Inside the vinyl sleeves of Daft Punk's debut album homework, at the very bottom of the thank you section,

there's a quote so small it's easy to miss.

It's attributed to the influential pop innovator Brian Wilson from The Beach Boys.

It reads, quote, I wanted to write joyful music that

made other people feel good, music that helps and heals, because I believe that music is God's

voice. At first it sounds almost childlike in its simplicity, but that final phrase, music is God's

voice, points to something much deeper,

something transcendent, something sacred. For those unfamiliar with Daft Punk's history,

Brian Wilson might feel like an unlikely reference point for a pair of French house producers

making raw club-focused tracks in the mid-90s. Unless, of course, you know that Toma and

Gimann's very first band was a rock trio called Darlene, named after a Beach Boy song.

So the quote works as a little wink to their origin story. But more than that,

knowing where Daft Punk would eventually take their career, Brian Wilson's quote now reads

like a mission statement, the guiding principle for everything that followed.

Joy, healing, celebrating music as something transcendent.

Parts of homework hinted at this, but it would be Daft Punk's next project that fully embraced it.

Because if homework was Daft Punk as students of house music,

a genre they fell in love with as

teenagers, then their sophomore album would reach back even further.

Back to the original spark.

When they first fell in love with music as kids.

Before genres and labels.

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