Digital Love: Daft Punk Sales Soar 2,650% After Breakup
Fans of Daft Punk streamed the French electronic duo’s music by the millions on Monday after the group, who have pushed the boundaries of electronic music and repeatedly cast a gleeful, grooving spell on the world, announced that they were calling it quits after nearly 30 helmeted years together.
Streams for Daft Punk’s catalog soared nearly 500% on Monday compared to Sunday, while song sales were up 1,335% and digital album sales were up 2,650%, according to Alpha Data, the data analytics provider that powers the Rolling Stone Charts. From the brilliant funk-house of their debut album Homework to the shimmering disco of their 2013 Grammy-winning Random Access Memories, fans had plenty to choose from.
Overall, it was their sophomore album Discovery, their sprawling futurist record that sent electronic music in a new direction in 2001 and ranks Number 236 on Rolling Stone‘s list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, that led by digital album sales and on-demand audio streams on Monday. Discovery saw over 1.5 million on-demand streams on Monday, an increase of 429% compared to the day before. The album also saw an increase of digital album sales of over 8,000%. Their next five most popular albums by streams on Monday were: Random Access Memories (up 600% in streams), Homework (up 714%), Alive 2007 (up 294%) and TRON: Legacy (up 360%).
Daft Punk’s most-streamed songs on Monday were: “Get Lucky” (up 180% in on-demand audio streams), “One More Time” (up 368%), “Harder Better Faster Stronger” (up 418%), “Around the World” (up 381%) and “Instant Crush” (392%).
Spotify reported a 242% increase in Daft Punk “discoveries” on Tuesday, with nearly half a million people (459,334) streaming Daft Punk for the first time that day.
Daft Punk, composed of Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de-Homem Christo, announced on Monday that they were breaking up in an eight-minute long video called “Epilogue,” in which the two robots walk into the desert where one of them gets blown up.
