Daft Punk — Versailles, France

Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo — the two French musicians who formed Daft Punk — both grew up in Versailles, the Paris suburb dominated by the Sun King's palace, and met as teenagers at the Lycée Carnot in Paris's 17th arrondissement. They played together in an indie rock band called Darlin' before pivoting to electronic music in the early 1990s, taking their name from a dismissive NME review of their rock band that called their music "a daft punky thrash." Their 1997 debut album "Homework" — recorded in Bangalter's parents' apartment — established them as central figures in the French house movement alongside Cassius, Bob Sinclar, and Étienne de Crécy.

Daft Punk's catalogue traced an arc from house music to disco to orchestral pop that was commercially and artistically consistent across more than two decades: "Homework" (1997), "Discovery" (2001), "Human After All" (2005), "Random Access Memories" (2013). "Get Lucky" and "Around the World" are among the most recognisable recordings of their respective decades. Their insistence on anonymity — performing and appearing publicly only in robot helmets — was a conceptual statement about celebrity and artifice that became itself a form of iconography.

Versailles has no formal Daft Punk heritage site. The duo announced their split in February 2021. Bangalter has since returned to composing, producing an orchestral ballet score, while de Homem-Christo has maintained a lower public profile. Their influence on electronic music, pop production, and the aesthetics of musical celebrity is pervasive across contemporary music.