Fifteen years ago today — September 9th, 1999 — Daft Punk was born.
Before they became a household name, before they released the iconic albums Discovery, Human After All, and Random Access Memories, Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter were just two regular (unmasked) French guys trying their hand at house music. That is, until a virus ravaged their hardware.
As the story goes, the renowned electronic duo officially became robots as a result of a technological meltdown called the “9999 bug”.
“We did not choose to become robots,” Bangalter reportedly said of that fateful day. “There was an accident in our studio. We were working on our sampler, and at exactly 9:09 am on September 9, 1999, it exploded. When we regained consciousness, we discovered that we had become robots.”
A stroke of coincidence or not, Daft Punk was here to stay. The two-piece went on to “introduce” themselves to the world via a short commercial on Cartoon Network’s “Toonami” block (see below).
Of course, the rest — the iconic albums, Grammy Awards, noted film contributions, and legendary collaborations — is history. In less than two decades, Daft Punk have not only forever changed and made their mark on house music, but pop music as a whole.
Below, check out their “Toonami” commercial, a few rare Daft Punk clips, and a short documentary about the evolution of their robot costumes.