Discovery is the second studio album by the French electronic music duo Daft Punk, released on 12 March 2001 by Virgin Records.

For the music videos, Daft Punk developed a concept involving the merging of science fiction with the entertainment industry.

After their debut album, Homework, was released, Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo spent most of 1997 touring on the Daftendirektour.

[2] Bangalter noted that Homework influenced many other artists to mimic its sound, prompting Daft Punk to pursue a different direction to better distinguish themselves.

[2] Rather than rely on the drum machines typical for house music, the Roland TR-808 and the TR-909, Daft Punk used a Oberheim DMX, a LinnDrum and a Sequential Circuits Drumtraks.

After completing "Too Long" early in the album's production, Daft Punk decided that they "didn't want to do 14 more house tracks" in the way the genre is usually defined, and thus set out to incorporate a variety of styles for the record.

'"[14] He elaborated that Homework had been "a rough and raw thing" focused on sound production and texture, whereas the goal with Discovery was to explore song structures and new musical forms.

He said Daft Punk produced a "glammier, poppier" version of Eurodisco and R&B by over-embellishing their pitch-bend, and vocoder effects, including loops of divas, synth-guitars, and electric piano.

[22] "Digital Love" contains a solo performed on Wurlitzer piano, vintage synthesisers and sequencers;[21] it incorporates elements of pop,[23] new wave, jazz, funk and disco.

[25] "Veridis Quo" is a "faux-orchestral" synthesizer baroque song;[15] according to Angus Harrison, its title is a pun on the words "very disco".

Daft Punk pay royalties to the publishing company that owns the rights, but Johns has never been located; as of 2021, he was owed an estimated "six-to-seven-figure sum" based on streams.

[29] Bangalter said Daft Punk also created their own "fake samples", which listeners assumed were from disco or funk records.

[31] Daft Punk's concept for the film involved the merging of science fiction with entertainment industry culture.

[34][33] After Matsumoto joined the team as visual supervisor, Shinji Shimizu had been contacted to produce the animation and Kazuhisa Takenouchi to direct the film.

[2][13] Shortly before the album's release, the group launched Daft Club, a website that offered exclusive tracks and other bonus material.

Every Discovery CD included a Daft Club membership card bearing a unique number that provided personalized access to the website.

[46] AllMusic's John Bush said that, with their comprehensive productions and loops, Daft Punk had developed a sound that was "worthy of bygone electro-pop technicians from Giorgio Moroder to Todd Rundgren to Steve Miller".

[15] Q wrote that Discovery was vigorous and innovative in its exploration of "old questions and spent ideals", hailing it as "a towering, persuasive tour de force" that "transcends the dance label" with no shortage of ideas, humor, or "brilliance".

He felt that while it "flags a bit" near the end, the opening songs were on-par with albums such as Prince's Sign o' the Times (1987) and Nirvana's Nevermind (1991).

[11] In Entertainment Weekly, Will Hermes wrote that the "beat editing and EQ wizardry still wow", but asked Daft Punk for "less comedy, more ecstasy".

[47] Mixmag called Discovery "the perfect non-pop pop album" and said Daft Punk had "altered the course of dance music for the second time".

[52] In The Guardian, Alexis Petridis felt Daft Punk's attempt to "salvage" older musical references resembled Homework, but was less coherent and successful.

[48] The Pitchfork critic Ryan Schreiber found the "prog and disco" hybrid "relatively harmless" and said that it was not "meant to be judged on its lyrics", which he dismissed as amateurish and commonplace.

[50] Robert Christgau, writing in The Village Voice, facetiously said the album may appeal to young enthusiasts of Berlin techno and computing, but it was too "French" and "spirituel" for American tastes.

He wrote: "Daft Punk were incredibly prescient: play Discovery today and it sounds utterly contemporary.

The Pitchfork critic Noah Yoo wrote: "If scores are meant to indicate a work's longevity or impact, the original review is invalidated by the historic record.

[69] "Veridis Quo" was sampled in the 2009 Jazmine Sullivan single "Dream Big" and in the 2023 Maluma song "Coco Loco".