Get Nostalgic
How to Build the Song of the Summer
Bloomberg Businessweek
When the new Daft Punk record came out recently, I was tickled by its seventies-inspired beats and catchy hooks. My delight was tempered, however, when a segment of a popular morning show declared one of the tunes, “Get Lucky,” to be the official song of the summer. Wait a second: How did this French duo, which hasn’t had anything close to a hit since 2000, end up with a No. 1 on the digital charts of 55 countries (and being touted between segments about celebrity style and tips for grilling chicken)? According to Eric Spitznagel, there are a few key factors. The first is the construction of the song itself, which was meticulously crafted with the help of veteran musicians over a span of five years. Another was a small-scale marketing campaign that focused on what Daft Punk’s 38-year-old Thomas Bangalter calls “a seduction.” “You cannot make people excited by giving them everything,” he says. “It’s a process of tempting, of teasing, of creating desire.” This slow rollout involved billboards showing nothing but an image of the band members in their iconic helmets and TV commercials that contained instrumentals with no mention of the song or release date. The song also played to nostalgia – the music was made with real instruments (not computers), and the marketing strategy embraced old-school methods (billboards and TV) that eventually became fodder for online conversation. There’s much more nuance in the Businessweek article, but suffice it to say that Daft Punk did pretty much everything right. And, yeah, I’m still listening. (For more summer hits from as far back as 1962, enjoy this list from NPR.)