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Feb 22, 2021 By Mark Redfern

French electronic music legends Daft Punk have announced they have broken up. The news was revealed via a YouTube video titled “Epilogue” that repurposes footage from their 2006 film Electroma and features their robot alter egos being blown up in the desert, followed by a title screen that says 1993-2021. The band’s publicist, Kathryn Frazier at Biz 3, also confirmed the news to Pitchfork. No reason has been given for their breakup.

Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter officially formed Daft Punk in 1993, although they first met in secondary school in Paris in 1987 and were in another band together prior to Daft Punk. That initial band, Darlin’, was a trio also featuring future Phoenix member Laurent Brancowitz. Darlin’ was more of a rock band and didn’t last long. It was a bad Darlin’ review in Melody Maker by critic Dave Jennings that called the band “a daft punky thrash” that inspired Homem-Christo and Bangalter to take the name Daft Punk when they went in a more electronic direction. Their 1997-released debut album, Homework, caused quite a sensation and was fueled by the hit singles “Da Funk” and “Around the World,” with music videos respectively directed by masters in the field, Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry. Discovery and Human After All followed in 2001 and 2005, with their fourth and final regular album, Random Access Memories, coming in 2013 (it debuted at #1 on the Billboard charts and featured the huge Grammy winning song “Get Lucky”). In 2010 they also took a pleasing and fitting detour, composing the music for Tron: Legacy, the long-awaited sequel to 1982’s groundbreaking Tron.

Since their formation Daft Punk has become one of the most influential, referenced, and sampled electronic artists of their era. Below watch their breakup video, as well as other videos from the band, followed by streams of all their albums.

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