Daft Punk’s fourth album arrives on the heels of a thunderstorm of hype and anticipation. Their last proper album came out eight years ago, and fans have had to make do with a live album and a movie soundtrack – both good, but not nearly as fulfilling as another Discovery. Early this year, the band announced their new release with a cool cover, building on that with the track list, descriptions of the album’s sounds, and interviews with its collaborators. Hype was immediate and it only shot up after “Get Lucky” – the infectious first single featuring Pharrell Williams – came out. Now with 10-hour loops of “Get Lucky” on Youtube and Daft Punk’s first single in the US Top 20, the world is ready to hear all of Random Access Memories.
The album leaked a couple of weeks ago, giving fans the opportunity to hear their long-awaited album. However, the response so far has been mixed. Some listeners felt like the album lived up fully to its hype, others felt like it was overhyped, and others called it a weak, maybe even “terrible” release that didn’t deserve much hype in the first place. It might have been too radical a departure from Daft Punk’s signature sound, or the songs might not have been strong, or there might have been so many featured guest artists that Daft Punk themselves were overwhelmed. Whatever the reason, the album has prompted a wide variety of strong feelings.
It’s a huge change in sound for Daft Punk, no doubt about it. Random Access Memories has got to be the group’s most self-consciously “retro” album yet. The use of synthesizers is limited to modulars, drum machines, and the group’s trademark vocoders (old habits die hard). More unusual, there’s hardly any real sampling on the album at all, though you could argue that the group “sampled” a lot of the album’s ideas from other artists. Aside from that, the album features a large number of guest vocalists and performers, more than on any album they’ve released before, ranging from Paul Williams and Giorgio Moroder to Pharrell Williams and Panda Bear. Only one song is completely free of vocals. To get an authentic sound, the group also sought out genre players, like session drummers J.R. Robinson and Omar Hakim and disco guitarist Nile Rodgers. A look at the album credits reveals some unusual instrumentation, including string orchestra, a children’s choir, pedal steel guitar (you heard right), actual percussion, the Ondes Martenot, and something called a “cristal baschet.”
The cristal baschet.
Daft Punk's next album will feature the banjo and bass theremin.
As an album that’s been alternatingly called wonderful and terrible, Random Access Memories is hard to approach from an unbiased perspective. Anyone who loves Daft Punk may or may not be turned off by their new direction, and those who don’t like Daft Punk might or might not be finally won over. I love Daft Punk, and speaking as a fan, I think the album delivers pretty well. No matter how many guest artists, genre homages, and changes in sound are present on Random Access Memories, it’s impossible to see how a set of tunes like these could have come from anyone but the two guys in Daft Punk.
This record is a true “grower.” It’s not an album that immediately rewards you on first listen. It takes a few listens to really get into the songs. “Give Life Back to Music” doesn’t seem to go anywhere, “Instant Crush” sounds a little silly, and “Touch” is so strange and out of left field (some have called it a Disney song) that it’s uncomfortable to listen to. “Get Lucky” is the only song that hits you right off the bat, and there’s no denying the song’s groove (especially in the 6-minute album version), but it’s also suffered the most from overplay. I’d argue that replay value is the one big thing that saves the whole album from the dustbin.
If you can’t appreciate disco, you might not take to Chic guitarist Nile Rodgers’ licks on “Give Life Back to Music” and “Lose Yourself to Dance,” but for me, those licks pretty much make the songs. The formers’ cheesy synth buildups are part of its charm, and the latter also includes repeated vocoder lines (come on come on come on come on come ON) that push the song into extra catchiness. Speaking of catchiness, “Instant Crush” is simply infectious, with more vocoder vocals (now supplied by Julian Casablancas of the Strokes), a pentatonic keyboard riff in the chorus, and a nice guitar solo. “Motherboard” is never less than interesting, mixing a spacy synth line with acoustic guitar strums, flute, strings, drum samples, and rain effects and somehow coming up with a solid electro tune.
Some have criticized the album in that the collaborators overwhelm Daft Punk. I’ve also heard the complaint that the group is too focused on crafting homages to their favorite music and not focused enough on crafting good songs. I have to ask, though: when haven’t Daft Punk been crafting homages to their favorite music? They literally thanked their inspirations in “Teachers,” and Discovery contains tributes to everyone from Supertramp to Yngwie Malmsteen. I’d argue that sampling music shows appreciation for the artists sampled, and in that way Daft Punk have been showing their appreciation for their whole career. I’d have a problem with the collaborations if they didn’t work or were shoehorned into the album, but they fit in alright. Daft Punk were the album’s ringleaders, after all, and they wouldn’t just choose any old singer to cut a song. The collaborations have a purpose in the album’s sound. They wanted Pharrell to channel a disco singer on “Get Lucky,” and they did. “Doin’ it Right” breaks the rules a bit. It sounds like a compromise between Daft Punk and Animal Collective, but with the best of both worlds, not the worst.
I have to admit, I immediately fell in love with “Fragments of Time.” Todd Edwards (of “Face to Face” fame) returns, but this time he’s not singing a dance tune. The song sounds more like the lite-rock jams you’d hear on FM radio in the late 70s. You might get a late period Eagles or even Fleetwood Mac vibe, and the slide guitar and talk box solo are straight out of a Steely Dan hit. Beyond the musical references and production, though, “Fragments of Time” is simply an excellent song. It’s got the laid-back feel down pat, and even if Edwards’ lyrics about memory are a little clumsy, they complement the music, not overshadow it. I love the song’s chorus; it encapsulates everything that’s appealing and enjoyably cheesy about lite-rock without coming off as forced. And I do love that slide guitar.
I didn’t immediately take to “The Game of Love.” I thought it was misplaced in the album’s sequencing (I would’ve put a dancier track on no. 2) and I wasn’t a fan of the vocals. I’m not used to Daft Punk strutting their “serious” side anyway. This song also improved with a second listen, when I could get into the slightly funky atmosphere and the nice keyboard work. When the robot man sings “And it was you-oo,” I kind of want to laugh, but I can enjoy it all the same. The same goes for “Touch.” It begins with creepy robot voices, and then develops from there with an introspective part featuring elfin songwriter Paul Williams’ vocals, a dance number with trumpet solos, a slower part with more vocoder, a slight return to the dance, another slow part with a children’s choir (and dangerous amounts of cheese), and a final return to Williams. It’s an exhilarating ride, and it might sound alien at times, which might have been the point. This song also grew on me; cheesy as it is, it’s also well crafted and good at holding my attention all the way through.
My least favorite cuts have to be “Within” and “Beyond,” the album’s two “mystical” songs. They’re similar in that they start out strong – “Within” with a lyrical piano solo, “Beyond” with an awesome orchestral crescendo – but then fail to deliver on that start. Plus, the lyrics are painfully cheesy, in a “French guys writing English words” kind of way, and the vocoder voices aren’t wholly proper for an intimate ballad like “Within” anyway. “Beyond” does start to pick up at the end when the voices drop out, but it’s too little too late by that point.
For a record that clocks in at over 70 minutes, however, there isn’t a whole lot of filler. No song is completely disposable – I still like the piano intro to “Within,” and “Touch” goes through so many transformations and sections that at least one of them has to sound good to someone. “Giorgio by Moroder” is based on a repeating synthesizer pattern, but that pattern gets changed and rearranged enough that the song never feels tedious. The inclusion of an interview with Moroder seems annoying at first, but it’s also important to the song itself; Moroder talks about music’s power to innovate and create new experiences, and that’s exactly what the song does. (Plus it’s funny to hear him say “Everybody calls me Giorgio.” He’s so humble.) In all, it’s probably one of the shortest-sounding 9-minute songs out there. “Doin’ It Right” feels like it doesn’t belong on the album, sounding more modern and less Daft Punk than ever before, but since it’s a damn good song I don’t think I have any right to complain. Panda Bear’s vocals are perfect. And “Contact,” the album’s only sample-based song, simply sounds huge, closing the record on an energetic high note.
Time may tell if Random Access Memories will be seen as a career highlight or a curious misstep, but for the time being, it’s Daft Punk’s most interesting and musically varied release, at the very least, and it contains some of their strongest material yet. It won’t hit you on first listen, but even if you still don’t like it, you’ll at least be able to appreciate what Daft Punk is doing here. It’s an involving, well-crafted record all around, stuck in the sounds of the past and yet hinting at how good music can be in the future.
