Human After All by Daft Punk

Human After All, Daft Punk's third studio album, came out on 14 March 2005, and it's the sound of the robots unplugging the disco ball. Where Discovery had been built over two years from disco and garage house, Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo knocked this one out in six weeks: stripped-back, improvised, heavy on crunching guitars and grinding electronics, and happy to ride a single riff until it hurts.

Plenty of critics hated exactly that, calling it repetitive and a step down, though a few went for its darker, experimental streak. "Robot Rock" and "Technologic" still charted in several countries, the title track charted in France, and the album topped the Billboard Dance/Electronic Albums chart and picked up a Grammy nomination for Best Electronic/Dance Album. The real rescue came on the road: once these songs got rebuilt on the Alive 2006/2007 tour, fans and critics alike went back and decided they'd misjudged it.

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