WSJ Magazine declares Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter of Daft Punk its Entertainment Innovators of 2013:
Bangalter and de Homem-Christo had funded the record’s production, but instead of releasing it independently, they turned to Columbia Records, one of the oldest major labels in the world — and also one of the last. “Before we’d heard the record, we met with them to talk about their philosophy,” says Columbia Chairman Rob Stringer. “Their attitude was, records do still sell, if they have quality and imagination behind them. We talked about campaigns that were really based on the golden age of the record industry, in the ’70s and ’80s, when the Sunset Strip was as much about music as it was about movies.”
Random was introduced using a mix of retro showmanship and new-media cunning. Instead of announcing the record online, the band teased it with a brief, vague ad on Saturday Night Live, a clip that featured little more than their helmeted visage and a quick snippet of “Get Lucky.” That was followed by billboards in cities like New York and London; a series of YouTube interviews with the likes of Pharrell and Rodgers; and a reveal of the album’s track-listing on the video-sharing app Vine.
The buildup to the record was so steadily intriguing that, as Random’s release date came closer, its success felt like a fait accompli — which is strange, given that, for all their success, Daft Punk had never broken into the top 40 in the U.S. So when the album finally debuted at number 1, no one was surprised — in part because of its persuasive marketing, but also because, by that point, “Get Lucky” was beginning to lodge itself in the country’s collective hippocampus.
And though it never actually reached the top of the singles charts in America—denied entry by Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines,” also featuring Pharrell—it’s hard to think of another song this year that proved as joyfully egalitarian, or as reliably escapist, as “Get Lucky.”