The entire backbone of one of the most famous dance songs ever recorded is a single second of a record almost nobody had heard — pitched up until it became a hook.
"One More Time" sounds like pure joy engineered in a lab, and in a way it was. Daft Punk built a monument out of one borrowed brass chord and a soul singer run through so much autotune it became an instrument. It's also a story with an uncomfortable footnote about who gets paid when a forgotten record becomes a global anthem. Here's the real history, sourced — and where to hear it.
The record that opened Discovery
"One More Time" was recorded in 1998 and released in November 2000 as the lead single from Daft Punk's second album, Discovery (2001). It's a French house track, and its most human element is a vocal by the late house legend Romanthony — deliberately, heavily autotuned until it hovers between soul singing and something synthetic. That choice was divisive in 2000 and visionary in hindsight; it's a huge part of why the song still sounds like the future two-and-a-half decades later. The credited songwriters are Thomas Bangalter, Guy‑Manuel de Homem‑Christo, and Anthony Moore (Romanthony), with production by Daft Punk and Romanthony.
One borrowed brass chord, pitched up, became the backbone of a global anthem.
The one-second sample
Here's the part that makes producers' jaws drop. The song's foundation comes from a 1979 disco track called "More Spell on You" by Eddie Johns. Daft Punk lifted essentially a one-second brass chord from it, pitch-shifted it, and looped it into the entire harmonic spine of "One More Time." An anthem heard by hundreds of millions is, at its core, one second of a record that had largely been forgotten.
That brilliance came with a real ethical shadow. The sample was uncredited in Discovery's liner notes, and Eddie Johns himself — reported to have lived in poverty for decades — did not personally see royalties from it. A representative for Daft Punk has confirmed the sample was used and that royalties were paid to GM Musipro, the French publisher that has owned the rights to "More Spell on You" since 1995. In other words: the money went to the rights-holder on paper, not necessarily to the man who played it. It's a clean illustration of how sample economics can be technically correct and still feel unjust.
Why it became untouchable
"One More Time" was the biggest single from Discovery and an instant, permanent club staple. It has since been ranked #5 on Pitchfork's top 500 songs of the 2000s and was voted by Mixmag readers as the greatest dance record of all time. Its power is almost structural: the long, filtered build and euphoric drop became a template that thousands of records have chased since. It's the sound of a room deciding, all at once, that it never wants the night to end — which is, more or less, exactly what the title is asking for.
The quick version
Recorded in 1998 and released in November 2000 as the lead single from Discovery, Daft Punk's "One More Time" is a French house landmark built on a pitched-up one-second brass chord from Eddie Johns's 1979 "More Spell on You" (uncredited; royalties paid to publisher GM Musipro) and Romanthony's autotuned vocal — later ranked #5 on Pitchfork's 2000s list and voted the greatest dance record of all time by Mixmag readers.