Daft Punk - Random Access Memories

It's a brilliant album. You hear everything from "I feel love" by Donna Summer to "The Robots" by Kraftwerk to "Staying alive" by BeeGees in this album. It's like they've taken the last four-five decades of electronic dance music, and have merged it all into one album. At first it doesn't sound much like what has gone before, but then you realise that it IS commentary, criticism, nods and sometimes even arguments with that history. It is electronic dance music, but it is not the stale and stagnant type that's been going for the last few years. It's fresh, but true to its history, and it's quite polemic.

I wouldn't call it flawless or brilliant, but its a fine album. I'd agree with Mark Richardson's score of 8.8.
To me, it seems a bit too far of a departure from their normal scene of house/sythpop to really appreciate it.
Maybe it feels too safe. It just doesn't sound like they are trying to break molds like they used to.

Contact is probably the highlight as the song is closest to their roots.

JDarvinWords said:

Well I mean, abandoning electronic sampling in favor of live instrumentation seems to me about as mold-breaking as you can get.

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Then you'll be flying high if you listen to Olafur Arnalds, Tycho, and other turntablists who use live samples (sometimes sampling live) to make electronic music. It's nothing new. Electronic beats are still samples from real sounds.

Especially for a group that's genre famously rinses and repeats. But I do understand not appreciating the vast departure. If I had been a hardcore Daft Punk fan DURING the "Discovery" era I may have a similar opinion. I think new Daft Punk fans or fans that jumped in around the "Human After All" or even the "TRON" era will get a lot more enjoyment out of it than older fans will. And with all that said, 8.8 is still a fantastic score. I can live with it.

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Daft Punk really got popular as the French House scene died off--the scene that they were big apart of. Just like James Blake right now who was big in the British Dubstep scene and really came out as Dubstep died off. They, just like Blake right now, are/have evolved the music scene and ushered in a new sound.

There was a lot of talk about Daft Punk's new album making waves. But, its just not. It's good, but just not what we were hoping for after a 8 year absence to their own music.


The year before last was all about sythpop making a come back.
Last year was about rap coming out.
This year is all about returning to the performer's roots. Daft Punk, James Blake, The Men, The Dear Hunter, David Bowie, Willy Moon, We Are Standard, Tribes, The Flaming Lips, Phosphorescent, Sigur Ros (Oh, I'm steamed with these guys). They all are putting albums that they are comfortable with.

WillSauger said:

To me, it seems a bit too far of a departure from their normal scene of house/sythpop to really appreciate it.
Maybe it feels too safe. It just doesn't sound like they are trying to break molds like they used to.

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We will just have to agree to disagree on this because in my opinion Daft Punk has never released an album that sounded like what they did before, if you exclude Human After All which was a rush job where they tread well worn paths.

I think with this, and it's already in the name "Random Access Memories", they are basically complaining that "with all this rich history, here let us show you, all you can do is a stagnant and soulless repertoir". I still think it's a brilliant record, and it grows with the listening.

I admit that my first impression when hearing it was "what the hell is this"? But as I listen to it, it just grows and grows on me. Like I said in my initial post in this thread, there are so many references and that. Shallow? Far from it. You can hear the influences of everything from the last few decades as they twist those influences to suit 2013.

WillSauger said:

Electronic beats are still samples from real sounds.

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Tell that to Jeff Mills.

It's a beautiful album and certainly a departure from their previous approach. After all, they didn't just update the sound but their whole approach to playing that stuff. But it's not quite as radical as it seems - this retro dance thing has been going on for a while.

Check out Malajube's latest album, or that one from Franz Ferdinand, maybe the Ting Tings' debut for the New Wave side of it. Especially the Franz Ferdinand album surely had a bit of an impact.

Not saying that to belittle Daft Punk's achievement - just to point things have been building up to this.

Someone in a review somewhere, can't remember where, said that it was like Daft Punk said to their imitators: "You've copied everything else we've done, now copy this!"

Considering what they've been saying in interviews, I wouldn't put it past them.

WillSauger said:

Electronic beats are still samples from real sounds.

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Apart from the ones that aren't...

Xelebes said:

Tell that to Jeff Mills.

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A turntablist who takes samples from vinyl. Still "real" sound.

onesecondglance said:

Apart from the ones that aren't...

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I'm just saying that there's no artist/band who uses artificially created sound that hadn't been prerecorded. It's impossible when you get down to it.


Maxinquaye, I did listen to it repeatedly before I made my judgement. I took a night to purely listen to it, and now I'm getting kinda tired of somethings. Perhaps a bit too repetitive and the sometimes the lyrics are getting on my nerves. I know it's not like Music From the Unrealized Film Script, Dusk at Cubist Castle by The Olivia Termor Control (which is impossible to get tired of, IMO), but it's just starting to get grating at points.

WillSauger said:

I'm just saying that there's no artist/band who uses artificially created sound that hadn't been prerecorded. It's impossible when you get down to it.

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Not really? Synthesis isn't pre-recorded. While a lot of synths and drum machines do sample-based synthesis, there are still many out there that do raw synthesis.

And if you want to get technical about whether the basic waveforms in a digital synthesiser count as "pre-recorded", there are still analogue synths out there - more than you'd think. There's been a bit of a revival in the small modular synth world.

WillSauger said:

A turntablist who takes samples from vinyl. Still "real" sound.

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You haven't seen his machine shows. TR-909s and TR-808s are pure circuitry.