Daft Punk asked George Michael to work with them on the duo’s album ‘Human After All’, it has emerged.
During the making of the 2005 album, Daft Punk sent Michael several demos they hoped he would add to – including what became their single ‘Robot Rock’.
Michael visited Daft Punk duo Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel De Homem-Christo in Paris to work on their songs – but said he “just ate M&Ms” during the trip.
The sessions have never been made public before, but have been revealed by Michael’s co-writer and co-producer James Jackman.
Jackman worked with Michael from 1997 until the singer’s death from heart failure in 2016. He worked on many of Michael’s songs including the recently-released posthumous single ‘This Is How (We Want You To Get High)’.
Speaking of the collaboration, Jackman told Classic Pop: “Daft Punk sent a catalogue of demos for George to potentially write around. Those are in George’s archives. George went to Paris for some sessions.”
Jackman said he asked Michael about the sessions on his return. “I asked ‘How did it go?’,” Jackman recalled. “George went, ‘Yeeeah… I sat on a beanbag in Guy-Manuel’s flat, eating M&Ms.'”
When ‘Human After All’ was released in 2005, Michael told Jackman he instantly recognised its song ‘Robot Rock’. Jackman said: “George said when he heard ‘Robot Rock’, ‘Oh, that’s one of the demos they gave to me!'”
Michael went on to release the single ‘Freeek!’, which featured on his 2004 album ‘Patience’. Sounding similar to Daft Punk, there were rumours that the duo produced the single for Michael under the alias The Moogymen, the co-writers and co-producers credited on ‘Freeek!’
But Jackman revealed The Moogymen were actually him and two other regular Michael associates, Niall Flynn and Ruadri Cushnan. “‘Freeek!’ was such a departure for George that we wanted some intrigue about it,” Jackman said. “We thought ‘Let’s be quirky about this one.’ It was brilliant when fans started speculating that The Moogymen was an alias for Daft Punk.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Jackman spoke about the status of Michael’s unreleased music, as well as the “honour” of working with the singer for so long.
‘This Is How (We Want You To Get High)’ features on the soundtrack of Last Christmas, the new film produced and written by Emma Thompson, which uses many of Michael and Wham!’s old songs.