"Robot Rock" is the lead single from

Daft Punk Daft Punk were a French electronic music duo formed in 1993 in Paris by Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo. They achieved popularity in the late 1990s as part of the French house movement, combining house music, funk, disco, tech ...

's third studio album ''

Human After All ''Human After All'' is the third studio album by the French electronic music duo Daft Punk, released on 14 March 2005 through Virgin Records. Whereas their previous studio album, ''Discovery'' (2001), was inspired by disco and garage house and ...

''. The single was released initially on 11 April 2005 with a music video, directed by and featuring the duo, preceding the single's release. While the single reached a moderately high chart position, many critics found the song overly repetitive when compared to songs from their other studio albums at the time. It features a sample of "Release the Beast" performed by

Breakwater Breakwater may refer to: * Breakwater (structure), a structure for protecting a beach or harbour Places * Breakwater, Victoria, a suburb of Geelong, Victoria, Australia * Breakwater Island, Antarctica * Breakwater Islands, Nunavut, Canada * ...

Composition

Musically, "Robot Rock" has been described as

electronic rock Electronic rock (also known as electro rock and synth rock) is a music genre that involves a combination of rock music and electronic music, featuring instruments typically found within both genres. It originates from the late 1960s when rock b ...

and

dance-rock Dance-rock is a dance- infused genre of rock music. It is a post-disco genre connected with pop rock and post-punk with fewer rhythm and blues influences. It originated in the early 1980s, following the decline in popularity of both punk and dis ...

. It contains a sample of the

song "Release the Beast"."Robot Rock" (

liner notes Liner notes (also sleeve notes or album notes) are the writings found on the sleeves of LP record albums and in booklets that come inserted into the compact disc jewel case or cassette j-cards. Origin Liner notes are descended from the prog ...

Virgin Records Virgin Records is a British record label owned by Universal Music Group. They were originally founded as a British independent record label in 1972 by entrepreneurs Richard Branson, Simon Draper, Nik Powell, and musician Tom Newman (musician), ...

, a division of

Universal Music Group Universal Music Group N.V. (often abbreviated as UMG and referred to as Universal Music Group or Universal Music) is a Netherlands, Dutch–United States, American multinational Music industry, music corporation under Law of the Netherlands, ...

. 2005. The sample features a

synthesizer A synthesizer (also synthesiser or synth) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis a ...

riff A riff is a short, repeated motif or figure in the melody or accompaniment of a musical composition. Riffs are most often found in rock music, punk, heavy metal music, Latin, funk, and jazz, although classical music is also sometimes based ...

with an

oscillator sync Oscillator sync is a feature in some synthesizers with two or more VCOs, DCOs, or "virtual" oscillators. As one oscillator finishes a cycle, it resets the period of another oscillator, forcing the latter to have the same base frequency. This can ...

timbre, as well as percussion and

power chord A power chord , also called a fifth chord, is a colloquial name for a chord on guitar, especially on electric guitar, that consists of the root note and the fifth, as well as possibly octaves of those notes. Power chords are commonly pla ...

s on an

electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external electric Guitar amplifier, sound amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar. It uses one or more pickup (music technology), pickups ...

. Daft Punk incorporated a

vocoder A vocoder (, a portmanteau of ''vo''ice and en''coder'') is a category of speech coding that analyzes and synthesizes the human voice signal for audio data compression, multiplexing, voice encryption or voice transformation. The vocoder wa ...

into the production, repeating the title phrase of "Robot Rock". Aside from the sampling,

Thomas Bangalter Thomas Bangalter (; born 3 January 1975) is a French musician. He is best known as one half of the former French house music duo Daft Punk, alongside Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo. He has recorded and released music as a member of the trio Music S ...

noted that the duo used a

Moog synthesizer The Moog synthesizer ( ) is a modular synthesizer invented by the American engineer Robert Moog in 1964. Moog's company, R. A. Moog Co., produced numerous models from 1965 to 1981, and again from 2014. It was the first commercial synthesizer ...

with guitar pedals for the song. The Breakwater sample is credited on the single's sleeve and on the liner notes of the parent ''

'' album.''Human After All'' (

, a division of

. 2005. Bangalter explained that on his Roulé label, "we've been doing records that are 9 minutes with only singleone second loop, with even less foundation than there is on 'Robot Rock'. It's always been a way to reinterpret things—sometimes it's using nelement from the past, or sometimes recreating them and fooling the eyes or the ears, which is just a fun thing to do." He elaborated that the song "is a tribute to the power of heavy rock chords. In a way I think we were exploring if you can take the essence of rock—that power—and mix it with dance. But to take a riff and loop it is to explore the core of rock.""A Round with Daft Punk". '' Q'', issue 257 (December 2007). The Breakwater synthesizer riff is absent from the "Maximum Overdrive" remix of "Robot Rock", which consists of the song's other elements for a duration of nearly six minutes. A music video for this remix has been shot and included on the Daft Punk '' Musique Vol. 1 1993–2005'' compilation CD and DVD.

Music video

The

music video A music video is a video that integrates a song or an album with imagery that is produced for promotion (marketing), promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a music marketing device intended to ...

for "Robot Rock" consists of

and

Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo Guillaume Emmanuel "Guy-Manuel" de Homem-Christo (; born 8 February 1974) is a French musician. He is known as one half of the former French house music duo Daft Punk, along with Thomas Bangalter. He has produced several works from his now-def ...

of Daft Punk performing the song on a stage decorated with several televisions and lights. It was filmed on VHS to achieve an aged look. This is the first video to feature the duo as themselves exclusively. This pattern continues for the rest of the ''Human After All'' videos except for "

The Prime Time of Your Life "The Prime Time of Your Life" is a song by French electronic music duo Daft Punk from their third studio album, '' Human After All''. It was released as the fourth and final single from the album on 17 June 2006 by record label Virgin. The song ...

", where they only make a

cameo appearance A cameo appearance, also called a cameo role and often shortened to just cameo (), is a brief guest appearance of a well-known person or character in a work of the performing arts. These roles are generally small, many of them non-speaking on ...

. Bangalter plays the Gibson EDS-1275

double neck guitar A multi-neck guitar is a guitar that has multiple fingerboard necks. They exist in both electric and acoustic versions. Examples of multi-neck guitars and lutes go back at least to the Renaissance. Today, the most common type of multi-neck gui ...

shown on the "Robot Rock" single cover while de Homem-Christo performs on a

drum set A drum kit or drum set (also known as a trap set, or simply drums in popular music and jazz contexts) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and sometimes other auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The drummer ty ...

Critical reception

Though it reached moderate positions in UK and

U.S. The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguous ...

dance charts, the single encountered criticism for its general structure. A review in ''

Stylus Magazine ''Stylus Magazine'' was an American online music and film magazine, launched in 2002 and co-founded by Todd L. Burns. It featured long-form music journalism, four daily music reviews, movie reviews, podcasts, an MP3 blog, and a text blog. Addi ...

'' expressed that the track "does nothing, means nothing and goes nowhere for an unconscionably long time."Matthew Weiner
''Human After All'' review at ''Stylus Magazine Online''
(March 14, 2005) References to earlier Daft Punk singles were also mentioned, as ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. The magazine was first known fo ...

'' declared "nothing builds to achieve the prior glories of '

Da Funk "Da Funk" is an instrumental track by French electronic music duo Daft Punk, initially released as a 12-inch single in May 1995 by Soma and Virgin and later included on their debut album, ''Homework'' (1997). Prior to its inclusion on the albu ...

' or '

One More Time One More Time may refer to: Film and television * ''One More Time'' (1931 film), a Merrie Melodies cartoon * ''One More Time'' (1970 film), a film by Jerry Lewis * ''One More Time'', a 1974 TV special with Carol Channing, Pearl Bailey, and other ...

'"Barry Walters
''Human After All'' review
''

'' (April 7, 2005) and ''

Pitchfork Media ''Pitchfork'' (formerly ''Pitchfork Media'') is an American online music magazine founded in 1996 by Ryan Schreiber in Minneapolis. It originally covered Alternative rock, alternative and independent music, and expanded to cover genres includin ...

'' noted that the single "is a poor man's '

Aerodynamic Aerodynamics () is the study of the motion of atmosphere of Earth, air, particularly when affected by a solid object, such as an airplane wing. It involves topics covered in the field of fluid dynamics and its subfield of gas dynamics, and is an ...

'."Mark Pytlik
''Human After All'' review

(March 15, 2005) However, a ''Sputnikmusic'' review noted that "although annoying in nature, tis also very rewarding to listen to."Daniel Incognito
''Human After All'' review
''Sputnikmusic''. Retrieved on June 26, 2007.

Track listings

Personnel

–

vocals Singing is the art of creating music with the voice. It is the oldest form of musical expression, and the human voice can be considered the first musical instrument. The definition of singing varies across sources. Some sources define sing ...

drum machine A drum machine is an electronic musical instrument that creates percussion sounds, drum beats, and patterns. Drum machines may imitate drum kits or other percussion instruments, or produce unique sounds, such as synthesized electronic tones. A d ...

bass guitar The bass guitar (), also known as the electric bass guitar, electric bass, or simply the bass, is the lowest-pitched member of the guitar family. It is similar in appearance and construction to an Electric guitar, electric but with a longer nec ...

, guitar pedals, programming,

production Production may refer to: Economics and business * Production (economics) * Production, the act of manufacturing goods * Production, in the outline of industrial organization, the act of making products (goods and services) * Production as a stat ...

Charts

Notes

References

External links

Robot Rock
official music video * * {{Authority control 2005 songs 2005 singles Daft Punk songs Songs written by Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo Songs written by Thomas Bangalter Song recordings produced by Daft Punk Virgin Records singles Astralwerks singles Electronic rock songs Songs about robots