Daft Punk released their second album, Discovery, on 26 February 2001, and while 17 years and two studio albums have passed (five if you count the soundtrack to Tron:Legacy and the two Alive albums, ’97 and 2007), there are still fewer moments in music more euphoric opening few bars of the album’s opener, One More Time.
More refined than the group’s debut, Homework, and yet still packing a punch – check out the supercharged Crescendolls and Superheroes – the album saw the emergence of Daft Punk’s fondness for the vocoder, which persisted across Human After All and reached its zenith in Random Access Memories, as well as the band don the now-legendary robot identities for the first time.
In fact, the inner sleeve of the vinyl features the duo in full robot garb.
According to the group’s Wikipedia page, Thomas Bangalter described the difference between Discovery and the band’s debut thus: “Homework […] was a way to say to the rock kids, like, ‘Electronic music is cool’. Discovery was the opposite, of saying to the electronic kids, ‘Rock is cool, you know? You can like that.”
The band’s change in direction was also reportedly influenced by Aphex Twin’s Windowlicker, which can only be a positive influence in anyone’s book.
As a review in Spin magazine in 2001, pictured below, put it, “Discovery’s opening is so obliteratingly great, it seems the world might be put permanently on hold. F**k all tomorrow’s parties, the sequence swears tonight’s never ending…”
We couldn’t agree more. Happy birthday, Discovery!
[Article snippet taken from Spin magazine, June 2001]