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Comment by k-mcgrady | Hacker News Reader

>> "How did two obscure, older French guys..."

What? I'm not sure if this is just a US perspective but Daft Punk are very well known this side of the Atlantic (Ireland/UK).

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It's not a US perspective, that journalist is just massively out of touch.

I'm not sure of their actual commercial performance, but their cultural impact is widespread in the US. To the Pitchfork/Coachella crowd they're living legends and RAM was perhaps the most anticipated album this year.

Didn't they also do the entire soundtrack for the new Tron film? Obscure? Hardly!

It wasn't a film so much as it was the world's longest music video.

I'd agree with this.

They have done that before, with Inter Stella 5555.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8PrIzCX5mI

Don't forget Electroma.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daft_Punk's_Electroma

They only directed Electroma; they didn't do the music.

Can't watch it from the U.S.:

"This video contains content from WMG, SME, Dance all Day, CD Baby, Warner Chappell, UMPG Publishing and EMI, one or more of whom have blocked it in your country on copyright grounds. Sorry about that."

http://youtu.be/WgJGc-wRS9g?t=58s

Not the best quality, but it works.

Interstella 5555 was co-produced by Leiji Matsumoto (Space Battleship Yamato, Captain Harlock, Galaxy Express 999...), by the way, who Daft Punk were huge fans of as children. Need I say any more?

Awesome! Thank You :)

I'm not sure if you are saying that just because or because you know that what you say is actually true. Tron: Legacy was actually the first movie where the soundtrack was made before the film was finished, and the film was actually edited to fit the music (all other movies are scored after the final edit and the music is fit to the film).

You have a source for that information?

I don't have a linkable source. I heard it directly from an industry insider and apparently no one seems to have talked about it publicly. :(

I guess you'll just have to take it with a grain of salt.

(all other movies are scored after the final edit and the music is fit to the film)

In theory yes, but it happens more often than you'd think. A lot of editors cut to music - if the score isn't available, they'll often cut to some classical piece that can be freely used as a basis for the score without copyright worries. It's an easy way of making sure your edit has rhythm.

And on the US side of the Atlantic. They have had several hits.

While a fan of their stuff, I actually hate "Get Lucky"...

Hits in obscurity. This is different.

They have hit the Billboard top 100 previously.

http://www.billboard.com/artist/300085/daft-punk/chart?sort=...

And even more for their albums in their genre

http://www.billboard.com/artist/300085/daft-punk/chart?f=322...

MIT's radio show French Toast has been playing other tracks from the album, not as edgy as their older stuff but quite good. Get Lucky is catchy but a little repetitive.

It's a formulaic little disco song. It's calculated soulless pop. I don't get the appeal.

I had the opposite reaction. I quite like Get Lucky, but the other songs from the album felt really bland without anything that made them memorable. Not even worth pirating... No offense.

I also would have liked Get Lucky to have more of Daft Punk in it. As it is, I can only tell it is a DP song the last half minute of so when the vocoder section starts.

It appears to be a concept album about humans reaching their full potential (the stars) and is uplifting in general if not edgy. I compare it to Flaming Lips album Yoshimi. Even in Get Lucky there is a double meaning of up all night working on something and up all night to party, both equally valid.

What do you think about the George Barnett cover? I find it much more enjoyable than the original. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6NDY8FSr9M

I like it a bit better, it's still very repetitive and the beat just isn't that great to me. I like his voice better and the song is better when you remove daft punk from the equation oddly. I think that's why my stomach turned at the song it's not what I expect/want out of daft punk. Same problem w/ Around the world.

They are popular in Canada and the US by anyone who was around and listening to music in the 90s -;) Back in '97 they had the massive hit, "Around the World" [1], NME placed it at number 21 on its list "150 Best Tracks of the Past 15 Years" [2]. Here's the Youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9MszVE7aR4

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Around_the_World_%28Daft_Punk_s...

[2] http://www.nme.com/list/150-best-tracks-of-the-past-15-years...

The text following your quote substantiates their claim, you should respond to it: "their biggest previous single, 2000’s One More Time, peaked at No. 61 on the Billboard chart in the U.S., and they had limited Internet presence and no live performances in 2013"

I know and love Daft Punk as well, but by these and other commercial objective measures they are obscure. Daft Punk are famous in some circles, and unknown in others. In particular, Get Lucky has achieved chart success previously unknown to Daft Punk, which is interesting and makes one wonder how they broke through this time and not before.

how they broke through this time and not before.

By changing their sound and style.

He wasn't asking. It's a rhetorical question that explains why this article was written.

Operative word being 'were'. I lived through Discovery coming out in the club world back then. What's happened since has been a slow yet steady growth in their popularity/mythology. My parents know who they are now.

There was a pretty nice fervor surrounding their involvement in the Tron soundtrack as it was their first new work in 5 years. It went gold and peaked at number 4 in the billboard charts - not the dance charts, not soundtrack, the billboard 200. And that was just a soundtrack.

+1. Kanye West sampling them on a single a while ago helped a lot too to introduce them to millions of people. If anything their success proves that easy access to new music helps the cream rise to the top.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stronger_(Kanye_West_song)

Stronger was #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 - it features a Daft Punk sample; they were even in the single's music video.

The US is way more into dance music now than they were 10 or 20 years ago when Europe etc. were quite into it. Daft Punk are predominantly known for dance music, so this album got more interest from US music publications etc. Of course, this album is the least “dancey” they’ve made, and heh, no doubt that helped!

Billboard 61 isn't exactly "obscure" either. Also, they had one album in the Top 50, which is very good for an act in that genre of music.

They may not be the hottest act globally, but they are a well established band that transcended its own subculture.

"second rank" might be more fitting.

My college roommate and I were definitely jamming to Homework in 1998 or so. Around the World was a huge hit in the late 90's and people have been raving about their live shows at Coachella 2006 and the Alive 2007 tour forever. The new album and live performances have been highly anticipated for a long time.

Yeah that journalist is just out of touch. I'm not a fan of them but calling them obscure is like calling Radiohead obscure just because they haven't released an album in a while. And the success was pretty much assured, most fans have been dying for a new album. So the hype was already off the charts.

I happen to be in the US this summer and nobody I talk to has ever heard of them. Unless they're Internet people.

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