Yes, the album isn’t out yet. Yes, it took them 8 years to make these tracks, I should give them at least a couple listens before I put in my two cents. Yes, there is a lot to deal with here. I don’t care, I’m plunging in.
Daft Punk’s existence was something to which I had been indifferent to until about one year ago. Because, at that point, Pitchfork had (and, unfortunately still, has) a profound effect on the music I listened to. Coming in whopping third place on their Top 500 albums of the 2000s list, I knew I had to at least check them out. I got my hands on a copy of Discovery, and I liked it, but I didn’t love it. I shelfed it, and didn’t listen two it for a couple months.
This was more than a year ago. Eventually, it weaned its way into my car speakers during a drive to my first spring regatta. I was 17. Suddenly, the joy was overwhelming. The star-bound joy of “One More Time”, “Face to Face”, and “Digital Love”-to name a few- completely overwhelmed me, I got caught up in the overwhelming and hypnotic pattern of bass-snare-bass-snare. That day, I won my first race as a rower.
Daft Punk deals in happiness. They are responsible for more moments of pure, rapturous joy than anyone except Stevie Wonder in his prime. “Homework” is genius, “Discovery” is balls-to-the-wall brilliance, “Human After All” is rushed and rough, but good nonetheless. Each is packed with enough soaring joy to make you want to compliment a neighbor, go out of your way for a stranger, or just straight-up dance in the middle of a crowded elevator full of strangers.
Which brings me to today. Or, rather, a few months ago. After 8 years of silence, the world sees a 10 second SNL commercial with two familiar helmets and three words, Random Access Memories. At Coachella, those 10 seconds morph into a minute and a half, featuring a smirking, outrageously funky Nile Rodgers (of Chic fame, the mastermind behind some of the greatest riffs of the last few decades), and a Marvin Gaye channeling Pharrell Williams. Slowly, but surely, the collaborators reveal themselves in the YouTube Creator’s series, talking about the album and their contributions, alternating between hushed reverence and barely-contained bliss. This ad campaign would give Don Draper goosebumps. The world explodes.
Indeed, I don’t think any album has been as hyped as Random Access Memories. Expectations have reached soaring levels, information is bountiful and sound is scarce. After months with nothing but a radio edit, iTunes made its move for continued relevance yesterday by completely, finally, releasing the album as a stream, all 74 minutes of it. I knew my expectations couldn’t be met, but I knew I had to hear it too. I took my beautiful pair of Bose, plugged ‘em into my laptop. I taped a note on my door that read “Closed for Daft Punk”. Turned on, tuned in, and dropped out.
I was right, it didn’t meet my expectations. It surpassed them, completely. I’ve spent a lot of time building up to this album. Now it’s time to talk about it. I have to go track-by track, because there really is quite a bit to talk about.
“Give Life Back to Music” seems like a statement of purpose. It begins overwhelmingly; massive guitars and resonant pianos wash themselves over muted, warped glissandos. The universe shatters, and suddenly, everything is funky. Nile Rogers’ guitar is sparse but present, and the groove overwhelms even the unhippest of toes. Vocoders repeat the mantra and, despite the robotics, this music is undeniably alive. Call it the death of EDM, or a disco revival if you wish, but this is something else. Something new.
“The Game of Love” is much subtler, still very funk-driven, but muted. Keyboards and synthesizers battle each other over a hypnotizing wah-wah while another vocoder breathes life into a sad, beautiful melody. Daft Punk have never been so melancholy, and it looks good on them.
There are two tracks on this album bouting for the reverent title of “centerpiece”. At the crucial track spot of 3, we have “Giorgio by Moroder”, which begins with a monologue by the electronic pioneer himself. As he goes through time, the soundscape behind him builds up, and then breaks down in time for him to talk about his biggest contribution, the “click”, the heartbeat from which all great electronic music rode from. Then, everything explodes. Keyboards zoom through a very Giorgio-esque melody, as drums and bass rise. The mood is experimental, almost jazz fusion-y, with a keyboard solo that screams Chick Corea. After a few minutes of this, it all goes into background for Giorgio to utter something timeless and ultimate.
“You want to free your mind about a concept of harmony and music being correct, you can do whatever you want. So nobody told me what to do, and there was no preconception of what to do.”
At this moment, there’s a few seconds of orchestra. Then it all shoots to the stars.
Guitars rise and fall, drums sputter and stumble and cry, slick bass duets with DJ Scratches, Daft Punk’s rocket shoots off into the stratosphere and your mind is right there with them.
At the end of “Giorgio” everything slows down, a blip repeats itself and crashes, gives you a moment of grace before pianist Chilly Gonzales displays his piano virtuosity with some gorgeous chords. What follows is “Within” a beautiful little jazz ballad, full of excellent brushed drums, whispering piano chords, and the lonely cry of a sad vocoder. This is the most wistful and downright depressing that the duo has ever sound, and works wonders in context.
Next there’s “Instant Crush”. The best Strokes song to not feature The Strokes. Julian Casablancas makes an inspiring cameo. He is filtered through a tinny vocal effect, and as far out of his range as he’s ever been, but it’s a best-ever vocal performance. Casablancas makes use of every second of his cameo, and the soundscape recalls the fluorescence of the sountrack to the 2011 film Drive (the excellent theme of the movie was produced by Daft Punk’s own Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo).
These two tracks diverge from the disco-funk of the first three, but it all comes full circle. Nile Rogers and Pharrell sound better than ever in the booming, irresistible “Lose Yourself to Dance”. The drums blast, and Rogers’ guitar work is overwhelming in it’s simplicity. Daft Punk turn the bass down to a whisper and let the guitar sparkle in a brilliant production move. Pharrell sounds better than he ever has before. It would take great strength to resist a groove this massive.
Which brings us to “Touch”, our second candidate for center piece. That’s Paul Williams on vocals, buy the way, the lounge-singer genius behind the music of countless artists, and notably wrote music like “The Rainbow Connection.” But he’s never written anything like “Touch”.
The piece begins with aggressive, sweeping ambiance. Paul Williams hisses with presence “I need something moooooorrreee” to lead into it’s intimate intro. Williams sings with complete abandon and conviction. The melody is beautiful and simple, the keyboards shimmer and shine. Everything quickly morphs into what should be indulgent cheese, a funk overdrive along the lines of Donna Summer’s “The Last Dance”, but then the strings come in. And the brass. And the ragtime, piano lounge piano. And the children’s choir. There are over 250 individual sounds in this recording and they are all clear, present and beautiful. The ambition is overwhelming, and while lesser hands couldn’t handle it, Daft Punk craft a masterpiece. This is the frontrunner for the track of the year.
There is nothing left to say about “Get Lucky”, it is a brilliant piece of summery, shimmering, beautiful pop. It is light on it’s feet but monstrous in your ears. A perfect cool down after touch.
“Beyond” is beyond ambitious, in it’s orchestral, electronic scope, and existential lyricism. “Motherboard” is the flipside, a mesmerizing play on jazz fusion with buoyant drums reminiscent of Animal Collective’s “Honeycomb”. Fragments of time pairs Daft Punk once again with Todd Edwards (they worked together on one of my favorite Daft Punk tunes, “Face to Face”, back in ’01) to beautiful, joyous, “Take it Easy”-like results. And on the subject of Animal Collective; “Doin’ it Right.”
“Doin’ it Right” is one of the few tracks on this album to not feature predominantly live instrumentation, and it still fits into the aesthetic perfectly. It’s very minimal, with an excellent chord progression sung through vocoders until you are hypnotized. Then Panda Bear shows up. The Animal Collective member is responsible for some of the best harmonies of the decade, and he is in great form here. The result is a mesmerizing prelude to RAM’s finale.
“Contact” is the closest thing to a typical Daft Punk song on the record. That is to say, nothing at all like a Daft Punk song. Arpeggios soar, sounds boom and swell and overwhelm, and drums explode with the kind of precision seldom seen outside a Police record. It all melts into fuzz, and the album ends.
I can’t stop thinking about Random Access Memories. It sounds like nothing I’ve ever heard before. Each song is filled with its own genuine thrills, twists and turns. The ambition borderlines insanity, but Tomas and Guy-Manuel have the talent and the staff to back it up. The stunning quality, inspiration, and emotional weight is closest in spirituality to Kanye’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, maybe the greatest hip hop album ever produced. Kanye’s hyper-presence might be a complete 180 from Daft Punk’s propensity for anonymity, but both have the imagination and ambition to create something truly majestic.
When asked where Daft Punk goes from here in his Creators Project interview, Pharrell looked down, up, and then simply replied “up.”. It is a move I once took for cartoonish worship, but he might be right.
10/10