To a hardcore Daft Punk fan, this represented the epitome of greatness. The gloriously enchanted and fanatical American crowd was treated to one of the finest and intensely curated sets ever produced, as the Parisian robots mixed their then-current record’s ( ‘Homework’, ‘Discovery’, and ‘ Human After All’) into one unstoppable and singular wave of creativity. How can one forget their innovative pyramid design and gigantic LED-induced screens in the background? Firstly, that endless stretch of time provided us with their 2006 Coachella performance, which redefined our expectations towards the scale and ferocious artistic force of an electronic live show. Ranging from supremely catchy anthems, existential ballads, and grandiose cinematic epics, the Parisian duo display methodical compositional prowess in building a complete narrative within the conscience of a robot mind, seeking to understand the human world around him by diving deep into his store of experiences, emotions, and memories.ĭaft Punk’s 8-year hiatus between the releases of ‘Human After All’ (2005) and ‘RAM’ had been tumultuous yet immensely captivating. This album showcases Daft Punk exploring the roots of their roots to recreate its authenticity through their exquisitely enterprising lens.
This is not a record for the average Electric Daisy Carnival goer.7 years after its release, the ‘Random Access Memories’ legacy still continues to grow.
And the absence of “modern” club beats is striking. The jazz fusion gestures conjure ecstatic disco history as well as cheesy wine-bar soundtracks. Verses approach the banal old-school-production treacle is laid on thick, but the creative soul is palpable. It’s also remarkably beautiful and affecting. On “Touch,” Williams trades drama-queen verses with a cyber-chorus, like some alternate ending to Dave Bowman’s standoff with HAL, the computer, in 2001: A Space Odyssey. The processed vocals unspool a story that suggests cyborgs striving to be human – pretty much the story of all of us these days. There’s a narrative here, too, although in concept-album tradition, it’s a vague one. Its brilliance is often irrefutable – like when the exquisitely funky rhythm guitar of Nile Rodgers flickers through “Get Lucky” and “Lose Yourself to Dance,” or when studio grandmasters Omar Hakim and John JR Robinson create godhead break beats apparently using drumsticks instead of loop triggers (see the prog-rock freakout “Contact”). Like ex-smokers turned anti-tobacco militants, Daft Punk have been disparaging EDM in the press, and without forsaking their Kiss-like robot personae, they’ve built a record more or less wholly on live instrumentation. Random Access Memories reflects all this. But plenty has happened since: EDM has gone megapop, while DP, following a 2007 stadium tour, repaired to L.A. It’s a long way from Homework, the 1997 debut on which Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo perfected a brand of synth-and-sample-centered house music that rebooted Eurodisco and inspired acts from Kanye West to Swedish House Mafia.
#ALBUM OR COVER DAFT PUNK RANDOM ACCESS MEMORIES FULL#
Then there’s the full package – a 70-minute-plus, over-the-top concept LP of prog-rocking, reverse-engineered dance music orbiting somewhere between Pink Floyd‘s Dark Side of the Moon and Earth, Wind and Fire‘s That’s the Way of the World. Random Access Memories is full of WTF moments: Julian Casablancas delivering maybe the most emotive vocals of his career through a vocoder-style haze dance godfather Giorgio Moroder waxing nostalgic on an electro-jazz-funk epic pop-schmaltz guru Paul Williams (“We’ve Only Just Begun”) playing a love-starved cyborg in a disco fantasia. The only issue is that it sounds almost nothing like EDM. French duo Daft Punk helped create our current stadium-shaking, Coachella-dominating dance-music moment, and their new album is by far the year’s most anticipated EDM set.
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