Cole Cuchna

This is an electro pop song after all, no one on earth is expecting it to contain a full blown extended guitar solo.

But one of the great things about this solo, and most successful solos for that matter, is that it continuously outdoes itself.

Just like a good story, the plot is always moving forward, each section escalating the stakes just a little higher than the last.

And it's at this point in the solo that the instrumental shifts into that more staccato, syncopated section, and the guitar rises to meet the drama of this moment perfectly with an incredibly spectacular passage, bending notes high into the heavens in an outburst of pure euphoric ecstasy.

I mean, come on, this is some of the best music you'll ever hear in your life.

Especially cool are those dramatic pitch bends, which on a guitar you'd achieve by physically bending the string with your finger against a fretboard.

But because I believe Daft Punk are playing a keyboard here, it's most likely they achieved this with a pitch wheel.

A pitch wheel is a small spring-loaded wheel next to the keys that lets you temporarily push or bend the pitch of a note higher or lower while it's being held.

Push the wheel up and the note glides upward in pitch, sliding through all the tiny micro pitches between the standard notes.

When used correctly, the pitch wheel offers the same expressive power as a guitarist bending a string.

And in this moment of digital love, Daft Punk use it as well as anyone ever has.

As you just heard, the end of the section comes to another pretty definitive resolution and could easily end there.

I mean, how are they supposed to top that passage anyway, with its beautifully expressive pitch bends and those effortless, dare I say sexy, flourishes cascading up and down the scale?

But this is Daft Punk we're dealing with here, and so of course they top themselves again.

As the instrumental shifts back to the main sample loop, they ride that momentum and drive the solo to its climax with its fastest, most extreme ascent yet, peaking at a long, dramatic pitch bend, followed by an extended burst of metal-style finger tapping that feels almost superhuman.

In narrative terms, this is the third act, the moment where everything reaches its emotional peak.

The tension, the longing, the fantasy that's been building throughout the entire track all spill over at once, reaching its most intoxicating, impossible height.

It's a passage that never fails to take my breath away every time I hear it.

As we just heard, after the ecstatic high of the pitch bend and rapid runs, the solo winds down through a more melodic descent, finally landing on and holding a mid register A, the same exact pitch the solo began with.

Starting and ending on the same note creates a sense of full circle closure, much like a well-resolved storyline.