Daft Punk explains why they broke up

5 April, 2023

We’re quickly approaching the release of Random Access Memories 10th Anniversary Edition on the heels of the two-year anniversary of Daft Punk officially breaking up. Thomas Bangalter has a solo album coming out this Friday, Mythologies, his debut solo orchestral album. Ahead of the release, he spoke with BBC and explained why exactly Daft Punk officially decided to break up.

“[Daft Punk] was an exploration, I would say, starting with the machines and going away from them. I love technology as a tool [but] I’m somehow terrified of the nature of the relationship between the machines and ourselves,” Bangalter explained.

“We tried to use these machines to express something extremely moving that a machine cannot feel, but a human can. We were always on the side of humanity and not on the side of technology,” he added.

With the advent of more popularized AI and algorithmic technologies, Thomas and Guy-Manuel chose to retain their more human sides.

On the new album, he explained, “Daft Punk was a project that blurred the line between reality and fiction with these robot characters. It was a very important point for me and [co-founder] Guy-Man[uel] to not spoil the narrative while it was happening. Now the story has ended, it felt interesting to reveal part of the creative process that is very much human-based and not algorithmic of any sort.”