‘Robot Rock’: The Daft Punk song that almost featured George Michael
Throughout their career, French electronic pioneers Daft Punk collected an impressive series of collaborators. Though their early music was relatively restrained to the helmet-wearing duo, they were already working with film giants such as Spike Jonze and Roman Coppola on music videos for their debut album.
By the time they released their final album, Random Access Memories, it was rife with musical collaboration. The 2013 record included features from the likes of indie darling Julian Casablancas, Chic’s Nile Rodgers, Animal Collective member and soloist Panda Bear, and multiple appearances from Pharrell Williams.
Their final offering may have been an exercise in collaboration, but there was one artist the duo were never able to obtain a feature from – pop legend and one-half of Wham, George Michael. Daft Punk had hoped to feature Michael on their third record, Human After All, but the collaboration never materialised.
Michael’s long-term collaborator, James Jackson, recalled the singer’s reaction to the offer while speaking with Classic Pop, explaining, “Daft Punk sent a catalogue of demos for George to potentially write around. Those are in George’s archives. George went to Paris for some sessions.”
When he came back, according to Jackson, “I asked, ‘How did it go?’ George went, ‘Yeeeah… I sat on a beanbag in Guy-Manuel’s flat, eating M&Ms.’” Though Michael’s sessions with Guy-Manuel and Thomas Bangalter may not have resulted in a successful collaboration, the demos they sent over still formed Human After All in 2005.
When the record was released, Jackson recalls Michael recognising the iconic ‘Robot Rock’ as being part of the demo catalogue: “George said when he heard ‘Robot Rock’, ‘Oh, that’s one of the demos they gave to me!’” The song formed the lead single for the album.
The unrelenting track features stylish synths and samples of Breakwater’s ‘Release the Beast’, with the words “rock, robot rock” repeated over and over. Bangalter told Q it was “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.” It certainly sounds exactly as its title suggests – like rock music for robots.
With Michael’s own tendency towards dance-friendly pop hits, it would have been interesting to see what he did with the track, but, unfortunately, the collaboration never transpired. Nonetheless, ‘Robot Rock’ certainly works as a more simplistic work of electronica, leaving it up to us to imagine how Michael’s vocals might have elevated it.
