Introduction: I remember the first time I listened to Daft Punk; I was watching Toonami and enjoying my religious viewing of Tenchi Muyo (or whatever anime was on) when during their commercial break a music video came on with an awesome animation of aliens being disguised as humans. It took many years before I found out that was Daft Punk's Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger. I was in love and now Discovery is one of my favorite album's of all time. Human After All was released later on and while it was a good album it missed that child-like optimism and sheer fun Discovery exuded. Alive 2007 was next up and really elevated their library into one whole as a live album masterpiece. Lastly, Tron: Legacy had it's soundtrack done by the duo and their use of orchestration brought an extra layer of emotion to their soulful music. Now we have Random Access Memories, an album that looks back at fond memories in order to create new ones.
Cover Art: Did you know that RAM is defined as a device that allows data to be accessed directly in any random order? That's exactly what this album is as we see a cover where the Daft Duo's faces are placed side by side with the words Random Access Memories above them in a style seen only in the 70's/80's. We are directly accessing the inspirations from Daft Punk as the album pays tribute to the era that shaped them with legendary collaborators like Chic's Nile Rodgers, disco producer Giorgio Moroder, and legendary songwriter Paul Williams lending a hand as fellow collaborators Pharrell Williams, Animal Collective's Panda Bear, and Strokes' Julian Casablancas show that these legend's voices live on in modern artists.
Give Life Back to Music: Within the first 20 seconds we have Nile Rodgers use his guitar to build up into a crescendo that ends with a smooth groove. This album has officially started. Daft Punk's vocoder voices lay down the chorus about how you should "Give life back to music." After finishing that Nile Rodgers takes center stage with an amazing riff. We get another crescendo followed by more Daft Punk and Nile Rodgers gold. A final crescendo appears followed by a bass-lined rhythm accompanied by the sound of a party and it just keeps going and going as it slowly fades out...
The Game of Love: A track full of lament about love lost. The music itself isn't that great but the lyrics are so heartfelt and deep that it genuinely sounds like a robot who had it's heart broken. Thomas Bangalter has stated the intention of the song was to "produce robotic vocals with expressiveness and emotion" and he has without a doubt succeeded. A nice track but at 5 and a half minutes it definitely overstays it's welcomes.
Giorgio by Moroder: For those of you who don't know who Giorgio Moroder is he is an Italian disco god who gave us some of Donna Summer's best work. He basically monologues his life on this track as Daft Punk matches his life's growth with an ever evolving music that starts with a busy crowd, some nice disco, and then turns into some synthesizer heavy 80's music. Halfway through it turns into jazz fusion accompanied later with a beautiful string percussion and then for the last 3 minutes we get drums, bass, guitar, and synthesizers going crazy all over the place like some insane house music. It's amazing listening to this song express so many different musical styles into a 9 minute track. When I heard Daft Punk drew inspiration from Dark Side of the Moon I was a little worried but thanks to their skill with rhythm, grooves, and beat nothing ever becomes boring.
Within: A transition song hidden within (Ha! Punny!) a beautiful near 4 minute song that once again let's you hear the pain within the heart (CPU?) of a machine. Chilly Gonzales is amazing behind the piano as he gives the emotion behind the robot that much more impact. The song is all about feeling lost and looking for some direction.
Instant Crush: A Strokes song. Seriously. Daft Punk has their signature all over it though with synthesizers and Julian Casablancas voice fed through a vocoder. Sure we all love his voice but thanks to the vocoder it insures this is a Daft Punk song. We get a short guitar solo in here too! I can't help but think about Digital Love and how amazing that song sounded with it's amazing groove and the guitar solo finale.
Lose Yourself to Dance: Am I the only one who still thinks it's weird that Pharrell Williams was included on this album? I know it's already been explained as Pharrell being interested in making Nile Rodgers-ish music at the same time as Daft Punk (I bet someone made a conspiracy site about this very topic) but wouldn't someone like Lady Gaga or La Roux been more appropriate? Where are all the ladies?! This album was inspired by an era with people like Blondie, Madonna, and Donna Summers! Oh wait, Blondie is a band, but still! Anyways, the song is rather simple as it has Pharrell singing about how you should "Lose yourself to dance" while Nile Rodgers lays down an amazing guitar riff and Daft Punk keep repeating "C'mon C'mon C'mon" in the background over and over. For 6 minutes that might sound bad but it totally works.
Touch: Wow, this song is beautiful. Just a gorgeous centerpiece in an album full of great songs. The song starts hauntingly
as a tribute to Paul Williams for nearly 2 minutes that makes you feel in
space. But after that we suddenly hear Paul himself sing about contact
with others. It's extremely moving as the song moves through various
emotions with the music. First, some subtle keyboards that bloom into
disco then shift into some beautiful strings and then transform again
into horns and piano just having fun. Suddenly, the space atmosphere
returns as a voice tells us "If love is the answer, hold on." Then
silence. Paul Williams ends the song singing about touch as the piano
accompanies him. Just an amazing song that warps through various sounds
like a hallucinatory dream in outer space while a man pours his heart
out about wanting a connection. Just. Wow.
Get Lucky: Okay, we all heard this song before. If not, here is the link. Nile Rodgers and Pharrell Williams return for a track similar in
sound to Give Life Back to Music and Lose Yourself to Dance. The song is
supposed to be about getting lucky in that you find that special
someone, but we all know Pharrell wants dat booty. I think this would
have been a perfect instance of having a female singer to better show
the romantic intentions behind this song. Is that sexist of me? Is it
sexist to say a woman's voice is more romantic while a man's is more
sexual? But I don't think P!nk, Katy Perry, Britney Spears, Christina
Aguilera, Nicki Minaj, or Miley Cyrus sound romantic at all! It's all
mature adult content! Maybe Justin Bieber? She's a girl, right? But
Justin's a boy name. Weird. Or maybe when Pharrell said it was about finding someone he was just trying to make it so that no one could criticize the lyrics for being shallow. I'm sorry, I really just want La Roux and Daft Punk to team up.
Beyond: This song starts with a full orchestration that is just lovely until the 43 second mark where it turns into a funky song about finding love beyond the scope of the world. The lyrics aren't really that great until the 2 minute mark where you finally hear that robotic emotion you've heard before. It's like Within except more upbeat, more fun. Wait a second, is there a pattern here? We have disco songs like Give Life Back to Music, Instant Crush, Lose Yourself to Dance, and Get Lucky. Then we have more prog ventures like Giorgio by Moroder and Touch. Finally, we have the more electronic songs like The Game of Love, Within, and now Beyond. Let's see what the next song is! I bet it's more prog rock because prog needs some more love here!
Motherboard: Aaaannnnnndddd it's a prog song! That'll be $20. What do you mean you don't remember betting? You calling me a liar? You better be careful, I hear falling down the stairs leads to black eyes. What was I saying again? Oh yeah! This is a very futuristic piece that at the 3 minute mark turns into something that sounds like one of Can's weirder songs (look it up, lazy). Even some hard drums. It leaves as quickly as it arrived. The inclusion is well timed because it makes sure the song doesn't turn stale (which it was). The songs ends with the sounds of water droplets.
Fragments of Time: Todd Edwards drops by to join in on another disco song and it sounds great. Hey! Remember that missing epic guitar solo I mentioned in the Instant Crush paragraph?! Of course you do! Well it's totally in here! I guess Daft Punk heard my criticism. Only makes sense. Wow, it's getting harder and harder to write comprehensive paragraphs about these songs. Or maybe it's because this song just doesn't quite reach the same level the rest of the album does...
Doin' It Right: I was fairly intrigued when I heard Panda Bear was going to be on this album. Whenever anyone asks me "What the f*ck? Who the f*ck is Panda Bear?" I just look at them and say a drummer who sounds like the techno version of Brian Wilson. Seriously, check it out. At the same time Daft Punk wanted a west coast vibe and the Beach Boys are very west coast. The song sounds like a normal Daft Punk song where the duo sing about 'Doin' it right" and then suddenly Panda Bear's ethereal voice jumps in a minute in. Interesting. He sings "If you lose your way tonight that's how you know the magic's right." You heard him, folks, if your moral compass goes off track that means you're having fun! He probably means something else just like how Get Lucky "means something else." An interesting song that blends Daft Punk and Panda Bear surprisingly well.
Contact: If this song is a memory of anything it's definitely the late 90's, early 2000's. Techno was kinda big then and this song totally encompasses that. Daft Punk even brought in former ally-in-beats DJ Falcon to help with the production. We have the space mission recording, the grinding sound effect, and the ever building tempo dying down in the end. This song is a perfect closer and really reminds me of Homework and it's progressive house sound. I can tell this song will play at a lot of raves. Just wow. Holy crap! I just realized Daft Punk used mankind's dream of finding alien life as a parallel to a robot's dream of finding a romantic connection!
Conclusion: I love albums that try to bring in numerous influences under one roof and make them all work together seamlessly. It makes it easier for me when I try to figure out what albums to bring on trips. Why bring four albums when I just need the one? The idea of the infinite influences of Daft Punk being condensed into one album and plucked at random for the listeners enjoyment is a great idea. It's like we found the old RAM of a mysterious robot and we're just going through it's records at random. It might sound like their is no cohesion between tracks or that song placement is weird and that is true to point, but that's an inevitable drawback to this direction that I will gladly see past for this breathtaking album. The Robots have never felt so vulnerable, so passionate, so human.
