Discovery by Daft Punk

Discovery, Daft Punk's second album, landed on Virgin in March 2001, and it's the sound of two French house heads trading the raw Chicago jack of Homework for glittering disco, post-disco, garage house and R&B. Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo made it at Bangalter's home in Paris between 1998 and 2000, chopping up old records and faking a few of their own, with Romanthony, Todd Edwards and DJ Sneak lending a hand. Bangalter pitched it as a record about song structure and childhood nostalgia, and you can hear the wide-eyed kid in every filtered hook.

By then they'd hidden behind robot helmets, and they turned their love of Japanese anime into Interstella 5555, a feature with Leiji Matsumoto using the album as its soundtrack. Six singles came off it: "One More Time" ruled the clubs, "Digital Love" swooned and "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" chugged like a machine learning to dance. Critics hailed it, and its fingerprints are all over the electronic and pop production that followed.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.