release Random Access Memories (I must confess, I am not a fan); an album that brought the duo more firmly into the pop spotlight.
But that album, too, is now five years old, meaning that all eyes are now on what Daft Punk’s next move might be. If they decide to go back to basics and release an album full of tracks as devastating as Drive, I, for one, won’t be complaining…
[Kudos to Soma Records for the YouTube upload]
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