Daft Punk is one of France’s most successful musical acts, and one of the most influential acts in dance music history. The electronic music duo — the stage name of DJs and producers Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo — formed in 1993, achieved global success and was a pivotal part of the 1990s French house movement.
While their music is best described as house, it also combines elements of disco, funk, techno, rock, and synth-pop. Their albums, Homework (1997), Discovery (2001), and Random Access Memories (2013) all sold more than 2,000,000 copies, with the latter selling over 3,000,000.
Well-known Daft Punk singles include 1995’s “Da Funk,” 1997’s “Around the World,” 2000’s “One More Time,” 2001’s “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger,” and 2013’s “Get Lucky.” Bangalter also formed part of the trio known as Stardust, who released the popular 1998 single “Music Sounds Better with You,” along with DJ Alan Braxe and vocalist Benjamin Diamond.
The duo has worked with the likes of Kanye West, Missy Elliott, Pharrell Williams, Nile Rodgers, and Bob Sinclar, and they composed the score for 2010’s sci-fi sequel Tron: Legacy.
Daft Punk is famous for never performing or appearing in public without wearing masks, which allowed them to remain visually anonymous. Bangalter told Rolling Stone in 2013, “One thing I like about the masks is that I don’t have people constantly coming up to me and reminding me what I do. It’s nice to be able to forget.”
In 2021, however, their 28-year run as a duo ended. So what happened, and where are Bangalter and Homem-Christo now?
What happened to Daft Punk?
On February 22, 2001, Daft Punk posted a video on their YouTube channel titled “Epilogue.” The video depicted one robot exploding and another walking away, accompanied by text reading “1993–2021.” That same day, their publicist, Kathryn Frazier, confirmed they had split.
Their close friend and occasional collaborator, Todd Edwards, said in a 2023 episode of Memory Tapes that Bangalter and Homem-Christo were “going in different directions” but would still be working individually. The former was interested in exploring the film world, and the latter was interested in hip-hop.
Edwards also told Zane Lowe on The Zane Lowe Show in 2023 that he wouldn’t rule out a Daft Punk reunion at some point in the future (it should be noted that Bangalter did tell NPR a month later that he considered Daft Punk “a thing of the past,” but never say never).
Since their split, Daft Punk has released anniversary editions of Homework and Random Access Memories, and there are murmurings that a recorded and shelved album from 2018 may yet see the light of day. However, Bangalter and Homem-Christo have been doing their own thing for the most part.
Homem-Christo’s most prominent post-Daft Punk work was producing Travis Scott’s song “Modern Jam” for Scott’s album Utopia, which was released in July 2023.
Bangalter has been by far the busier of the two. In 2022, he contributed to Hofesh Shechter’s score for the comedy-drama movie En Corps and provided the score for the 90-minute French ballet Mythologies.
During the promotion of Mythologies, Bangalter noted that he would abstain from using his robotic persona indefinitely. He expressed concerns about AI and worrying technological developments, telling the BBC, “As much as I love this character, the last thing I would want to be, in the world we live in, in 2023, is a robot.”
In 2023, he performed an original composition at a 25-hour event called “La Grande Veillée,” celebrating the Théâtre de la Ville reopening in Paris. He also worked with the French artist JR and choreographer Damien Jalet to produce Chiroptera, a unique art project presented in front of the Place de l’Opera.
He then composed the music for Quentin Dupieux’s 2023 comedy movie DaaaaaalÃ! The solo soundtrack album was released on February 7, 2024. Most recently, on June 7, 2024, Bangalter released the six-hour solo soundtrack of the aforementioned Chiroptera.
Suffice it to say that both former Daft Punk members are still working and will undoubtedly continue to do so going forward. Whether or not they will ever reunite for more Daft Punk shenanigans in the future remains to be seen, but it would be most welcome.
Regardless, we wish Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo all the best with their future endeavors — though luck is rarely needed when you’re as wildly talented as those two.
