[HN Gopher] Daft Punk Break Up
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Daft Punk Break Up
        
       Author : psychanarch
       Score  : 787 points
       Date   : 2021-02-22 14:56 UTC (8 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (pitchfork.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (pitchfork.com)
        
       | pqdbr wrote:
       | If you haven't seen it already, I highly recommend Interstella
       | 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem (2003).
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Qxe-QOp_-s
        
       | spectaclepiece wrote:
       | I heard this story which I'm not sure is true but could very well
       | be. Apparently two guys claimed to be Daft Punk in Ibiza and
       | racked up massive bills everywhere before splitting. Needless to
       | say that didn't make them very popular there before everybody
       | figured out what had happened.
        
         | devin wrote:
         | Doubt it. These guys played Ibiza plenty in the 90s. People
         | would know.
        
       | AcerbicZero wrote:
       | I'll miss them, but they've made some terrific stuff so far, and
       | I'm sure it gets hard to maintain that same level of passion
       | indefinitely.
       | 
       | Best of luck with whatever they chose to work on next.
        
       | donatj wrote:
       | I genuinely feel like listening to Discovery on my discman on the
       | bus in high school helped define who I am as a person.
       | 
       | On the one hand I find this news horribly disheartening, on the
       | other hand I am thrilled to see them go out on top. They have
       | never had a bad album, and I'm my opinion they only got better as
       | they went.
       | 
       | Godspeed you beautiful robots.
        
         | steve_adams_86 wrote:
         | Oh man. Discman on the bus. Those words punch me right in the
         | memory.
         | 
         | Likewise, I had a period of time listening to daft punk's
         | discovery that was fairly transformative. It completely, with
         | no exaggeration, overhauled my understanding and appreciation
         | of music.
        
           | fumar wrote:
           | 100% carrying around my prized possessions, discman + CDs or
           | minidisc, was pivotal to who I am now. And always with me was
           | Daft Punk's Discovery. At that age, the songs felt long but
           | in a good way. I couldn't wrap my head around the undulating
           | changes and how it they made music. I also love Homework but
           | Discovery has been a top album for me since I was 12. Veridis
           | Quo captured my imagination and was a big influence which I
           | believe led me to enjoy artists like Sigur Ros.
        
           | donatj wrote:
           | Guessing the numbers on your username to be significant,
           | we're of the same vintage.
           | 
           | Discovery, Radiohead's Kid A, and Bjork's Vespertine defined
           | my late teens - an age that basically defined my musical
           | tastes.
           | 
           | It's interesting how music does such an amazing job of
           | worming itself into your brain.
        
             | steve_adams_86 wrote:
             | Haha, you're speaking my language. Kid A was just as high
             | impact as Discovery. What a beautiful album.
             | 
             | I agree. Those songs are so deeply ingrained in me that if
             | I heard 100ms of them I could probably tell you which song
             | I heard. I can barely remember how to pour myself a glass
             | of water some days, but that music is deep in my brain.
        
         | fpgaminer wrote:
         | > I genuinely feel like listening to Discovery on my discman on
         | the bus in high school helped define who I am as a person.
         | 
         | In high school my backpack had a small zipped pocket at the top
         | specifically designed for a CD player. You ran your headphone
         | cord through a gasket into the pocket, keeping your player safe
         | and convenient. As a loner, it was splendid.
         | 
         | And then you always wished you had a CD player with just a
         | _little_ more buffer so it wouldn't skip when you were running
         | to class.
        
           | Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
           | I remember in high school spending my money on what was
           | probably the best portable CD player on the market, the
           | Panasonic SL-SW890 [0]
           | 
           | Pretty sure the target audience was runners. It had a strap
           | on the back so you would attach it to your hand, and near the
           | hinge was a hard slightly-rubbery plastic with little
           | indentations for your fingers. It was incredibly comfortable
           | to hold.
           | 
           | And the skip protection was absolutely top-tier. By some kind
           | of magic, the laser could read the disc at any arbitrary
           | speed up to some limit. It didn't just handle bumps, but
           | weird sudden rotations that would change the speed of disc
           | rotation relative to the laser. I think it claimed 40 seconds
           | of skip protection, but I would jostle, spin, and bump it for
           | 5 solid minutes and no skipping.
           | 
           | And the way the thing close made it very difficult to
           | accidentally pop it open. Drop it, throw it, it's staying
           | closed.
           | 
           | Of course, I paid for all that ruggedness. I think at the
           | time, most portable CD players were around $75, and I think I
           | paid $150 for it. Of course, this was over 20 years ago so my
           | memory could be wrong.
           | 
           | Pretty sure I still have that player in a box somewhere.
           | 
           | [0] https://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-SL-SW890-Shockwave-
           | Portable...
        
       | mackrevinack wrote:
       | i was really hoping with daft punk always pushing the envelope
       | that they would come out with some VR type experience or
       | something really off the wall like controlling the music on stage
       | with one of those neural brain links. basically become one with
       | the machine! but maybe it's another few decades until that kind
       | of technology well be ready
        
       | simlevesque wrote:
       | One of my regrets in life is not going to Alive 2007 because I
       | was young and none of my friends wanted to go with me.
        
         | zucked wrote:
         | Ditto. My "home" venue is Red Rocks. I got invited but I didn't
         | feel like it and didn't want to spend the $50.
         | 
         | Oof.
        
         | pmarreck wrote:
         | I was 35 and didn't go. I have no excuse.
        
       | jahlove wrote:
       | Link to the Epilogue video (why couldn't pitchfork link this?):
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuDX6wNfjqc
        
         | jacobsenscott wrote:
         | It is there - scroll down.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | SubiculumCode wrote:
       | Break up? Probably more like retirement. 20+ years man.
        
       | cl0ne wrote:
       | I ask the DJ to play an underground Italian new wave minimal
       | electro duo... Of course he doesn't have it. I settle for Daft
       | Punk.
        
       | vegardx wrote:
       | Instant Crush on Random Access Memories pretty much sums up how
       | this makes me feel.
        
       | christian008 wrote:
       | I wonder if they tried to create something better than Random
       | Access Memories for the last 7 years only to find out that it's
       | the best to leave it at that high note.
        
       | keiferski wrote:
       | I always thought Daft Punk figured out the perfect solution to
       | the _how to be famous_ problem. Everyone recognizes their artist
       | name and their artist costume, but virtually no one knows their
       | real name or would accost them on the street.
        
         | yuppie_scum wrote:
         | Bowie used to ride the nyc subway all the time, his secret was
         | a trench coat and hat and he would carry a Greek newspaper.
        
         | mabbo wrote:
         | I saw Don Schlitz[0] perform "The Gambler" at The Grand Ole
         | Opry[1] last year (juuust before Covid). He said something like
         | "Yeah, Kenny Rogers did well with this song, but I can still go
         | to the grocery store without being recognized, and I still get
         | paid when they play it" (or something to that effect). Funny
         | guy, and a great singer too.
         | 
         | [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Schlitz
         | 
         | [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Ole_Opry
        
           | pfarrell wrote:
           | This essay [0] from Tim Ferriss really crystalized for me a
           | lot about why fame is a drag.                 During my
           | college years, one of my dorm mate's dads was a famous
           | Hollywood producer. He once said to me, "You want everyone to
           | know your name and no one to know your face."
           | Taking it a step further, we could quote Bill Murray:
           | I always want to say to people who want to be rich and
           | famous: 'try being rich first.' See if that doesn't cover
           | most of it.
           | 
           | 0: https://tim.blog/2020/02/02/reasons-to-not-become-famous/
        
             | artursapek wrote:
             | Worst of all is being famous but not rich.
        
               | jzemeocala wrote:
               | To qoute Paul Stanley from KISS when asked about what its
               | like to be rich and famous:
               | 
               | "Well, I know what it's like to be famous but I can't
               | tell you anything about being rich"
        
               | DrSiemer wrote:
               | Steve-O from Jackass was world famous and pretty much
               | broke at the same time after their first season.
        
               | core-questions wrote:
               | Famous for being stupid at scales most people can't even
               | imagine isn't exactly a ticket for richness.
        
               | pfarrell wrote:
               | Totally. That's exactly what I think when I see people on
               | reality shows get their fame.
        
               | dylan604 wrote:
               | sometimes, 15 minutes turns into a few seasons
        
             | redisman wrote:
             | It's a great take from Tim and seems to ring very true. I
             | just don't think people really think about what fame means.
             | It's got huge tradeoffs and its mostly not fun but rather
             | scary and unnerving. Eric Weinstein also seemed to run into
             | this fairly quickly and has now stopped making his podcast
             | because the fame part is mostly toxic.
        
               | crispyambulance wrote:
               | > Eric Weinstein also seemed to run into this fairly
               | quickly ...
               | 
               | No, I don't think so. Any blowback he's gotten is not
               | from "fame" but rather his difficult personality.
        
               | cbozeman wrote:
               | It's a good thing he absolutely insists on being
               | sesquipedalian, because it limits his audience.
               | 
               | He seems to fancy himself as Tech Faulkner; I'd rather be
               | Tech Hemingway.
        
               | andreilys wrote:
               | Hasn't stopped him from being active on Clubhouse where
               | he has close to 2M followers now.
        
           | HelloFellowDevs wrote:
           | Sometimes the greatest thing for many people is the ability
           | to choose fortune over fame.
        
             | weinzierl wrote:
             | It's the fallacy of the C-list celebrity to realize too
             | late that fame does not easily convert to fortune.
        
               | rkangel wrote:
               | I think many people go out seeking fame as goal in it's
               | own right.
        
               | ForHackernews wrote:
               | I guess it depends how rich you aspire to be. If you have
               | a a million social media followers, it's trivial to cash
               | in on that attention to the tune of hundreds of thousands
               | of dollars a year.
        
               | fxtentacle wrote:
               | except if you try to sell t-shirts?
               | 
               | https://www.insider.com/instagrammer-arii-2-million-
               | follower...
        
               | ForHackernews wrote:
               | According to this
               | https://www.influencer.agency/instagram-influencer-rates/
               | it's ~$10k for a campaign from an influencer with 1M+
               | followers.
               | 
               | Make ten deals like that per year, that's $100,000k.
        
               | Tarsul wrote:
               | I don't believe those numbers (the site it comes from has
               | interest in telling people that influencer marketing is
               | worth much, so grain of salt.). But anyway, even if they
               | would be true today, they won't hold tomororow because
               | everyone gets more followers but not more attention.
               | Also, it's a "winner takes all" market like all media.
               | Still, if you're famous today I bet it's easier than ever
               | to make at least SOME money out of it due to social media
               | and the ability to cut off a lot of middle man.
        
               | jandrese wrote:
               | You have to repeat that once a month to break into the
               | middle class, assuming you have to pay for all your own
               | healthcare, retirement, insurance, etc... What a dismal
               | existence.
        
         | IgorPartola wrote:
         | Blue Man Group is slightly different but I would not recognize
         | any of them on the street either.
        
           | vinger wrote:
           | Who they are changes based on who is performing in what city.
        
             | dahart wrote:
             | It didn't start that way in NY, but now they have that
             | option precisely because nobody can recognize them, right?
        
               | vinger wrote:
               | It's great I can go to New York and watch many of the
               | original cast but it is also great I can find them in
               | London, Toronto, Vegas, probably Toyko.
               | 
               | Who they are can change as long as they look and act the
               | same. It brings down costs and allows the creator to
               | scale.
               | 
               | It's better than plays because shows in different cities
               | will have different actors and everyone knows.
               | 
               | But you do lose the ability to promote based on
               | individual people. And for plays that can be a huge draw.
               | Stars will bring people.
               | 
               | Think of how much bigger blueman group coull be if each
               | had a different personality. Perhaps a cartoon could have
               | been made.
        
         | w0mbat wrote:
         | UK readers over 50 will remember how the Wombles pulled this
         | off in the 70s. A huge series of hits performed by basically a
         | bunch of furries.
        
           | parkersweb wrote:
           | The legendary Mike Batt!
        
         | Blikkentrekker wrote:
         | It is really quite common for musicians to have such stage
         | names and stage personae.
         | 
         | What I find rather interesting is that if one search for
         | Mafumafu's face, what one obtains is his virtual avatar, a
         | nonexistent character by which he repraesents himself in most
         | instances, and one has to add keywords such as "real" to see
         | his actual face, -- which is all the more interesting since
         | he's actually quite beautiful and clearly puts quite a bit of
         | effort into his appearance.
         | 
         | My favorites are, of course, the black meal artists who only go
         | on stage in theatrical makeup under stage aliases such as
         | "Necrobutcher" and "Zhaaral", whose real names and even genders
         | are often unknown behind the makeup.
        
         | loosetypes wrote:
         | And it's been continued, to an extent, by folks like Deadmau5
         | and Marshmello.
         | 
         | I wonder if any groups have stand ins ready to don the mantle
         | for live performances if there were ever, for whatever reason,
         | a double booking.
        
         | Dirlewanger wrote:
         | It works well if your act allows you to get away with it
         | (fellow Frenchman Danger also has a headpiece). I don't think
         | anyone really knows any of the members of Ghost aside from the
         | main guy.
        
         | goto11 wrote:
         | Then again Jerry Seinfeld said: _There 's no downside to fame
         | and people who whine about it make me sick. It's the greatest
         | thing in the world._
        
           | fpgaminer wrote:
           | Fame is probably great for people who really have their shit
           | together and are confident in themselves, like Jerry
           | Seinfeld. For people who don't have their shit together, it
           | can magnify and provoke even your most minor weaknesses. If
           | you aren't confident in yourself, you can end up maladjusted,
           | surrounded by the distortion field of fame. Elon Musk would
           | probably have continued to be a cooky, but fairly level
           | headed dude. But now he's richer than Bezos and the power has
           | corrupted him. Who's to tell you what's wrong when you make
           | exponentially more money than even the 1%?
           | 
           | I like Jerry Seinfeld, but he (or at least the persona he
           | plays in public) has this habit of being unable to put
           | himself in other's shoes.
        
           | duderific wrote:
           | I think it depends on your personality. It probably suits
           | some people much better than others. An example is Kurt
           | Cobain who hated being famous and felt trapped by it.
        
           | echohack5 wrote:
           | Based on what I know about Jerry Seinfeld, he seems pretty
           | good at setting hard boundaries for himself. It seems he's
           | uninterested in pleasantries and burdens that come associated
           | with fame, and has, maybe uniquely, been able to avoid being
           | foisted into situations beyond his control.
           | 
           | I would assert that _being famous_ is a skill that not all
           | famous people develop, thus the disparity between those who
           | shun fame and those who don 't think it's a problem.
        
         | Lio wrote:
         | I think that's part of the Kraftwerk play book that Daft Punk
         | have previously acknowledged.
         | 
         | Obviously Kraftwerk's robots look like them to a certain
         | degree, so Daft Punk have taken the on stage anonymity further
         | but the anti-pop star thing is pure Kraftwerk.
         | 
         | There was famously only one way to contact Kraftwerk, via a
         | phone at their studio with ringer mechanism removed.
         | 
         | If you had the number, only given out by their lawyer, you rang
         | a preset time of day when the handset would be lifted... if you
         | were lucky.
        
         | ThePadawan wrote:
         | I mean, they are both well known artists with other projects in
         | their own right. They even published songs with their real
         | names.
         | 
         | If you wanna talk "you have no idea who this is but an
         | incredibly prolific artist", I want to put forth Max Martin
         | [0].
         | 
         | [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Martin
        
           | fastball wrote:
           | It's very easy to be prolific without being famous haha.
           | 
           | It's hard to be famous without being _famous_ , which is what
           | Daft Punk pulled off.
        
           | jnsie wrote:
           | Wow, that's pretty incredible. Thanks for the good read!
        
           | keiferski wrote:
           | Sure, but Daft Punk is almost a household name. Even people
           | that don't listen to their music probably know the name and
           | the helmet. Their personal names are mostly just known to
           | fans.
        
         | fivedogit wrote:
         | ZZ Top figured this out a long time ago.
        
           | coldsmoke wrote:
           | I recently found this video of Billy Gibbons performing in
           | the street in Helsinki without anyone noticing. I like that
           | he becomes less recognizable when _not_ wearing sunglasses.
           | 
           | https://youtu.be/YHUQNxggT_k
        
         | spoonjim wrote:
         | You might be surprised how little of a "disguise" can make you
         | unrecognizable. Shakira took a history class at UCLA and just
         | by not wearing makeup and using her legal name Isabel, nobody
         | recognized her (or if they did, they didn't say anything). The
         | "Shakira" you see on TV is such an artificial construction that
         | someone seeing her without any of the artifice has no idea it's
         | "her."
        
           | 0xdeadbeefbabe wrote:
           | Really undermines the title "hips don't lie"
        
             | spoonjim wrote:
             | LOL. The way she moves her butt is so distinctive that if
             | she just walks like a normal person that's a disguise of
             | sorts.
        
               | vmception wrote:
               | I recognize alot of people by how they walk, from behind
               | 
               | I could see that being a disguise
        
               | oarsinsync wrote:
               | Gait recognition is a thing, in humans and in ML.
               | 
               | Shame we're seeing places explicitly banning facial
               | recognition rather than biometric recognition.
        
               | core-questions wrote:
               | Facial recognition is being banned for law enforcement
               | use not because it doesn't work, or is ineffective, or is
               | undesirable, but because it reveals politically
               | uncomfortable truths about who commits crime that
               | existing crime stats were already pointing out in a less
               | visceral way.
        
               | vmception wrote:
               | and also picks the wrong people because the training set
               | is polluted by the uncomfortable truths of overpolicing
               | areas creating the bad crime stats
        
               | spoonjim wrote:
               | LOL. And reveals uncomfortable truths about what the law
               | has defined as a "crime," where killing one person in a
               | $100 drug transaction gets you life without parole, while
               | fraudulently marketing OxyContin as non-addictive while
               | knowing it is addictive, thus creating the opioid
               | epidemic that has killed 500,000 people to date, and
               | hiring McKinsey to solve your "my drug is killing people"
               | problem gets you a $3 million fine.
        
               | oarsinsync wrote:
               | That's a pretty damning statement to make. Can you
               | provide some citations to back that view up?
        
               | orestarod wrote:
               | Without links ready, and not being the OP, I have seen
               | many articles saying that "this ML recognition/analysis
               | system has racial bias because the targets it finds are
               | more {insert trait} than average." It struck me how such
               | an unscientific thing made it to so many articles. It's a
               | symptom of a cause that a specific group has greater
               | representation in something, e.g. crime. You can't call
               | factual observations, racist. You should rather find the
               | root cause and solve it.
        
               | vmception wrote:
               | > You can't call factual observations, racist. You should
               | rather find the root cause and solve it.
               | 
               | People already know the root cause, and it is
               | overpolicing and discretionary enforcement of crimes like
               | drug possession.
               | 
               | The broken-windows policy has been disproven, despite
               | disproportionately impacting "the specific groups" (black
               | Americans) that now pollute the dataset that ML uses.
               | 
               | And even in the concept or drug possession and drug
               | consumption, all groups have been shown to use them in
               | the same distribution. For example. These kinds of things
               | start a cycle that means the second and third minor
               | infractions cause greater consequences in court, which
               | further reduce opportunities that lead to the dangerous
               | crimes being committed.
               | 
               | So we already know the dataset is polluted.
               | 
               | Pointing to the top of the iceberg and saying "well they
               | commit the crimes no need to spend any energy on this
               | mystery why don't we all just admit they're the problem"
               | is a complete deflection promulgated intentionally and
               | you should really check your peer group and media sources
               | if this is the extent of the comfortable worldview you
               | (or anyone passing by) have, the problem and solution is
               | already known.
               | 
               | The solutions are being implemented in a patchwork and
               | slowly, which is not incorporated in datasets that ML
               | use, largely due to apathy and lack of awareness of
               | engineers and the management of the tech companies
               | involved, and lack of representation of the affected
               | groups in engineering and management of tech companies.
        
               | spoonjim wrote:
               | Well the "factual" observation comes from training data,
               | which unless created in an unbiased manner creates a
               | biased dataset and biased inferences. Unless you believe
               | that American law enforcement is an unbiased process, in
               | which case I don't think I can help you.
        
               | 0xdeadbeefbabe wrote:
               | I apologize to UCLA for continuing to wonder if Harvard
               | students would have discovered her.
        
           | radicaldreamer wrote:
           | A lot of it is context as well... you see this in videos of
           | world class violinists busking in the NY subway and everyone
           | just goes along on their way and doesn't stop for a minute to
           | listen.
           | 
           | Celebrities on campus is likely also a much more normal thing
           | at UCLA, USC and in LA in general.
        
           | EricE wrote:
           | I think a bit of that is you don't expect to see someone
           | famous just walking down the street. On more than on occasion
           | I've passed someone and went "Was that.... naw, couldn't be"
           | then found out later that yes, it really was that person.
           | 
           | The corollary to the S.E.P. field in Hitchhikers Guide to the
           | Galaxy (SEP - Somebody Else's Problem Field - loved the
           | concept for the ultimate invisibility cloak)
        
             | cgriswald wrote:
             | > I think a bit of that is you don't expect to see someone
             | famous just walking down the street.
             | 
             | Even if you somewhat it, you don't really expect it.
             | 
             | One early morning at tourist area (where I'd already seen a
             | few celebrities), my friend and I are playing Daytona USA
             | and this sunglass-wearing dude comes down and sits next to
             | us to play. He looks vaguely familiar, but I guessed I had
             | just seen him there before -- there were a lot of regulars
             | at this arcade. I'm bragging, but not exaggerating, when I
             | say we were world-competitive at this game. This guy was
             | good, but we destroyed him.
             | 
             | After the race, the guy got up, smiled at both of us, said
             | nothing, and left. My friend and I talked a bit about the
             | race -- a sort of post-race analysis we often did to see if
             | there was anything new we could learn -- and during that
             | process it sort of dawned on us that we had just played
             | against a NASCAR driver.
        
             | mindcrime wrote:
             | _I think a bit of that is you don 't expect to see someone
             | famous just walking down the street._
             | 
             | This reminds me of a celebrity encounter I had once. I
             | walked into a Gold's Gym in Raleigh, and saw a guy doing
             | triceps press-downs on the machine right by the path to the
             | locker room. I had to walk past to get to the locker room
             | and as I approached I realized I was looking at Arn
             | Anderson (professional wrestler).
             | 
             | I was a bit shocked and as I walked by him I did a double
             | take and blurted out something stupid like "Tell me you're
             | not Arn Anderson!?!" Of course he dead-panned the whole
             | thing and just looked at me and said "I'm not Arn
             | Anderson". By this point I realized it was absolutely him,
             | but I was too awe struck to think of anything intelligent
             | to say, so I just kept walking.
             | 
             | Probably about as stupid as I've ever come off in public in
             | my life. :-(
             | 
             | The conclusion of the story though, is that he wound up in
             | the locker room while I was still getting ready for my
             | workout and I got a chance to chat with him for a while. We
             | talked about the "good ole days" of Crockett Promotions /
             | WCW and the 4 Horsemen, etc., etc. He seemed like a nice
             | guy. I just regret forgetting to ask for an autograph.
             | 
             | It turns out, that gym is (well, was... it's closed now)
             | close to the arena in Raleigh where the WWE shows take
             | place, and it used to be common-place for professional
             | wrestlers to stop in when they were in town for shows. That
             | just happened to be the first time I personally met any of
             | them.
        
               | Clubber wrote:
               | I saw Mr.T at a networking conference in the late 90s
               | posing for pictures for attendees. He was a hero of mine
               | as a kid. I was star struck and couldn't think of
               | anything to say, but I did get a picture. He was in a
               | variation of his A-Team outfit.
               | 
               | I also saw Ed McMahon in an elevator a few months later
               | at my shared office space. Something to the effect of,
               | "Going up?" and I replied, "No down, thanks." Totally
               | normal average Joe encounter.
               | 
               | Such a strange world we live in.
        
             | singingfish wrote:
             | I was in the shop the other day and I had a small ice block
             | related interaction with a little kid. Then her mum turned
             | to speak to me and it was one of the Orange is the New
             | Black actors. Which surprised me quite a bit - even though
             | I knew she was a regular at the shop. I wonder if she'd
             | clocked that I recognised her. I think I hid it well
             | though.
        
             | flycaliguy wrote:
             | I'll never forget learning that Sinead O'Connor had been
             | recording in my hometown. Must have walked by her a dozen
             | times and although I felt a "vibe" off her, I never pieced
             | it together.
        
               | intrasight wrote:
               | Peter Gabriel chilled out in Rochester NY (my home town)
               | for a while. In an interview he mentioned that it was
               | nice to be anonymous. Not sure what that says about my
               | home town that nobody recognized him ;)
        
           | dunnevens wrote:
           | Agree. David Bowie once demonstrated it to a reporter. They
           | walked together through Manhattan. No one bothered them.
           | Bowie then said he was going to "turn it on". Something in
           | his expression slightly changed. And then he was mobbed by
           | fans.
        
             | jw1224 wrote:
             | Wasn't that story about Marilyn Monroe?
             | 
             | https://psychcentral.com/blog/the-marilyn-monroe-effect-
             | the-...
        
               | dunnevens wrote:
               | The article I'm remembering was linked as part of an obit
               | right after Bowie's death. I wish I could find it, but
               | I'm apparently not coming up with the right phrase for
               | Google.
               | 
               | I wouldn't be surprised if this is a common trait of
               | celebrities. Wear a mask, literally or figuratively, on
               | stage or camera. Take the mask off and you're just an
               | ordinary person that no one else will notice.
               | 
               | Bowie talked about that mask here, and how he used it to
               | face his fears:
               | 
               | https://neil-gaiman.tumblr.com/post/166082106996/my-
               | friend-t...
        
               | SuoDuanDao wrote:
               | What a beautiful story. Bowie's invisible mask reminds me
               | of the 'glamour' that fey creatures were imagined to have
               | in the old stories. Puts the term 'glam rock' into new
               | perspective for sure...
        
               | joshstrange wrote:
               | Is this the article you remember?
               | 
               | https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/17/fashion/david-bowie-
               | invis...
        
               | dunnevens wrote:
               | Thanks! I think that is the one.
        
             | edent wrote:
             | I've heard that story about Marilyn Monroe - but it has
             | probably been ascribed to hundreds of celebs.
             | 
             | https://www.sunnyskyz.com/blog/2610/No-One-Recognized-
             | Marily...
        
             | [deleted]
        
             | justinator wrote:
             | Honestly this just sort of sounds like Manhattan. The east
             | coast vibe is certainly more of a "get out of my way"
             | mentality.
        
               | dunnevens wrote:
               | You're probably right. If I'm remembering the article
               | correctly, he would just put a bland hard face on. Wear
               | boring & ordinary clothing. No one would pay him any
               | attention.
        
         | yboris wrote:
         | Consider _The Residents_ - a 4-person musical group with
         | eyeballs instead of heads who have been anonymous for about 50
         | years!
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Residents
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | Mediterraneo10 wrote:
         | Several other musicians have done the same through mask
         | wearing. Gene Simmons of Kiss was probably rarely recognized in
         | public before, much later in life, he started appearing in
         | television programs without his makeup.
         | 
         | MF Doom, Sia, the list goes on.
        
           | mabbo wrote:
           | I remember reading a wonderful article of a guy running a
           | recording studio and being excited because Kiss is coming to
           | record there.
           | 
           | Then 4 normal looking guys show up and he's like "Oh right,
           | they don't dress up like that all the time".
        
           | ragebol wrote:
           | Gorrilaz don't even both with that, just animation
        
             | toyg wrote:
             | Damon Albarn was already famous by then.
        
               | mytailorisrich wrote:
               | It took me some time to discover that Gorillaz was his
               | band.
               | 
               | That's a great proof of talent, isn't it?
        
               | toyg wrote:
               | His talent for obfuscation, you mean?
               | 
               | Gorillaz definitely benefited at bootstrap from being
               | "the new project by Damon Albarn of Blur".
        
               | mytailorisrich wrote:
               | No, I mean people being drawn to the music, not the
               | famous name (even if the famous name helped promote the
               | band)
        
               | freewilly1040 wrote:
               | I wonder if this is a 2021 view of Gorillaz possibly
               | being more famous than Blur at this point. Though, for
               | sure there were plenty of contemporary Gorlillaz fans who
               | didn't know anything about Blur.
        
               | jdminhbg wrote:
               | Gorillaz have always been more popular than Blur in the
               | US at least, where their only hit was Song 2.
        
             | greggturkington wrote:
             | Gorillaz are a virtual band. The humans are just their
             | avatars.
        
           | agumonkey wrote:
           | Sia was face on during most her first years
        
             | dajohnson89 wrote:
             | she did some amazing work with zero-7.
        
               | agumonkey wrote:
               | Honestly I can't fathom her solo career, the zero seven
               | era was so brilliant. I'm happy she gets some wide
               | recognition, wealth and comfort, but musically she is off
               | now. Her gamut is trimmed it's all loud and no subtlety.
        
               | navbaker wrote:
               | Holy cow, I didn't know until your comment and I
               | subsequently looked her up on Wikipedia that she's the
               | vocals on "Destiny"!
        
               | agumonkey wrote:
               | Enjoy the others man, worth your time and ears
        
           | blacksmith_tb wrote:
           | Can't forget The Residents[1] - they were/are instantly
           | recognizable (as eyeballs in tophats, that is) but had a
           | rotating crew inside the masks.
           | 
           | 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Residents#Identity
        
             | weinzierl wrote:
             | Taken to the extreme I've heard the _Blue Man Group_ is
             | more a franchise than theatre group which recruits the the
             | personnel for their shows locally.
        
               | [deleted]
        
           | ehsankia wrote:
           | Not everyone who wears mask ends up sticking with the
           | anonymity though, I can imagine the pull of fame can be
           | irresistible for some. Deadmau5 for example. Others have
           | managed staying hidden just by not appearing anywhere, like
           | Burial.
        
             | pmarreck wrote:
             | Had to google Burial.
             | 
             | My hipster inspection is way out of date.
        
               | ehsankia wrote:
               | He is pretty "famous" in the underground dubstep scene
               | (and by dubstep, I mean the original UK 2-step music, not
               | whatever it became in the 2010's. He's always been
               | enigmatic and hidden until that one post out of nowhere,
               | releasing music through his friend/record company
               | Hyberdub.
               | 
               | Semi-related, but one of my favorite satire posts of all
               | time: https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/celebrity/jk-
               | rowling-rec...
        
               | sjm wrote:
               | Next time you find yourself alone on a gloomy drizzly
               | night, throw on Untrue and walk through the streets for a
               | unique experience.
        
             | dijksterhuis wrote:
             | Pretty sure burial once tweeted a selfie to say he was
             | taking a break from music to play diablo or something
        
               | imwillofficial wrote:
               | Best way to announce a tour break ever.
        
               | ehsankia wrote:
               | Tour break? I don't think he's ever played live. Maybe
               | anonymously. Kode9 sometimes plays his new songs but
               | that's it.
        
               | imwillofficial wrote:
               | I have no idea, I've only heard songs, no sets. Good to
               | know!
        
               | somishere wrote:
               | i'd always imagined burial was a side gig for kieran
               | hebden / fourtet .. got ridiculed by everyone i mentioned
               | it to in confidence .. they were right
        
               | ehsankia wrote:
               | It was Dark Souls 2 but yeah, it was kinda hilarious,
               | since it was basically the first time we ever heard
               | directly from him or got an "official" selfie in almost a
               | decade of him making music, and it was just to say "I'm
               | not sure if I will have many new tunes for a while
               | because I need to play that game a lot", even though he
               | already had the reputation of not putting anything out
               | for long stretches of time. It was so bizarre.
        
               | sjm wrote:
               | It is hypothesized that Burial made a little guest
               | appearance at a James Blake boiler room set:
               | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8idi7PcsbU
               | 
               | It definitely looks like him, but who knows.
        
           | deepstack wrote:
           | Good idea to make it anonymous, that way you can swap out
           | your friends when you get sick and tired of performing.
        
           | acomjean wrote:
           | bucket head: A guitarist with a bucket mask.
           | 
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckethead
        
             | grawprog wrote:
             | Who's this guitar playing sonzabitch?"
             | 
             | Is a question common asked
             | 
             | On his head a bucket of chicken bones
             | 
             | On his face a plastic mask He's the bastard son of a
             | preacher-man
             | 
             | On the town he left a stain They made him live in a chicken
             | house To try and hide the shame
             | 
             | He was born in a coop, raised in a cage
             | 
             | Children fear him, critics rage
             | 
             | He's half alive, he's half dead
             | 
             | Folks just call him Buckethead!
        
           | greggturkington wrote:
           | DOOM (all caps when you spell the name) even had other people
           | play sets for him because the mask worked so well (according
           | to rumor and REALLY convincing video w/audio)
        
             | Blikkentrekker wrote:
             | This was parodied in _The Good Place_ when an obvious
             | parody of Deadmau5 payed others to wear his mask on stage
             | since the audience couldn 't tell anyway.
        
             | lghh wrote:
             | I'm having trouble finding the article now, but he said
             | that later in his life he had lost quite a bit of weight so
             | when he did do his performances himself, people didn't
             | believe it was him and got mad.
        
             | blackearl wrote:
             | I believe it's more than just rumor -
             | https://pitchfork.com/news/hannibal-buress-was-an-mf-doom-
             | im...
        
               | colinmhayes wrote:
               | I've seen some "MF DOOM" sets that were clearly not him
               | under the mask.
        
         | bjarneh wrote:
         | Totally agree. Never understood why people would like that
         | other type of fame when you cannot walk anywhere without
         | drawing a crowd. At some point the only people you can truly
         | hang out with are other extremely famous people.
        
         | sneak wrote:
         | There are at least a few stage acts that are like this, at
         | least two dance acts that I can think of.
         | 
         | It also permits one to hire additional stand-ins and perform in
         | multiple places at the same time.
        
       | cognaitiv wrote:
       | Best Daft Punk show I ever saw was Lollapalooza with LCD
       | Soundsystem opening on the nearby stage. LCD Soundsytem closed
       | with "Daft Punk is Playing.." and Daft Punk emerged in a pyramid
       | and absolutely melted our faces.
        
         | geek_at wrote:
         | wait Lollapalooza is a real event? I honestly thought the
         | simpsons episode made fun of the music event scene
        
           | strictnein wrote:
           | Yep. Used to have some pretty awesome lineups too.
           | 
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Lollapalooza_lineups_b.
           | ..
        
           | flobosg wrote:
           | It's very real and even expanded to other countries over the
           | last decade.
        
           | dylan604 wrote:
           | Wow. You must be really young, or from a sheltered lifestyle.
           | I remember skipping school to attend the first couple of
           | shows, and then continued in college. Seems to my memory that
           | the 'palooza festivals re-energized the whole music festival
           | concept, as there were many more annual festivals that came
           | through town after. I still have the t-shirts that I can't
           | wear, but refuse to throw out.
        
             | vlunkr wrote:
             | As Homerpalooza taught us, music festivals are terrible,
             | and are all about big companies turning rebellion into
             | money, so who cares if someone doesn't know the names of
             | them.
        
             | jerrre wrote:
             | Or maybe not living geographically and/or culturally close?
             | Or does that fall under sheltered lifestyle.
        
               | dylan604 wrote:
               | I don't live anywhere near Glastonbury, but I'm fully
               | aware that it is a real event. I'm at least in the same
               | country as Miami, but have never attended the WMC, or the
               | Grammys, or iHate Radio events in Vegas. I was a wee lad
               | when Farm Aid occurred, but I was aware that it was more
               | than a reference in an animated TV show. I've also been
               | able to read music 'zines and websites without being
               | geographically near any of them.
               | 
               | So yeah, sheltered or at the least, thoroughly
               | uninterested in music as anything more than just
               | something in the background. Willing to admit, I have a
               | much more intense interest in music, so I do read/listen
               | to things that would be considered history to something
               | compared to anything performed before Taylor Swift.
        
               | jevgeni wrote:
               | The word 'sheltered' is still misapplied here.
        
               | dylan604 wrote:
               | How so? Having never experienced things outside of your
               | "comfort zone" or your upbringing seems like the
               | culturally accepted definition of sheltered. Whether that
               | was overbearing parents never allowing you to listen to
               | music other than prescribed by religious beliefs or
               | parental personal preference or just one's own personal
               | preference all seems like sheltered to me. Being
               | culturally unaware of events that occurred outside one's
               | personal experience might be stretching sheltered a bit,
               | but maybe it's the more polite term. People unaware of
               | what came before yet was very influential of what's
               | occurring now also seems to me to work with sheltered.
               | Whether that's in music/film/any form of art, or even
               | political/cultural/programming/etc.
               | 
               | Willing to stipulate a bias in that I'm a dork that
               | always wants to know the how/when/where/why/who of
               | anything in which I get involved.
        
               | jevgeni wrote:
               | Those Somalian kids that might not know (gasp!) about
               | Lollapalooza sure are sheltered then.
               | 
               | If only they had the courage to get out of their comfort
               | zone of war and poverty, and just witness a mediocre
               | first-world yuppie music festival, then they would
               | realize how relevant Ariane Grande is to their human
               | condition! "Can you stay up all night", Burhan? "F* me
               | till the daylight. Thirty four, thirty five", Burhan.
               | Come on.
               | 
               | Or those 6 billion non-English speakers, who don't have
               | the common decency to just learn English and our culture!
               | From however those countries are called.
               | 
               | It's all that sheltering! And we are being polite here,
               | by stretching the word "sheltered", and not calling them
               | out for so stupidly not conforming to our anglo-saxon-
               | centric world view!
        
               | yuliyp wrote:
               | Different people are into different things. Some people
               | are really into music and know all about many music
               | festivals around the world. Others are into board games
               | and know about board game conventions. Others are into
               | e-sports and know about all the tournaments to go to.
               | Others know everything about a sport or sports league.
               | 
               | Not being well-versed in the others isn't necessarily
               | being sheltered, but a consequence of having a limited
               | set of interests.
        
               | skinnymuch wrote:
               | All this to say it's somehow necessary to know about the
               | palooza to not be sheltered? Why would the bar for
               | comfort zone be going to popular events of a specific
               | niche?
               | 
               | There's many influential things that won't matter to
               | individuals. It's not possible to know about all
               | influential things any way.
               | 
               | The only way to even perform about bigger paloozas is to
               | be a big name. Being a big name doesn't mean influential.
               | Someone could be very into specific influential music
               | that doesn't overlap with palooza events.
               | 
               | I'm sure any one who's geeky into pop media like music,
               | film, tv, can look at your history and call you sheltered
               | under your constraints. Meaning everyone is sheltered to
               | some others based off your meaning of sheltered.
        
               | 0xFF0123 wrote:
               | I feel xkcd's Ten Thousand[1] is appropriate here.
               | 
               | [1] https://xkcd.com/1053/
        
         | chadlavi wrote:
         | I see that you also went to college somewhere between 2004 and
         | 2008
        
         | Benjammer wrote:
         | I went to a Phoenix show at Madison Square Garden last-minute
         | with a friend in 2011. After Phoenix played a 3 song encore,
         | the stage went dark and then a DJ booth lit up in the back, way
         | above the stage, and Daft Punk walked out and they did an ~8
         | minute remix/mashup of Harder Better Faster and Phoenix's 1901.
         | One of my favorite concert memories ever.
        
           | alex_duf wrote:
           | I'm extremely jealous of that show, both Phoenix and Daft
           | Punks are my favourite bands, it must have been something.
        
         | fc373745 wrote:
         | 2007 alive was my personal favorite set from them. They mashed
         | up quite a bit of their all time tracks into absolute bangers.
        
           | emptyparadise wrote:
           | I really wish there was a studio version of Alive 2007.
        
             | cauthon wrote:
             | I've thought that myself before, but having listened to it
             | so many times I think the audience cheers are as much as a
             | part of the album now
        
               | jakemauer wrote:
               | Totally agree. There are two or three distinct shouts
               | from someone in the audience at the beginning of Around
               | the World / Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger that are now
               | part of my experience of listening to it. The audience is
               | absolutely part of the energy of the album.
        
               | sorum wrote:
               | I've always wondered what the guy is shouting. Is it
               | something in French, or just "Wow"?
        
           | tomputer wrote:
           | I agree, went to the Alive 2007 show in Amsterdam. Fantastic!
        
           | ethbr0 wrote:
           | I happened to catch them both in Madrid (Summercase) and
           | Miami (Bang) in 2006.
           | 
           | It's not often I'd travel to watch the "same" show twice.
           | That was a nuts setlist and show period.
           | 
           | Especially since my going to Madrid was via hearing about it
           | from a hotel concierge and "Hey dad, I know we're here for
           | your business, but can I go to this music festival, across a
           | city neither of us know, that speaks a language I can maybe
           | passably bang out?"
           | 
           | Bless non-helicopter parents. :)
        
             | imwillofficial wrote:
             | Will your dad adopt me?
        
               | ethbr0 wrote:
               | Unfortunately, I think he's happily retired from child
               | rearing duties, and I know he happily spends most of his
               | time fly fishing in Wyoming. ;)
        
           | selectodude wrote:
           | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udvYSd2TIkg
           | 
           | It's so good.
        
         | pmarreck wrote:
         | Do you know what year and/or city this was? I would like to
         | look this up
        
           | latortuga wrote:
           | Don't know year but lolla is always in grant park, Chicago.
        
             | zeruch wrote:
             | It is now, but wasn't originally. It was a touring show the
             | first half dozen years until it went on hiatus. When it was
             | revived in the (mid?) 2000s, it became a solo Chicago
             | event.
        
               | coldsmoke wrote:
               | It's touring again. At least outside of the US. I was at
               | the one in Stockholm, Sweden two years ago. It was
               | supposed to come back last year, but you know...
        
         | lupin3ken wrote:
         | I saw that at Lollapalooza and it one of the best shows I have
         | ever seen.
         | 
         | I thought it was so cool afterwards to see a bunch of people
         | covered head to toe in blue body paint like the aliens from
         | Interstella 5555.
        
       | jawngee wrote:
       | Saw them at Even Furthur in 1996 and they melted everyone's mind.
       | One of the most amazing musical wow moments I've ever witnessed.
        
       | supergirl wrote:
       | afaik they were not very active anyway; not like they were
       | touring often. the break up only makes sense if one of them wants
       | to do something else
        
       | thedudeabides5 wrote:
       | Anyone else think it ironic that they announced their retirement
       | by blowing up out on the playa "by the trash fence"
        
       | arethuza wrote:
       | Well, I guess we still have M83 and Carpenter Brut to supply
       | French synth awesomeness, but I'll really miss Daft Punk.
        
         | nolok wrote:
         | And N'to, Worakls, Danger, Justice, French79, Kavinsky, Jean-
         | Michel Jarre, Air, Birdy Nam Nam, Gesaffelstein, Perturbator,
         | SebastiAn, ... French electro is doing well.
        
           | avesi wrote:
           | A lot of the Ed Banger crew don't appear to be releasing
           | music anymore as far as I'm aware.
        
             | nolok wrote:
             | Not quite sure why you answer that to my message since the
             | only Ed Banger in my list are Justice (last release in
             | 2019) and sebastiAn (2019 too). The others I listed aren't
             | part of that group.
        
           | meesterdude wrote:
           | wow great collection of names to checkout!
        
         | hules wrote:
         | Don't worry the releve is here : https://youtu.be/CpdKWPrGxpk
        
         | francis_t_catte wrote:
         | if you like Carpenter Brut, I recommend Perturbator, especially
         | the album The Uncanny Valley.
        
           | sverona wrote:
           | New Model is severely underrated. His best, in my opinion.
        
         | oraphalous wrote:
         | Carpenter Brut...
         | 
         | Bless...
        
         | alex_duf wrote:
         | Add Etienne de Crecy, Phoenix, Cassius (though Zdar died not
         | long ago), Justice, Mr oiso and Sebastian to that list
        
         | DGAP wrote:
         | Justice
        
         | Dirlewanger wrote:
         | Justice were seen as the heirs to follow in Daft Punk's
         | footsteps after their debut. They kinda lost it after that
         | though, IMO.
        
           | lelandbatey wrote:
           | I strongly suspect that they just chose a different creative
           | direction, somewhat more ballad-y. But their latest live-esq
           | album "Woman Worldwide" (styled "WWW") from 2018 shows that
           | they still can make incredible dance/disco electronic music
           | of the same caliber and energy as 2007's 'Cross', but they
           | chose to pursue gentler sounds in their studio albums.
           | 
           | It makes me suspect that their live shows are much more true
           | to their 2007 energy than their studio albums might lead you
           | to believe.
        
         | smartties wrote:
         | Breakbot
        
         | tim_hutton wrote:
         | French 79: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAv5pLO37mE
        
           | munificent wrote:
           | This live set is just a delight all the way through:
           | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikRvoa9p-SQ
           | 
           | I'm envious of both his gear and the talent to use it so
           | well.
        
           | exlurker wrote:
           | Ooh. Thanks for this! RAM is my favourite, and this really
           | appeals to me. May I recommend back; Betamaxx has a wonderful
           | 80s nostalgic sound:
           | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MB5mRTkJmFA
        
         | strictnein wrote:
         | Is Air still around? Still probably have my copy of Moon Safari
         | somewhere.
        
           | pram wrote:
           | Random Access Memories sounds more like Air than Daft Punk
           | imo. People should definitely give their discography a listen
           | if you liked that sound.
        
           | miralize wrote:
           | Nothing released for a while. Nicolas Godin is releasing some
           | solo stuff
        
       | ntechau wrote:
       | > I wouldn't discount the possibility of one-off reunion shows in
       | the future
       | 
       | I don't think Daft Punk are the type of artists to screw over
       | fans by creating "Last Show Evarrrr" and "Final Reunion Tour
       | (It's serious this time)" type shows.
       | 
       | > I would not be at all surprised if you get the chance to see
       | them perform together again.
       | 
       | People seem to be ignoring the meaning within the video. The way
       | he clenches his fist before the explosion. The solitary walk into
       | the sunset.
       | 
       | I would not be at all surprised if one of them was terminally
       | ill.
        
         | kart23 wrote:
         | The footage is taken from a film in 2006. I don't think that
         | meaning is there. Even if they were having some type of health
         | issues, I doubt we would know, at most probably some type of
         | announcement after a death. Agreed on your first point though.
        
         | maeln wrote:
         | It's an excerpt from their movie Electroma
         | https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0800022/ . I really don't know if
         | we should look too much in the meaning of the scene.
        
       | charkubi wrote:
       | Maybe there'll be a Stardust reunion.
        
       | wbronitsky wrote:
       | This poses an interesting question to me: Daft Punk is a kind of
       | meta-band, in that it's members are not necessarily real people.
       | For a more clear example, we can take The Gorillaz, a band made
       | up of cartoon characters.
       | 
       | So what does it mean for such a meta-band to "break up" when they
       | only existed during concerts and on records. Does that mean the
       | people behind it won't make more music? I sure hope not!
        
         | rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote:
         | Many music artists use different names for different projects -
         | they're very rarely "real people".
         | 
         | Only tangentially related, but The Archies were topping the
         | charts all the way back in the 60s:
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar,_Sugar
        
         | ridaj wrote:
         | Nah they had pseudonyms but they came out as real people for
         | sure. They didn't create characters for themselves as they
         | would have if they'd intended for others to take over the role
        
           | wbronitsky wrote:
           | Fair. Instead of a meta-band, it's more of a shtick, where
           | they said they were robots, then made an album called Human
           | After All where they sound like robots. A bit like the games
           | the White Stripes played with Jack and Meg's relationship,
           | but still not in meta-band, or even perpetual band territory
        
             | redisman wrote:
             | It's like GWAR or Slipknot. They like to dress up for
             | (limited)anonymity and some extra flavor.
        
       | samgranieri wrote:
       | Funny thing, I was listening to the Tron Legacy soundtrack as I
       | was scanning HN headlines and saw this headline.
        
       | trollied wrote:
       | I was lucky enough to see them live at Sankeys Soap in 1997.
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_NVjNC2ZjA Was a great night ;)
        
       | theptip wrote:
       | I'd encourage anyone who might just know them for "Get Lucky" to
       | go back and do a full play through of the discography, Discovery
       | and Homework were really watershed albums, particularly notable
       | at a time when house music was driven by singles/EPs on vinyl and
       | few were putting together full, cohesive albums.
        
         | bredren wrote:
         | I thought Get Lucky's quality was more a reflection of Pharrell
         | and Rogers' talent than DP. The rest of that album was a whiff.
         | 
         | That said, GL the song and video were great and no hiding the
         | string of classics. I remember hearing Around the World on the
         | radio for the first time and pulling my car over. I was in high
         | school.
         | 
         | A few notes on this video:
         | 
         | 1. I wonder if this was delayed due to the bomber in Nashville.
         | Still seems almost too soon.
         | 
         | 2. Obviously has black rock vibes, looks like one continuing on
         | to the mythic show at the trash fence.
         | 
         | 3. Suggests one member wanted to keep daft punk going, where
         | the other had enough. Otherwise I would have expected a
         | mutually assured destruction.
         | 
         | The symmetric hands around the dates suggest amicable closure
         | prior to conflict of ruin, which would be for the best in any
         | partnership.
        
           | RangerScience wrote:
           | Word is that their manager has stated that the annual Trash
           | Fence show is the only thing that'll continue, as it always
           | has.
        
           | coldpie wrote:
           | > The rest of that album was a whiff
           | 
           | Aww. It's no Discovery, but I quite like RAM. More than Human
           | After All, anyway. "Contact" and "Giorgio" in particular are
           | stand out tracks to me.
        
             | bredren wrote:
             | I tried to get into the Giorgio tracks. Certainly
             | appreciated the nod but the album was marketed as a banger
             | and felt left in a lurch apart from GL.
             | 
             | Fwiw, I felt set up by the early marketing hype on the
             | tractor-trailers in Japan, which I thought inaccurately
             | portrayed what was to come.
        
           | jordanthoms wrote:
           | Hah, Get Lucky is the only song I skip on the album,
           | overplayed for me.
        
       | tomputer wrote:
       | I remember that 'Da Funk' was played daily on MTV somewhere in
       | 1995-1996. I was 10 years old and did not know the artist but
       | loved the sound/beats and the strange video with the dog
       | character walking in the city.
       | 
       | A few years later I (re)discovered their music and went to the
       | Alive 2007 show in Amsterdam, Heineken Music Hall.
       | 
       | During the show, they also played "Stardust - Music Sounds Better
       | With You", which was also produced by Thomas Bangalter.
       | 
       | The 'Stardust mix' has only been released on a limited edition
       | (disc 2) of the Alive 2007 album:
       | 
       | https://www.discogs.com/Daft-Punk-Alive-2007/release/1141123
       | 
       | Edit: it seems it is on Spotify. Not so limited anymore. :-)
        
       | mwlp wrote:
       | When I was young, I would often visit my neighbor's house to play
       | with legos or watch stop-motion lego videos on YouTube. One day I
       | went over and his older sister was hosting a party where her and
       | her friends all watched Interstella 5555. I don't think I've had
       | a more culturally mind-melting experience since then.
       | 
       | I didn't rediscover Discovery until Tiesto's "Louder Than Boom"
       | in a Tap Tap Revenge brought me into the world of electronic
       | music. While many genres fell in and out of my taste growing up,
       | electronic (and eventually French House in particular) never once
       | faded. I'm infinitely thankful for Daft Punk and their art which
       | has long been and will long be my chosen soundtrack for life.
        
       | rcarmo wrote:
       | Good thing I saved this 20th anniversary (very well crafted) post
       | from Pitchfork in 2013:
       | 
       | https://pitchfork.com/features/cover-story/reader/daft-punk/
       | 
       | Was an amazing thing to scroll through in 2013, and actually
       | holds up well in modern browsers.
        
       | tweetle_beetle wrote:
       | I remember the electric atmosphere in the auditorium going to see
       | the film the Epilogue video is taken from, Electroma [1], on
       | screen. It was only playing in a single cinema in the world in
       | Paris and only at midgnight. So glad I got to catch that.
       | 
       | I am kind of glad to hear that Daft Pank is over and I say this
       | as someone who their music means a lot to. The arc of their art
       | is complete and there is nowhere left for them to go without it
       | becoming forced, awkward or irrelevant: teenagers with attitude
       | and samplers to elder statesmen recording with an orchestra.
       | 
       | As this is HN, does anyone remember their more interesting dives
       | into technology: Daft Club [2] and the multi-angle DVD of
       | D.A.F.T. [3]?
       | 
       | This quote [4] about Daft Club, and the state of music on the
       | internet, from 2001 is really interesting in hindsight:
       | 
       | > It's great to find a new channel where there is an open access,
       | open door to more, but not more than had to be done before. It's
       | establishing a connection between people that listen to our music
       | and ourselves. There's no limits of time, and it helps people get
       | and listen to this music. A track that could have been done today
       | can be online tomorrow. The other thing is to really express
       | ourselves through the Internet.
       | 
       | > ...
       | 
       | > Napster is a cool thing with us. The important thing is to make
       | a difference. Napster is a positive thing because it raises
       | questions, it raises issues.
       | 
       | [1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0800022/
       | 
       | [2]
       | https://web.archive.org/web/20020804191122/http://www.daftcl...
       | 
       | [3] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0279758/
       | 
       | [4]
       | https://web.archive.org/web/20070609232158/http://music.yaho...
        
         | imwillofficial wrote:
         | I was a Daft Club member! I remember being made fun of when I
         | was like 15 listening to Human After All, and people just not
         | getting it. Daft Punk was the soundtrack to my hacker youth.
         | I'm forever grateful and wish them the best in their
         | retirement.
        
           | flycaliguy wrote:
           | Daft Punk is what united my high school anime nerds with the
           | "obscure" music nerds. What a lovely little merger we made.
           | This would have been 1999 or so.
        
           | nr2x wrote:
           | To be fair, Human After All is not their best record. ;-)
        
       | dep_b wrote:
       | I liked the rawness of their first record. After that their sound
       | became more pumpy and digital and I just lost interest.
        
       | efwfwef wrote:
       | There used to be a real energy to French electronic music.
       | Between Daft Punk, Justice, Something a la Mode, Madeon, David
       | Guetta, C2C, Joris Delacroix, Birdy Nam Nam, etc.
       | 
       | Now I feel like the scene is mostly American. Any modern French
       | electronic artist?
        
         | johnnycerberus wrote:
         | Kavinsky.
        
         | joachim4 wrote:
         | Gesaffelstein is bringing an innovative sound, Brodinski was
         | interesting at some point. Look for Ed Banger Records, they
         | lead a bit the French Touch.
        
       | Nekhrimah wrote:
       | If you're not aware, check out Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the
       | 5ecret 5tar 5ystem. [0]
       | 
       | This is an animated movie set to the album Discovery. No dialogue
       | other than the music of the album. Done by Toei Animation, a
       | notable Japanese animation studio.
       | 
       | You may have seen the music videos for One More Time and Harder
       | Better Faster Stronger. They were just part of a full narrative
       | arc.
       | 
       | [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Qxe-QOp_-s
        
       | 1_2__4 wrote:
       | I'm old enough to remember when Daft Punk was arguably best known
       | for having a really bizarre and fantastic semi-furry video for
       | "Da Funk", directed by Spike Jonze.
        
       | jmfldn wrote:
       | DP were great but in the second half of their career what they
       | were good at was continuing to cultivate their mystique and their
       | image. That in itself is quite a hard thing to do in the way they
       | did it. Kraftwerk and only a few others were able to be that
       | famous and also faceless, cool and unique at the same time. I
       | think I ended liking the "idea" of them almost more than their
       | music weirdly. Musically they haven't pioneered for many many
       | years. Everything after Alive, ie. half their career, was
       | mediocre at best. They sustained a very high level of fame and
       | influence through quite a small number of great songs and an
       | amazing image, long after their prime in the late 90s / early
       | 00s.
       | 
       | Anyway, au revoir to a legendary group nevertheless.
        
       | technics256 wrote:
       | My favorite band in my youth. Revolutionary music. Time to play
       | the vinyl once again.
        
       | giantrobot wrote:
       | Shit. I just learned all the lyrics to _Around The World_!
        
       | gdubs wrote:
       | Daft Punk is one of the first band websites I remember -- sitting
       | in my college computer lab on a candy colored Mac. IIRC, it was a
       | few "space men" on screen, and when you hovered over them it
       | played sample loops.
        
       | CobsterLock wrote:
       | This whole time I thought they were working on a new album. Very
       | sad to see the end of this legendary duo.
        
         | cesaref wrote:
         | Don't be - be excited for whatever projects they turn to next.
        
       | 908087 wrote:
       | I honestly kind of wish they had hung it up a long time ago.
       | Outside of the Tron score and a few other things, nearly
       | everything I've heard from them in the past decade or so has had
       | me wishing I hadn't heard it at all.
       | 
       | Along those same lines.. I was crushed when Orbital first called
       | it quits, but somehow the music they started releasing when they
       | got back together made me wish they had just stayed gone.
        
       | mensetmanusman wrote:
       | I put my baby to bed on the rocking chair patting his back to the
       | Tron soundtrack, bass is great for babies!
        
       | thomas wrote:
       | Part of me is always quite envious of people who cleanly close
       | one chapter of their life and move on to the next.
        
         | cheschire wrote:
         | I feel a deep respect for people who experience their 15
         | minutes and then choose to leave it or move behind the scenes
         | rather than searching for that next addicting dose of fame.
         | 
         | Folks go on to become producers, directors, stage actors, video
         | game voice actors, music label owners, teachers...
         | 
         | It always seems like an interesting story that I would love to
         | know more about, and yet I feel that the act of learning more
         | would itself tarnish their shift, and I try to respect them by
         | digging no further.
        
           | ryandrake wrote:
           | Even if it's longer than 15 minutes, you've got to call it at
           | some point, otherwise it just gets kind of sad.
           | 
           | I'm a bit of a classic rock / prog rock fan. These bands are
           | getting old, and they sometimes have staff changes as a
           | result of band members _dying of old age_. Went to a Yes
           | concert recently and have kind of mixed feelings about it. It
           | 's like Steve Howe and a backup band. I mean it's great that
           | these older artists "still got it" and want to keep doing
           | what they love, but from the point of view of a fan, maybe
           | it's best to call it a day when your best work is firmly in
           | the past.
        
             | MuffinFlavored wrote:
             | > Even if it's longer than 15 minutes, you've got to call
             | it at some point, otherwise it just gets kind of sad.
             | 
             | I wonder if that is part of why they called it off. Maybe
             | they've created all of the music they could both come up
             | with? Maybe the creativity tank ran empty?
        
           | flycaliguy wrote:
           | I bet a lot of artists develop a drug problem, hit rehab and
           | recalibrate.
        
             | MuffinFlavored wrote:
             | The Strokes comes to mind.
             | 
             | I think I read that the lead singer made the best music
             | when on drugs but has since gotten clean. Unfortunately,
             | the music he/they made sober wasn't as well received
             | critically? Something like that.
        
           | pault wrote:
           | More like 25 years of fame. :)
        
         | vlunkr wrote:
         | Same, I think you have to be really mature and self-aware as an
         | artist to know when it's the right time to quit.
        
         | redisman wrote:
         | Isn't job hopping the norm in the tech industry too? I can't
         | imagine staying at a company for 28 years.
        
       | ACAVJW4H wrote:
       | Just as I was listening to https://youtu.be/zhl-Cs1-sG4 :(
        
       | aphextron wrote:
       | I don't believe it yet. But I can see the logic. They're kind of
       | in a Half Life 3 situation with regards to Random Access
       | Memories. At this point, there's almost no way imaginable they
       | could top it, and anything they do come out with will probably be
       | compared unfavorably.
        
         | usrusr wrote:
         | I absolutely did not expect another album, at least not anytime
         | soon, for precisely the same reason (well, I didn't put it in
         | the hl3 metaphor). But this official breakup announcement still
         | breaks my heart, despite not even having listened to them that
         | much.
         | 
         | They could have just left their costumes standing, as the
         | gleaming pop-house god reservists that they are (except while
         | temporarily leaving reservist status) and silently move on to
         | doing other projects, as they've always done.
         | 
         | Really wonder what triggered the announcement. My guess is
         | either heavy disagreement, perhaps about retiring the bots and
         | continuing as Thomas and Guy-Manuel, or the total opposite,
         | becoming aware that they were likely fading out of those roles
         | forever and deciding that the bots deserve to go with a bang.
        
           | ficklepickle wrote:
           | I don't know how much meaning you can take from the farewell
           | video. But, to me, it looked like one of them couldn't go on
           | anymore.
        
             | usrusr wrote:
             | Good point. If, hopefully not, it was something like a
             | sudden health issue, sampling that movie scene would be the
             | single most awesomely daft punk way to announce it.
        
           | turdnagel wrote:
           | Also wondering what it is - my money is on them wanting to go
           | their own way, which they've done in the past while keeping
           | the robots going (they put out a lot of solo material in the
           | late 90s / early 00s) - but I guess it's different this time
           | as its been so long.
           | 
           | I just want new sample-based music. Fancy synths and
           | orchestras sound awesome, but IMHO they are _almost_
           | unmatched when it comes to chopping up samples and making
           | incredible, emotional, catchy music out of it.
        
         | symlinkk wrote:
         | I thought RAM was already on the downturn. They peaked with
         | Discovery and Alive 2007 in my opinion.
        
           | geenew wrote:
           | The Tron soundtrack on the same order as Discovery and Alive
           | 2007. Felt much more like Daft Punk than RAM, IMHO.
        
           | me_me_me wrote:
           | Alive 2007 is my absolute favourite. I often think that 2007
           | remixes are better then the originals.
           | 
           | I remember my mind was blown when i first heard #3 Television
           | rules nation / Crescendolls, when it transition back to
           | Television with a drop... absolute masterpiece of electro
           | music
        
           | agumonkey wrote:
           | RAM felt producer nostalgia based, legend namedropping and
           | such. The daft spirit was gone to me.
        
             | sincerely wrote:
             | I mean, it's basically the album version of "Teachers" off
             | Homework :P
        
           | YorickPeterse wrote:
           | I always felt RAM wasn't so much a downturn, just too
           | different from their past work (which was the reason I liked
           | them so much).
           | 
           | I suspect the reason is the duo simply wanting to do
           | different things. After all, they've been Daft Punk for
           | almost 3 decades.
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | arcticfox wrote:
           | Everyone has their own opinion on the content, but RAM won
           | the most prestigious Grammy Award. From a recognition
           | perspective there's not really anywhere to go but down.
        
             | symlinkk wrote:
             | Grammys are a joke. In 2014 Macklemore's album "The Heist"
             | beat out Kendrick Lamar's "Good Kid Maad City" for best hip
             | hop album.
        
               | nwienert wrote:
               | Please, it hurts to think about.
        
           | pram wrote:
           | Human After All was already on the downturn.
           | 
           | To me RAM sounds like an Air album, not a Daft Punk album. I
           | don't consider that a bad thing though.
        
             | giantrobot wrote:
             | I thought I was the only person who thought this. Greetings
             | thought sibling. Also not a bad thing, I like Air just fine
             | but I expect an Air album from them, not Daft Punk.
        
       | dang wrote:
       | If curious, past threads:
       | 
       |  _Recreating Daft Punk 's Da Funk with Overtone and Leipzig_ -
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11446223 - April 2016 (98
       | comments)
       | 
       |  _Aerodynamic by Daft-Punk in 100 lines of code with Sonic Pi_ -
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11033953 - Feb 2016 (69
       | comments)
       | 
       |  _Daft Punk Lego Minifig raytraced in your browser._ -
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7550736 - April 2014 (2
       | comments)
       | 
       |  _Daft Punk's "Get Lucky," explained using music theory_ -
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7491174 - March 2014 (1
       | comment)
       | 
       |  _How Daft Punk Created One of Their Most Famous Samples_ -
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7011035 - Jan 2014 (94
       | comments)
       | 
       |  _Daft Punk Didn 't "Get Lucky" When It Created This Summer's
       | Biggest Hit_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5996054 -
       | July 2013 (82 comments)
       | 
       |  _Desire for Daft Punk 's iconic helmets creates cottage
       | industry_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5770913 - May
       | 2013 (12 comments)
       | 
       |  _Anatomy of a Mashup: Definitive Daft Punk visualised_ -
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2595277 - May 2011 (13
       | comments)
       | 
       |  _Guy crafts a Daft Punk helmet in 17 months_ -
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1539509 - July 2010 (22
       | comments)
        
       | bensons1 wrote:
       | I suddenly feel much older.
        
       | seapunk wrote:
       | Great duo.
       | 
       | Interview of them in 1995:
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQmVdGvoQXk
       | 
       | if anyone is nostalgic for the days when French electronic music
       | was emerging, I recommend the Mia Hansen-Love's movie "Eden"
       | (trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lIzEL9BoDc)
        
       | neom wrote:
       | Sounds like they re-mastered or even re-recored touch at the end,
       | really beautifully remixed. I'm gonna miss DP a lot, huge huge
       | fan. Thankfully Kistune is still putting out a lot of good music.
        
         | aequitas wrote:
         | I wish I could play the ending of touch slower so it lasted
         | even longer. It's one of those songs that tells a whole story
         | without words.
        
       | strictnein wrote:
       | I remember the first time I heard and saw the "Around the World"
       | video. It must have been summer of 1997(?), when MTV still played
       | music videos and they played the "weirder" ones late at night.
       | Was poking online at stuff and had the TV on in the other room
       | and I heard this weird (as in different) song come on, head to
       | the other room to see that strange music video and I was
       | immediately hooked. They only showed the artist at the beginning
       | of it, so I had to stay up another 2 or 3 hours until the entire
       | segment repeated itself to catch who it actually was.
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKYPYj2XX80
        
         | EricE wrote:
         | "I had to stay up another 2 or 3 hours until the entire segment
         | repeated itself to catch who it actually was."
         | 
         | Ah, the days when phones were on the wall with a cord too.
         | 
         | At least MTV did still play music back then. And the record
         | industry wonders why file sharing sites took off? I loved
         | limewire because I could find songs I liked, then I would grab
         | everything else that person had and I discovered so much new
         | content - I bought more CDs than I ever would have otherwise
         | simply because I discovered stuff I didn't even know existed. I
         | still haven't found anything that could match that discovery
         | experience; it's kind of crazy really.
        
           | strictnein wrote:
           | It's crazy how Youtube is the MTV of our dreams. If I could
           | have had access to just the music videos on Youtube in 1995,
           | I would have thought it was the greatest invention in
           | history.
        
         | pqdbr wrote:
         | I remember very vividly the first time I listened to Daft Punk.
         | I was maybe 16 years old (circa 2003) and was one of the first
         | times I was traveling without my parents. I was on a skydiving
         | trip with my instructor and crew. At night, there was a big
         | party at the DZ, and at a certain time the DJ dropped "One more
         | time".
         | 
         | I was talking to someone and went "wait a second, I need to do
         | something". I walked up to the DJ booth and asked him "Man,
         | what is this song you are playing?!"
         | 
         | He smiled, pulled up a CD cover for Discovery and said
         | "Congrats, you have been daft punked".
         | 
         | Such a powerful track... it kickstarted my passion for house
         | and EDM in general.
        
       | maaaaattttt wrote:
       | I still remember seeing the Alive set at a festival in France.
       | They were headlining but I didn't really care about them anymore
       | back then. I went to the concert anyway as it was the last of the
       | night. The whole show blew my mind! The stage, the lights, the
       | mashups that made the old songs feel like new and made the new
       | songs don't feel so new. I can tell you the 30+K people attending
       | the concert that evening were almost all in trance during and
       | after the show. I cared again about them after that!
       | 
       | I also remember listing to the live record (which is the Paris
       | recording if I'm not mistaken) after it came out and it was very
       | different of the one I saw. So definitely some live creation
       | happened during that tour, or some in-between sets work maybe (if
       | you don't believe in magic).
       | 
       | Side note and personal opinion, I think "Veridis Quo" would be
       | the perfect soundtrack for this announcement, and is one of my
       | all time favorites of them. Here's to a bright future for both of
       | them hopefully!
        
         | coldpie wrote:
         | There's a couple bootlegs of various showings of the Alive 2007
         | concert, and they're all noticeably different. I imagine the
         | 1997 sets were even more different, back when they were a bit
         | more experimental. Cool that you got to see them, I never did
         | :)
        
           | maaaaattttt wrote:
           | Indeed, just went to see if I could find the show I saw, and
           | I could [0] (though the footage is terrible). Just the use of
           | the Close Encounters of the Third Kind sound at the beginning
           | gives me goose bumps again!
           | 
           | [0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2DSzbt6wco
        
       | kart23 wrote:
       | I always felt like 'Contact' was a goodbye in a larger sense. I
       | hoped they would do the new Tron movie soundtrack, but I guess
       | that honor is going to someone else now.
        
       | xd1936 wrote:
       | Epilogue:
       | 
       | https://youtu.be/DuDX6wNfjqc
        
       | nicolashahn wrote:
       | This completely sucks. I had a bucket list item to see them live.
       | Definitely my most listened-to artist ever.
       | 
       | Best of luck to their next endeavors though, I hope they both
       | continue to make music.
        
         | JansjoFromIkea wrote:
         | I think they probably knew they had a bit of an issue in terms
         | of live shows in that they had a pretty divergent audience it'd
         | be very hard to please. It was already a bit of a marvel how
         | well they combined their three albums into one show in 2007 and
         | they were still pretty firmly a dance act at this stage (which
         | I'd say has blurred a lot since as Discovery and RAM become
         | increasingly dominant over Homework in mainstream recognition)
         | 
         | Outside of doing seated gigs (ie something very firmly to set
         | the tone in advance) I'm not sure how you could clearly set a
         | tone that wouldn't upset a large portion of the audience. I'd
         | skip a seated gig for sure.
         | 
         | Plus the demand would be off the charts. Horrifically expensive
         | tickets bought maybe a year in advance. That'd be a lot of
         | pressure to include hits that may not fit very well in (e.g.
         | thinking of how Digital Love was left outta the 2007 show,
         | which was absolutely the right move)
        
         | maxclark wrote:
         | I was in the same boat. Just never seemed to be in the right
         | place. 28 years is an incredible run.
        
         | afavour wrote:
         | I wouldn't discount the possibility of one-off reunion shows in
         | the future, provided they parted on good terms (and that's
         | usually the case when a band has been together 20+ years)
         | 
         | (FWIW, I was very smug that I got a ticket to one of LCD
         | Soundsystem's goodbye shows. It was awesome. They reunited a
         | few years later, released albums and resumed touring
         | -\\_(tsu)_/- )
        
           | TheOtherHobbes wrote:
           | Phil Collins did a "First Finale Farewell Tour."
           | 
           | Then followed it with a "Not Dead Yet Tour."
        
             | toyg wrote:
             | Tina Turner has had quite a few "last" tour. And I'm sure
             | there are plenty more. People can always change their mind.
        
               | dylan604 wrote:
               | Eventually, everyone needs money again.
        
               | rtx wrote:
               | Not Bill gates, if he stops to pick-up money he loses
               | money.
        
               | jakeva wrote:
               | I get the joke, but the literalist inside me wants to
               | always point out when I hear this that it's not as though
               | he stops being the founder of Microsoft in the few
               | seconds he stops to pick up money.
               | 
               | He doesn't lose money by picking up money. It's more than
               | likely less than the daily market fluctuation of a single
               | stock of MSFT, but stopping to pick up money doesn't
               | interrupt or halt his income in any way.
        
               | ficklepickle wrote:
               | Well he pressured oxford into not open-sourcing the
               | vaccine. To him, that is probably a quarter on the
               | ground.
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | dandersh wrote:
               | I've lost count the amount of Rolling Stones "farewell
               | tour" concerts I've been too.
        
           | toomuchtodo wrote:
           | I too have gone through this with Nine Inch Nails. You said
           | you were done Trent!
        
         | pyrophane wrote:
         | Both artists are under 50. I would not be at all surprised if
         | you get the chance to see them perform together again.
        
           | buro9 wrote:
           | And with the added advantage that as they are electric they'd
           | sound as good in the future as they did in the past. You
           | wouldn't even know if it wasn't them under the masks.
           | 
           | The counter point being that I saw Velvet Underground live
           | and they sucked badly :D
        
             | Swizec wrote:
             | I saw Guns'n'Roses at a festival in 2012 and ho boy did Axl
             | Rose not age well. The Slash impersonator was kinda odd too
             | - obviously great guitarist in his own right, all he needed
             | was to own the fact he's not Slash.
        
               | dandersh wrote:
               | I'm guessing you're referring to DJ Ashba? One thing
               | about GnR is they always had talented guitarists.
               | 
               | Yea Axl's voice definitely isn't what it once was. Corey
               | Glover (Living Colour) is another singer from that time
               | period whose voice isn't the same.
        
             | schwartzworld wrote:
             | I went to a smashing pumpkins show and was so turned off
             | that I stopped being a fan. I have met several others with
             | the same experience
        
               | JansjoFromIkea wrote:
               | What was the issue? Was it the length of the show, the
               | aura of Billy Corgan (and his horrific aesthetics),
               | renditions that somehow made the original versions worse?
               | 
               | Guy was obviously talented but I don't think he's the
               | best judge of his strengths. There's a couple of songs
               | from Adore and Machina where the music videos manage to
               | make the songs drastically worse for me.
        
               | schwartzworld wrote:
               | You pretty much nailed it. This was on the Melon Collie
               | tour.
        
               | saalweachter wrote:
               | Since I don't go to live shows, I tend to just have the
               | disappointment of finding out that I only like _some_ of
               | my favorite bands ' albums, because the arc of their own
               | musical careers doesn't match my own tastes.
               | 
               | Why can't performers just stay the same forever,
               | producing a never-ending sequence of similar but distinct
               | works?
        
               | egypturnash wrote:
               | Some do! Some don't.
               | 
               | There is one English psychedelic outfit I like called
               | "Ozric Tentacles". Every album is pretty much identical.
               | And it turns out that I _really like that album_ , so I
               | have bought it ten times over the years, plus a couple of
               | live albums.
               | 
               | This happens in part because whenever the people behind
               | Ozric Tentacles want to make something different from
               | their trademark sound, they'll usually put it out under
               | another name. If you go to their site right now the front
               | page advertises recent albums from two different side
               | projects with even sillier names than "Ozric Tentacles".
               | 
               | (The Ozrics are far from the only band to do this,
               | they're just the first example that comes to mind.)
               | 
               | There are other bands I like where every album is
               | something different. King Crimson, for instance, is a
               | different lineup for pretty much every album. Same
               | bandleader, some people return to perform in multiple
               | incarnations of the band, some are only there for one
               | album and some tour dates. I love some of their albums
               | and some are flat for me. I'd still grab another one if I
               | heard that Fripp had declared that the current assemblage
               | of musicians he was working with was an incarnation of
               | King Crimson, because the albums that work for me work
               | _really well_. If it 's a dud I just consider it a down
               | payment on the next hit.
        
               | Anthony-G wrote:
               | Despite having seen them live a few times, I only own one
               | Ozric Tentacles as I figured there's no need to buy any
               | of the others. :)
               | 
               | I always figured that the members got their musical
               | satisfaction from their side projects. Thought I haven't
               | listened to them in years, I actually preferred Eat
               | Static which was formed by two of the Ozrics. Similarly,
               | another band I listened to at the time, System 7 was
               | formed by members of Gong.
               | 
               | This was around the time I was discovering what's now
               | called "electronic dance music". As a music listener, EDM
               | was much more exciting and interesting than much of the
               | guitar-based music in the mid-nineties.
        
               | saalweachter wrote:
               | I mean, there's the odd band I like everything of (eg,
               | Jethro Tull), but other times either the "new stuff"
               | isn't "right", or -- when I come to a band late in their
               | career -- I work backwards only to discover I don't care
               | for their early stuff.
        
               | triceratops wrote:
               | > Why can't performers just stay the same forever,
               | producing a never-ending sequence of similar but distinct
               | works?
               | 
               | Because they're artists. Even the record company-
               | manufactured acts consider themselves artists.
               | 
               | On a human level, they're already performing the same
               | pieces of music thousands of times - in rehearsals,
               | concerts, recordings. It must get incredibly tedious
               | after a while. You want them to write the _same type_ of
               | music all their lives as well? You monster! :-P
        
               | philwelch wrote:
               | There are some genres where that happens, but if you
               | don't like those genres, you're out of luck.
        
               | mynameisash wrote:
               | The Pumpkins were my absolute favorite band in the heyday
               | of 90s alt rock/grunge. I saw them once in St. Paul
               | during their Adore tour, and it was amazing. But
               | something about their music just didn't seem to age well
               | with me - which very well may have been my tastes
               | changing versus the band. I don't know. Machina didn't
               | click, and I never really got into Zeitgeist or Oceania.
               | I did buy Rotten Apples and enjoyed it immensely, but it
               | was their older music.
               | 
               | Whenever I watch one of their music videos on YouTube,
               | it's very bittersweet. I still love their older work -
               | MCIS and Adore are absolutely wonderful. But it's the
               | universal story of losing your adolescence.
               | 
               | I didn't really get into Daft Punk until the early 2000s,
               | so my context was very different. I'm still sad to see
               | this breakup, but I guess I don't feel it the same as SP.
               | Funny, that.
        
             | coldsmoke wrote:
             | It feels like they're also prime candidates for making a
             | tour with them as actual robots (or holograms), so they
             | wouldn't even need to tour themselves.
        
             | pvarangot wrote:
             | A good live performance from an artist like that is all
             | about visual and rhythmic synchronization with the lights
             | and the dancing audience and about live EQ and effects
             | tuned to the sound system in the venue. So no, it won't be
             | the same.
             | 
             | If you get utterly fucked up with perception altering
             | substances it won't really matter though.
        
           | pardonmesir wrote:
           | one just fucking exploded! did you not see that!?
        
             | lupin3ken wrote:
             | This comment made the thread for me.
        
           | hypersoar wrote:
           | I didn't go in the past because I'd heard their shows had a
           | rave-like atmosphere. I have no idea if that's true, but it
           | put me off. But maybe I won't have to worry about that so
           | much when I'm one of a bunch of middle-aged people at a
           | reunion concert by Daft Punk in their 60s.
        
             | devin wrote:
             | What's wrong with a rave-like atmosphere? Live a little.
        
               | zeruch wrote:
               | Some folks don't like to deal with a swarming mass of
               | tweaked out people. They just don't.
               | 
               | As someone who survived early 90s acid house and rave
               | culture in the Bay Area, people falling over, spilling
               | things on you, or being rambling goofs for hours on end
               | had a limited life span. Frankly, a mosh pit was more
               | comfortable, because there you at least KNEW what was
               | expected and how to counter.
        
             | ihuman wrote:
             | There are plenty of videos of Alive 2007 on youtube if you
             | want to see how rave-like they are.
        
               | senor_lecce wrote:
               | Probably the best live gig I've been to.
        
           | eddieroger wrote:
           | The tour kinda writes itself - call it the One More Time
           | tour, and prior put out a video rebuilding to the tune of
           | Technologic. I am sad, but not sold I won't get to see them
           | live eventually.
        
         | playingchanges wrote:
         | Maybe my biggest concert regret is not seeing the Alive tour.
         | Game changers.
        
           | ehsankia wrote:
           | It was my very first concert, and honestly I probably didn't
           | even appreciate it enough at the time (though I loved it),
           | due to lack of perspective and being a teenager, but wow did
           | I get lucky :)
        
         | ryanmarsh wrote:
         | Came here to say this. After missing 2010 I set aside some
         | money so that if a concert was announced anywhere in the world
         | I could drop everything and go. Sadly it doesn't look like that
         | will happen now.
        
         | Nelkins wrote:
         | I feel the same way. I think I've listened to Discovery
         | hundreds of times.
         | 
         | With any luck there will be a reunion within a decade or two.
        
         | rvieira wrote:
         | Don't mean to twist the knife, but I saw them live and it was
         | one of the best concerts I've ever been to :).
         | 
         | I've seen concerts with better music in small venues (DJ
         | Spooky), I've seen crazier concerts (BHole Surfers) and more
         | sensory beating ones (Chemical Brothers), but never one that
         | was such a blast as theirs.
        
       | Thaxll wrote:
       | "Announcement": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuDX6wNfjqc
        
       | mu_killnine wrote:
       | I love daft punk and had countless nights in college studying,
       | gaming, and coding to their albums. I will continue to love their
       | music but totally understand wanting to move onto something new
       | after almost 30 years :)
       | 
       | Best of luck to them in whatever they move onto next
        
         | lm28469 wrote:
         | > gaming
         | 
         | I used to play HL 2 while listening to Discovery, I know, kinda
         | weird, and now every time I hear songs from this album I have
         | HL2 flashbacks. Somehow these are some of the most vivid
         | memories I have, I can still see the screen and the in game
         | scenes
        
           | alexmorenodev wrote:
           | I had this same feeling with SNES games and Diablo 2 and
           | stuff I listened to when I was 10 till 14 (especially with
           | System of a Down). Took me years to disassociate then. Not
           | that I wanted, but it happened eventually.
        
       | baron816 wrote:
       | Bands don't seem to break up as often as they used to.
        
         | omosubi wrote:
         | Bands don't seem to exist as often as they used to - everyone
         | is a solo artist or a dj or a producer now
        
           | mongol wrote:
           | This is very true.
        
         | redisman wrote:
         | Band-as-a-service. Can't kill the cash cow!
        
       | sparkling wrote:
       | I found their last few albums to be rather weak, lacking
       | innovation. Who knows, maybe in a few years after a break they
       | can get back together with a fresh mind and produce something
       | great.
        
         | bjakubski wrote:
         | They've recorded a total of four albums (five counting the
         | "Tron: Legacy" soundtrack)
        
           | bitwize wrote:
           | Congratulations, you found the "everything they did after
           | _Homework_ sucks " snob.
        
             | olivierestsage wrote:
             | I think it's a little more complicated than that. Human
             | After All was widely panned on release (and in my opinion
             | remains very hard to listen to), but then was
             | "rehabilitated" by the Alive 2007 live album. And Random
             | Access Memories always felt like it lacked the energy of
             | their earlier work, sort of like lounge music. Just one
             | opinion, but not necessarily snobbery.
        
           | jjaredsimpson wrote:
           | I feel like Alive should count even though its not new
           | material. It's so good and different take on their own
           | tracks.
        
         | pault wrote:
         | I upvoted you because people shouldn't be downvoting you for
         | having a different opinion. People, downvotes are for low
         | effort comments, not because you disagree!
        
         | SparkyMcUnicorn wrote:
         | I know that music taste is subjective, but Random Access
         | Memories is a masterpiece.
        
           | pault wrote:
           | I think a lot of people were expecting more of the electro
           | that they pioneered and got turned off by the heavy disco
           | influence.
        
             | turdnagel wrote:
             | Electro / disco is not the right dichotomy, as their music
             | has always sat at an intersection between genres. Homework,
             | Discovery, and Human After All are all heavily sample-
             | based, and there are like 1 or 2 samples on all of Random
             | Access Memories. That is the big difference.
        
               | SparkyMcUnicorn wrote:
               | Which is (in my opinion) "innovation". An innovation not
               | everyone agreed with.
               | 
               | Instead of sampling from the 70s, they used artists that
               | created music during the 70s.
        
           | pmarreck wrote:
           | It probably depends on how old you are. When I was rounding
           | out my 20's and still going to clubs, Homework dropped, I
           | listened to it so many times (but looking back, that album
           | was kind of inaccessible to most unless they were already
           | techno-heads). And then 2001 and Discovery, which I'd
           | personally consider their magnum opus, and everything after
           | that is just kinda meh for me except for the TRON remixes
           | (which figures, since I'm an 80's kid).
        
       | albertshin wrote:
       | I feel like the artists/celebrities/directors who publicly
       | announce that they're quitting usually end up coming back in a
       | few years... Director Miyazaki comes to mind in more recent
       | years.
       | 
       | Those that actually "quit" just quietly drift away out of the
       | public scene.
        
         | mongol wrote:
         | I don't understand why they do it so publically. Have they felt
         | a lot of pressure and this is the way to put an end to that? I
         | haven't followed them closely, but RAM are many years ago. Have
         | their been a lot of rumours about their next project lately?
        
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