Yeah, that's BS, Daft Punk are regarded as the kings of commercial dance music. You don't have to be into them (I'm not, though I too like their new work) to recognize this and respect them for it. The writer omits to mention that DP also scored (and appeared in) the long-awaited and heavily-promoted Tron: Legacy film released in 2010.

The mystery of it — What did it mean? Was Daft Punk announcing a new song? A new album? Something else?—attracted millions to the site on the first day.

...which should have been a clue to their pre-existing popularity. The marketing campaign for the album was very conventional, indeed old-fashioned; straight-up saturation through old media channels like flyposters, billboards and TV. But rather than being a throwback to the 60s or 70s, this is how (mainstream) music used to be marketed up to the 00s, when file-sharing, recession and war sent the industry into a general funk.

Part of the signaling here is to position DP as a big, established act - a classic example of 'the medium is the message.' Another part is that the band members have never been into personal publicity, so TV interviews are not gong to happen and they're not especially video-oriented either.

For a less well-known act also doing a 'comeback' release but taking a much more viral approach, check out Warp Records' low-key campaign for the new Boards of Canada album, which started with a few records placed and then found by customers in record stores on 'Record Store Day' and used cryptic clues hidden in places like web page headers to guide fans to an un-advertised website, culminating in a livestream of the whole album on YouTube. See for details: http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/1560063/boards-of-can...