Abstract

This essay looks at the release of the album "Random Access Memories" by Daft Punk in 2013, as a unique case to reflect on music and celebrity in the age of social media. As the process of disintermediation of celebrity progresses on, Daft Punk represent a peculiar example of celebrity that integrates a series of elements that reterritorialize a pre-social media, "mythical" imaginary within the contemporary music scene in an original style. The paper discusses this case within a socio-cultural framework, to show how music artists in contemporary times effectively seem to operate according to the logic of a brand, and how this is true both for famous as well as for emerging acts.