Daft Punk quickly rose to acclaim in 1993 by adapting a love for first-wave acid house and techno to their younger roots in pop, indie rock, and hip-hop. The combined talents of DJs Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter as Daft Punk have been responsible for the most memorable and genre-defying house hits of the last decade. Musique Vol 1 1993-2005 offers for the first time their collected singles and several rare remixes.

A concept album exploring themes of broadcast communications, Radio-Activity marked Kraftwerk's return to more obtuse territory, extensively utilizing static, oscillators, and even Cage-like moments of silence to approximate the sense of radio transmission; a pivotal record in the group's continuing development, the title track – the first they ever recorded in English – is their most fully realized electro-pop effort to date, while "The Voice of Energy" precipitates the robot voice so crucial to their subsequent work.

Although Kraftwerk's first three albums were groundbreaking in their own right, Autobahn is where the group's hypnotic electronic pulse genuinely came into its own. The main difference between Autobahn and its predecessors is how it develops an insistent, propulsive pulse that makes the repeated rhythms and riffs of the shimmering electronic keyboards and trance-like guitars all the more hypnotizing. The 22-minute title track, in a severely edited form, became an international hit single and remains the peak of the band's achievements – it encapsulates the band and why they are important within one track – but the rest of the album provides soundscapes equally as intriguing. Within Autobahn, the roots of electro-funk, ambient, and synth pop are all evident – it's a pioneering album, even if its electronic trances might not capture the attention of all listeners.

The Man-Machine is closer to the sound and style that would define early new wave electro-pop – less minimalistic in its arrangements and more complex and danceable in its underlying rhythms. Like its predecessor, Trans-Europe Express, there is the feel of a divided concept album, with some songs devoted to science fiction-esque links between humans and technology, often with electronically processed vocals ("The Robots," "Spacelab," and the title track); others take the glamour of urbanization as their subject ("Neon Lights" and "Metropolis"). Plus, there's "The Model," a character sketch that falls under the latter category but takes a more cynical view of the title character's glamorous lifestyle. More pop-oriented than any of their previous work, the sound of The Man-Machine – in particular among Kraftwerk's oeuvre – had a tremendous impact on the cold, robotic synth pop of artists like Gary Numan, as well as Britain's later new romantic movement.

Stereolab took an unprecedented two years between 1997's Dots & Loops and 1999's Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night, as they tended to personal matters. During those two years, Stereolab's brand of sophisticated, experimental post-rock didn't evolve too much, even as colleagues like Tortoise, Jim O'Rourke, and the High Llamas tried other things. Since each Stereolab album offered a significant progression from the next, it would have been fair to assume that when they returned, it would be with a leap forward, especially since Tortoise's John McEntire and O'Rourke were co-producers. Perhaps that's the reason that the album feels slightly disappointing. The group has absorbed McEntire's jazz-fusion leanings – "Fuses" kicks off the album in compelling, free-jazz style – and the music continually bears O'Rourke's attention to detail, but it winds up sounding like O'Hagan's increasing tendency of making music that's simply sound for sound's sake.

An infectious update of the classic synth-pop most famous earlier in the decade, Information Society's self-titled debut sounds most similar to British groups like ABC and Pet Shop Boys, though hits like "What's on Your Mind," "Walking Away," and the cover of "Lay All Your Love on Me" manage to inject the affair with elements of industrial dance and hip-hop. All in all, it's a much better album than expected from the group many dismissed as mere one-hit wonders.

Flash was the DJ and the Furious Five were the best multiple rappers around, moving from the music's low-rent dance origins (it was Flash who began cutting in repeated portions of other records) and party spirit to the "message" approach that took over in the mid 80s, prefigured in "The Message." Much of what came later, started here.