Thanks to a slow build to one of the biggest marketing pushes in recent memory, Daft Punk’s new album, Random Access Memories, feels like one of the most hyped albums of all time. The duo’s first proper album in over eight years (they also produced the 2010 soundtrack to the Disney’s Tron), has been the talk of the music world over the past few months as details slowly emerged. Those who had heard snippits of the album claimed it would “save electronic dance music” – could it possibly live up to the hype?
Like with the rest of their albums, Daft Punk threw their fans a curve ball, completely switching up the styles that made them famous. Save electronic dance music? No, Daft Punk saved dance music, period. In the eight years since Human After All, the robotic synths and samples and heavy electro beats have become common place. Artists like Wolfgang Gartner, Justice, and Deadmau5 have all created tracks that create similar vibes to Daft Punk’s classics. So what did the legendary French duo do? They moved backwards, reminding music fans that there was dance music before Daft Punk. There was dance music before Felix Da Housecat and Junior Sanchez. There was dance music before the initials ‘EDM’ had any sort of meaning.
With Random Access Memories, Daft Punk has, at the same time created a throwback album to the 1970′s disco scene, while also pushing the boundaries of what people consider ‘electronic dance music’ to be. You can feel it within moments of turning on the album. The songs are infectious – you can’t help but move – but it’s nothing like anything Daft Punk has released before – which should have been obvious from the album’s lead single, ‘Get Lucky’. If you were expecting more tracks like ‘Around The World’ and ‘Robot Rock’, then you may be disappointed. If you expected this album to “save electronic dance music”, you may be underwhelmed. If you expected a forward thinking album, which will instantly change the way you perceive dance music as a whole, then you’re in for a treat.
The first track, ‘Give Life Back To Music’, announces the beginning of the album with a huge intro, before jumping right into the disco-funk feel that sets the tone for the rest of the album. The rhythm guitar work by Chic’s Nile Rogers instantly evokes the feeling of Chic’s classics like ‘He’s The Greatest Dancer’ and ‘Le Freak’. The robotic, repetitive use of the song’s title is really the only thing reminiscent of Daft Punk – the rest of the song is just pure funky disco. It sounds nothing like what you’d expect from Daft Punk, or any other mainstream EDM acts outside of the disco-revival acts like Breakbot. It re-defines what we come to expect from producers today. Music doesn’t need to have a “drop”. It just needs to make you want to dance.
Many fans will complain about a few songs that feel more like 80′s ballads than anything close to dance music. Tracks like ‘The Game Of Love’ and ‘Within’, are fantastic pieces of music, expertly composed and produced, but just fall flat compared with the upbeat excellence of some of the other tracks. I think standing on their own, they are great songs, and in another genre, they may be considered stand out tracks – the keys, provided by Chilly Gonzales, on ‘Within’ are beautiful. But sandwiched in between such funky, danceable music, they are very easy to skip. The same can be said about ‘Motherboard’, which is just an awesome, ambient, chilled-out production, but which may also warrant a skip in favor of the more upbeat tracks on the album.
By now, you’ve probably heard ‘Get Lucky’ a thousand times. However, Pharrell’s other contribution to the album, ‘Lose Yourself to Dance’, may even be the better song. The feels like it could have been produced for Michael Jackson or Morris Day, with chilled out funky guitar grooves, and Pharrell’s vocals being beautifully complimented by the vocoder work. It’s definitely one of the highlights of the album, showing how Daft Punk’s forward thinking sound can co-exist with this throwback disco vibe. The song slowly builds and builds, however unlike modern EDM, there’s no drop. The song just gets bigger and bigger as more musical elements are added, each complimenting the next perfectly. That’s definitely a theme of the album – the songs slowly build throughout, almost shadily, until you realize just how ‘big’ the song has become.
The track that everyone is talking about is ‘Giorgio By Moroder’, which sets a monologue by legendary producer Giorgio Morder (responsible for Donna Summer’s classics ‘Love To Love You Baby’ and ‘On The Radio, among others), explaining the progression of his career, to a beat. Once the monologue is over, the beat picks up into one of the more ‘Daft Punky’ songs on the album – albeit with an 80′s nod to Moroder’s hits from the decade, like ‘Rush Rush’ by Debbie Harry and ‘Scarface (Push It To The Limit)’ by Paul Engemann. The lead synths are very robotic, but the background evokes that 80′s vibe that is associated with Moroder. About six minutes into the song, after a quick interlude, the song returns bigger and bolder than ever, with expert studio drum work and a string section, again building the song into something huge without any sort of drop. The song ends with almost a jam session between the bass, drums, and turntable scratches. It’s a nine minute masterpiece that will eventually be placed along with Daft Punk’s classics – I can only imagine what this song will sound like in a live setting with all the different sounds and the fantastic live drum and guitar work. When people look at a nine minute song, they may expect tons of looping, but the last three minutes of this song is where it really becomes a masterpiece.
The penultimate track, ‘Doin’ It Right’, is the closest thing to classic Daft Punk on the album. It’s a minimalist beat, which is really lead by the vocals of Panda Bear from Animal Collective. Like Pharrell, his vocals perfectly compliment the robotic vocoder work of Daft Punk on the song. The song will probably be overlooked due to it’s spot right before the album’s last track, ‘Contact’. The song starts with 80′s synths and the voice of Eugene Cernan from the Apollo 17 mission, recording his views from space. From there, we hit the song that I think everyone was really looking for in this album. Deep synths, ambient noise, roaring drums, and a slow build that totally pays off in the end. This song very well could have served as the first song on the album and been just as effective, announcing the start of the musical journey, but it’s placement at the end cements the ‘save the best for last’ mentality. While not as inherently funky or danceable as ‘Give Life Back To Music’ or ‘Get Lucky’, this song is just fantastic. It’s the natural progression of Daft Punk that I think everyone expected. Almost a nod to the fans, telling them, now 13 tracks into the album, that they have still have the capacity to make a monster track full of samples and synths – they just chose to make a disco album.
Daft Punk is one of those bands that refuse to do the same things twice. In a recent interview with GQ, when asked about Skrillex, Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter responded “Here’s someone that is trying to create something new and to not follow something.” That’s what Daft Punk always strives to do. For the past eight years, so many producers, influenced by Daft Punk, have created similar music, over and over again – if Daft Punk created music in the same vein of 2005′s Human After All, it would sound too similar to to what everyone else is making today. Instead, they switched it up, going the opposite direction, throwing it back to the 70′s and 80′s. It’s almost as if they issued a challenge to their contemporaries – “Hey guys, we got the kids dancing to disco. Now put down your laptops and try making some music with real guitar and drums.”
With Random Access Memories, Daft Punk reminds us all that there was dance music before there was ‘electronic dance music’. There was Studio 54 before there was Pacha. There was Donna Summer before Swedish House Mafia. Dance music isn’t defined by turntables or laptops, it’s defined by the sounds that come out from it. Did Daft Punk save electronic dance music? I don’t think that was the point. But instead, it shows a whole generation of young producers, all trying to be the next Skrillex or the next Afrojack, that they can create dance music without following the footsteps of the modern DJ. You just need to create music that people want to dance to. Like the lyrics from ‘Doin’ It Right’ say, ‘everybody will be dancing if you’re doing it right.”