On March 12th, 2001, Daft Punk released their first big hit album, Discovery. It reached number two on the UK and French Albums charts, and had continued success in countries around the globe. Many of its songs, including “One More Time” and “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” have become staples of the house genre. The album is now seen as a high point of innovation in the genre, and is celebrated along with the duo’s later release, Random Access Memories. Now that it has been more than 20 years since its release, many may wonder, why exactly is this album so celebrated? And does it still inspire artists to this day?

The house genre is built around the art of sampling. Sampling refers to using preexisting music or sounds, and rearranging them to form a new piece of art. This process was popularized first by DJ Kool Herc, a Jamaican-American DJ from the Bronx that laid the ground work for its later uses in hip-hop. Daft Punk has made a name for themselves with their use of this technique. When creating songs, they were focused on using disco samples from the 1970s and using them to make futuristic beats. They also fully “chopped up” the songs that they were sampling, rather than just taking a segment of a song, which would be broken down into individual instruments and drums to create something new. 

An example of this sampling can be found in the album’s main single, “One More Time”. The song “More Spell on You” by Eddie Johns was used in the process. Daft Punk choose to take only three small segments from the song, expend their lengths, and raise their pitches, resulting in the smash hit. 

Discovery in its entirety is one of the strongest works of dance music put into a single package. It focuses on the sounds of childhood nostalgia and that theme can be felt through the samples. Each track is cohesive, powerful, and very danceable, so it is no surprise it became such a hit in clubs around the world. Its influence on the cultural landscape is also impossible to miss, those feelings of nostalgia began to get ingrained into every corner of popular culture.

This album manages to hold itself up even 20 years after its release, so if you have not heard it before, you should listen to it!