
Imagine yourself in 1997. The Beastie Boys are a decade in their careers, preparing their fifth studio album, and hear the debut of the home of a French duo called Daft Punk.
What would happen to Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel of Homem-Christo to produce some beats for their next Hello Nasty? It’s the collaboration that has never been but could have been, and it would have changed the music forever.
Beastie Boys mixing Daft Punk with hip-hop would have been at least a decade ahead of Kanye West sampling “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” on his own “Stronger.”
It would have been long before collaborations with Pharrell, The Weeknd, and Julian Casablancas.
The Daft Punk Reddit page recently shed light on Daft Science, a mash-up album built from Beastie vocals and Daft Punk samples that the Canadian producer quietly released in 2014.
While it didn’t earn much attention then, it’s found 2016 far more welcoming as the release has gone viral.
Over the album’s eight track, the producer curls out combinations such as ‘Ch-Check It Out’ with ‘Around The World’, ‘Root Down’ over ‘Robot Rock’ and more. Coins, noticing the attention, chimed in on the Reddit page’s comments thanking fans.
Of course, this never happened. We’re left to wonder what could have been—or, even better, remix it on our own, as Daft Science did.
A mashup album between Beastie Boys and Daft Punk started making the rounds on the Internet this week, and for good reason—it’s incredible. Even though these Beastie Boys songs and these Daft Punk songs are a bit dated, this sounds like a rap album released in the last two years.
It sounds exactly like what The Weeknd is attempting with his new album or what Kanye wanted on Yeezus.