I officially declared this past week to be unofficially declared Daft Punk week, with the release of their highly anticipated (understatement) fourth studio album, Random Access Memories. Although much of the interweb has already had to say what they want to say about their latest work, Supersonic Speakerbox would also like to share our opinion, as avid and long-time Daft Punk fans (but then again, who isn't?).
Random Access Memories is nothing short of a game-changer in my opinion, but I suppose time will reveal this to be true or not. Daft Punk had allegedly been working on this record since 2008, but the mysterious duo had somehow managed to keep it under wraps until a few months before it was released, accompanied by an extensive marketing campaign and general internet hype-mania. Every new 10 seconds of a song that may or may not have been from the album was looped and remixed and played ad nauseum (see here), and people simply could not wait to hear the final thing for themselves. So was it worth all the fuss? Worth all the tears and sleepless nights yearning and trawling the internet for a new snippet? Worth selling your internal organs to get a pre-released version from a Columbian smuggler? Worth breaking into Thomas Bangalter's house with a crowbar and some blank re-writable CD's on a quiet French evening? Yes! Yes it was!
From what I have heard and what people have told me, it seems that you either love or hate this album. When listening to it, it helps a lot to understand the background, development and concept behind it, as it is somewhat of a concept album. The Robots intended to go back to a time where music sounded like it was still made by human beings, sick and tired of today's over saturated mechanical musical landscape, especially in the now massive EDM scene that they themselves helped create. This involved going back to the very conception of electronic music, the Disco era. This was a time when producers like Giorgio Moroder began to use the synthesizer in the composition of popular music, not knowing what impact it would eventually have, and this little narrative forms part of the 3rd song on the album, Giorgio By Moroder, a nice way to explain the context for us people who weren't alive in the 1970's. And with this frame of reference, Daft Punk set out to make the album using live instrumentation almost entirely.
And this ladies and gentlemen is why I believe that Random Access Memories may very well become a game-changer as I mentioned earlier, when arguably the biggest name in electronic music today make music without the use of electronics as we've come to know it to be. This music has soul, feeling, texture, and emotion that so many of its contemporaries lack. And it is for this reason that so many people (myself included) will love it, but it is for that same reason that so many people will dislike it as well. I suppose it depends on your taste, but the average young listener will give comments like "it sounds so old, my parents would listen to this". But we won't worry about these people for now, back to the music...
Give Life Back To Music, the album's groovy opening track states exactly what Daft Punk intended on doing, and while the music of RAM may not be exactly what DP fans are used to, it is always distinctly Daft Punky on every track. I personally have been listening to this CD on repeat almost every day, I can't seem to get enough of it's infectious grooves and jams on the more up-tempo tracks, and the soulful and emotional melodies on the slower tempo's. I am not really qualified or knowledgeable enough to be able to tell you about all the beautifully crafted musicality on the album, created by collaborating with a wide array of top-class session musicians and recording artists, but what I can tell you is that this is good music. Even if it is not your favourite style or genre, you can still appreciate all the effort that went into it's creation and admire what they are trying to achieve, and decide for yourself whether or not they achieved it.
At this point I will usually say which are my favourite cuts from the record, and although there are a few standouts, I would have to say the entire album as a whole. Man these tunes are far too groovy for my young bones to handle. If you are a true Daft Punk fan, there is no way you will be disappointed. One of the best things about them is that they hide their identities behind their iconic helmets, so that nobody gets caught up in the celebrity glitz and glamour, its just about the music. Music given to us by two sublime, mysterious and enigmatic French robots who seem to have come from another world, to give life back to music.
Shayne
