Guy-Manuel de Homem Christo (b. 8 February 1974) met Thomas Bangalter (b. 3 January 1975) when they both attended school in Paris, France, in 1987. In 1992, heavily influenced by the Beach Boys, they recorded a song under the name Darling, which in turn found its way onto a compilation single issued on Stereolab's Duophonic label. A review in the UK's Melody Maker described their effort as "a bunch of daft punk", which depressed the pair but unwittingly gave them a name for their next project. Increasingly influenced by the house sounds filtering across from the UK and the USA, they signed with the Scottish label Soma Records and, in 1994, released the single "New Wave". However, it was their 1995 offering, an insanely catchy slice of techno/funk, "Da Funk", that really set the Daft Punk bandwagon rolling, especially when the Chemical Brothers spotted its floor-filling potential during their DJ sets. One important factor in the duo's sound is that they are not dance music purists; neither had been to a dance club until 1992 and their music is as influenced as much by Roxy Music and the Ramones as it is by house and techno pioneers such as Laurent Garnier. There is also a strong streak of old-style disco running through their work; Bangalter's father wrote hits for Ottawan and the Gibson Brothers, and "Da Funk" is based around a riff from a vintage R303 bass machine. The re-release of "Da Funk" by Virgin Records, and the subsequent long-player Homework, broke Daft Punk to an overground audience that had for too many years seen French pop as synonymous with crooners such as Johnny Hallyday.
Bangalter's alter ego, Stardust, was responsible for "Music Sounds Better With You", one of the club anthems of 1998. After breaking so much new ground with their debut, the pressure was on the duo to repeat the success with their second album. Released in 2001, Discovery proved to be a far more commercial outing, allaying the hard house grooves of the debut with plenty of highly melodic retro synth-pop. Stand-out tracks "One More Time" (featuring Romanthony), "Digital Love" and "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" were immediately hailed as new classics.
In 2003, the duo teamed up with anime illustrator Leiji Matsumoto to create the animated movie Interstella 5555: The 5tory Of The 5ecret 5tar 5ystem. This tale of the kidnapping of an alien rock band by an evil record company from Earth was soundtracked by Daft Punk's Discovery. Their next release was the curious Human After All (2005), a hastily recorded album which stripped away the studio polish of Discovery in a misguided attempt to lend the duo's sound a more spontaneous feel.
