Cole Cuchna

That said, the vocal isn't completely untreated.

Toma is singing through a Digitech Studio Vocalist, a hardware vocal processor that can do pitch corrections similar to autotune, as well as generate artificial harmonies in real time.

This unit was fairly popular in the late 90s and early 2000s, famously used on Eiffel 65's hit I'm Blue Daba Dee.

The Digitech vocalist was also responsible for the layered, almost robotic-sounding harmonies on Imogen Heap's hit, Hide and Seek.

Digital Love's use of the Digitech vocalist is more restrained than Hide and Seek or I'm Blue.

Some notes gently snap into place, similar to autotune, and there is a faint synthetic sheen over the entire vocal.

The result sounds subtly robotic without losing its emotion, a perfect sonic embodiment of the song's title, Digital Love.

The lyrics to Digital Love weren't written by Tomá or Guimán but by DJ Sneak, the Puerto Rican-born producer who was an instrumental figure in 90's Chicago House.

Daft Punk actually name-checked Sneak on Homework's teachers and after that album's success, they had the opportunity to work with him directly.

But instead of bringing him in to produce, they asked him to write lyrics.

Not exactly what he was known for or even had much experience in.

But this is actually perfectly in line with Discovery's broad creative philosophy we talked about last episode, using tools in ways they weren't originally intended, like using a synth as a guitar.

On Digital Love, they tapped a legendary house producer not for a beat, but for words to a pop song, an unconventional usage that yielded surprisingly effective results.

The song is centered around a dream the narrator had the previous night about an unnamed love interest, where the two dance together, surrounded by a crowd lost in the same shared joy.

It's the very kind of moment Daft Punk and Romanthony encourage us to savor and celebrate back on One More Time, thematically consistent with the idea that the dance floor is a sacred space of magic, escape, and self-discovery.

The narrator then goes on to say the kind of feeling I've waited for so long.

In a song and story that's so lyrically sparse, this single line carries a ton of weight.

Waiting so long for a feeling like this suggests an extended period of loneliness and emptiness, maybe fueled by a past heartbreak, or maybe the complete absence of love altogether.

Maybe he's a teenager who's never actually been in love.

Maybe he's older, living in the aftermath of divorce.