Daft Punk really leaned into the disco influences in their music on their most recent album, 2013’s Random Access Memories. Before that, though, they were more or less a French house duo, leaning heavily on the electronics for a sound that could hardly be considered organic or natural-sounding. They’ve always been compositionally sound, so it’s fun to think about what their earlier material might sound like if it was made with the same mindset the group seems to be in today, aka having a stronger reliance on real instruments.
The Rundfunk-Tanzorchester Ehrenfeld (which translates to “Radio Dance Orchestra of Ehrenfeld”) pretty much answered that question with a 15-piece orchestra cover of “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger,” from Daft Punk’s 2001 sophomore album Discovery ( via Sploid).
Their rendition of the song sounds both spot-on in relation to the original and also like a fresh take on it, if that makes sense. The fun spirit of the original is there, but with the string and brass instruments in play, it sounds like a jazzed-up or disco-fied version of the song. If you thought the vocals were too processed and inorganic to be re-created live, that’s where you’re wrong, since all it really takes is a Rocktron Talk Box, which the vocalist here handles perfectly and with a ton of energy.
Check out the cover above, and let us know in the comments if there are any other amazing Daft Punk covers floating around out there that you think we ought to hear.
Featured image: NEO MAGAZIN ROYALE/YouTube