From the Ringer Podcast Network, this is Dysect, long-form musical analysis broken into short, digestible episodes. Today we begin our multi-episode deep dive into Daft Punk's final album, Random Access Memories. I'm your host, Cole Kushna. Last time on Dissect, we took a tour through Daft Punk's Human After All era,

a period that extended beyond just the album itself, encompassing

the experimental film Electroma, the now legendary Coachella 2006 performance, and the subsequent

Alive 2007 tour and live album.

Ironically, despite Human After All receiving mixed reviews, Daft Punk emerged from this era bigger

and more influential than ever before.

That influence reached a new peak when they received a cosign from one of the most powerful

tastemakers in hip-hop, Kanye West, who in 2007 released Stronger, a global hit built around

a prominent sample of Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger.

The track introduced Daphunk sound and image to an entirely new audience,

a reach further amplified by their appearance in the Stronger Music Video and Kanye's 2008

Grammy performance.

Stronger was a touchstone moment in electronic music's growing influence on hip-hop and pop,

a trend that would only accelerate through the late 2000s and into the early 2010s.

What once began as an underground genre, born in clubs by black, queer, and minority communities,

was now breaking into the mainstream

at a massive scale. And if Dap Punk were following conventional logic, they would have capitalized

on that moment. With their momentum at an all-time high and electronic music exploding globally,

the formula would have been pretty straightforward. Release a new project, return to the sound

of discovery, and do it quickly.

But as you know by this point in the season, Dapunk never followed conventional logic.

The only predictable thing about them is their unpredictability, that whatever comes next will

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