This week, electronic music’s most influential duo Daft Punk offered a reminder showing that even in silence, their legacy continues to echo. On 22 February 2026, marking the fifth anniversary of Daft Punk’s split, the French electronic legends shared a new official music video for their 2005 single “Human After All.”
Unlike typical video debuts, this new visual isn’t a fresh performance or narrative clip. Instead, it re-contextualizes Daft Punk’s own cinematic past, drawing on footage from their 2006 sci-fi film Electroma to illustrate the track in a way that feels both retro and eerily timeless. The edit, overseen by longtime creative director Cédric Hervet, follows the signature robotic protagonists into a surreal desert road-trip narrative that ultimately mirrors their own mythos more than any contemporary storyline could.
Originally released as part of their third studio album, the track “Human After All” was never officially supported with a produced music video, the footage shot for it became the basis for the full Electroma feature. Now, two decades later, that original visual language has been reassembled around the song precisely on the date that Daft Punk’s farewell became official.
Formed in 1993 in Paris by Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, Daft Punk grew from underground French house insurgents into one of electronic music’s most impactful acts. Drawing on house, disco, funk, techno and synth-pop, and adopting a now-iconic robot identity early in their career, they pushed dance music into global consciousness. Their first album Homework became a club classic, and subsequent records like Discovery and Random Access Memories won them critical acclaim, Grammy Awards and crossover success. Their influence reverberates from European club culture to mainstream pop and beyond.
On 22 February 2021, after 28 years together, Daft Punk announced their breakup via an enigmatic eight-minute video titled “Epilogue.” The clip, drawn from their own film Electroma, showed one robot exploding while the other walked into the distance, followed by a title card reading “1993–2021.” It was less a press statement than a self-directed elegy, closing their shared narrative with the same cinematic flair that defined their career.
In the years since their split, both members have pursued individual paths, with Thomas Bangalter returning behind the decks for a rare live appearance in late 2025 and speculation mounting about future solo projects from Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo. Whatever comes next, this new Human After All visual stands as a reminder: even without live performances or new albums, Daft Punk’s mythic presence continues to resonate: archival, influential, and enduring.
“The question I ask more myself is why we did end it rather than how it could last for so long” said Thomas Bangalter in an interview to BBC Radio 6 back in 2023.
This new visual isn’t a reunion, nor a return to active collaboration. It’s something subtler and more fascinating: a managed commemoration that acknowledges their impact without rewriting their closure. By releasing a video for a track that never had one, the duo, even in absence reasserts its artistic coherence and philosophical depth.
It also lands at a moment when Daft Punk’s cultural footprint is being reassessed institutionally. French electronic music, of which Daft Punk are arguably some the most globally visible ambassadors, has recently been added to France’s intangible cultural heritage inventory, an official recognition of its historical and cultural value.
Nothing about this new “Human After All” video suggests Daft Punk are “back.” But it does confirm something more interesting: Half a decade after “Epilogue,” Daft Punk remain less a duo than a reference point: a blueprint for how electronic music can become legacy.
Five years after the split, Daft Punk are still doing what they always did best: making the past feel like future technology.
📷 : Cover Photo Credits / Courtesy of Daft Punk/Youtube.
