Daft Punk - Random Access Memories

[funkaholic]

& songs like this just piss all over the album

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2q25nUY3iEE

[noise]

here is my review: absolute piece of shit

edit: except for instant crush

Edited May 13, 2013 by noise

[Kooch]

Random Boring Disco

[yshf]

like the panda bear track

sorta like instant crush but not really

the rest is boring and cheesy and empty

bleh

[KovalainenFanBoy]

You know, at least Human After All wasn't this boring

[joshuatxuk]

You know, at least Human After All wasn't this boring

 

Agreed

 

To put it succinctly - this album marks the apex of too much retro-fetishism in music lately. They had fun and made a funk and disco album. There's not one risky or novel sound I've heard in Random Access Memories. It's not bad, it's just completely unimportant. Every track sounds like hundreds, if not thousands of similar singles, 12" and full-length albums that have come out in the last 5 years, most of which is better.

 

Going to post something I wrote to a friend instead of type a new post about the album:

 

This is incredibly vague, and I'm only on the 3rd track, but I can't help thinking that perhaps retro and throwback production in general is a critical breaking point. To me new music is inherently crippled if it's completely dependent on achieving a very specific retro sound and refuses to do anything risky or novel sonically. I think Daft Punk has done that here.

 

A lot of discussion about this album has been about it's lack of sampling and use of live instruments instead, and I'm wondering now if that's going to the album's biggest fault. I'm listening to "Giorgio" which is finally waking me up but there's absolutely nothing new or exciting about this track. It's not bad it's just completely lacking in novelty or originality. You can tune into any 70s prog rock podcast or playlist and hear a song that sounds exactly like "Giorgio" in every aspect. Giorgio Moroder himself has made remarkable tracks (his whole discography is a watershed of innovative dance music) so to know he collaborated with Daft Punk and that this was the result is a huge letdown.

 

Homework and Discovery were masterpieces because they married high-quality dance music production with familiar sounds and aesthetics from past genres. There wasn't anything else that sounded quite like it and that's why those albums appealed to so many people. That was really a trademark of late 90s and early 00s electronic music in general. Now I feel many producers rely on the gimmick of simply producing very accurate replications of past styles. With few exceptions the appeal of such music fades fast.

I couldn't help it, I just skimmed a few more tracks. I can already tell this is going to be a letdown. I'm not disappointed exactly, because my high expectations were very specific ones. I was worried that Daft Punk would be making a mediocre full-length less impressive than the work of their own proteges: Justice, Simian Mobile Disco, LCD Soundsystem, everyone on Ed Banger, Chromeo, etc. I'm afraid that's occurred. I'm sure they're happy with (who wouldn't have fun making dance music in expensive studios with legendary musicians?) and I know many fans will enjoy it, but it sounds so fucking inessential.

Edited May 13, 2013 by joshuatx

[Kavinsky]

Touch is cool

Touch is cool

ok sr just the beginning , damm this album sounds "gay"

[YO303]

lol are people surprise that this album was shit?

 

Remember when disco was hated? that was just a few years ago before it was cool to ironically like shit silly music like disco.

 

You all deserve to be disappointed for hyping this bullshit.

Edited May 13, 2013 by Deer

[joshuatxuk]

lol are people surprise that this album was shit?

 

Remember when disco was hated? that was just a few years ago before it was cool to ironically like shit silly music like disco.

 

You all deserve to be disappointed for hyping this bullshit.

 

The disco revival stuff has been a pretty gradual trend since the late 90s. So many better 12" releases and even full albums drawing from the exact same influences have been made by a plethora of producers, some of whom were probably directly influenced by Daft Punk, and they for the most part sound a lot better than this album.

 

In other words, Daft Punk made a meta-album that at it's worst sounds like Daft Punk ripoffs making ridiculously forced Daft Punk-esque music. Instead of MOAR COWBELL it's MOAR VOCODER

 

I'm not surprised at all, just hoped they'd actually try their formula of fusing old samples and sounds with cutting production and also evoke some of the grandiose they pulled off with the Tron OST. Instead they made some catchy but predictable retro sounding tracks with their idols in really expensive studios. Now the major labels are going to make a buck off it. That's that.

 

You might as well stream this: http://www.pandora.com/commodores/ultimate-collection/brick-house

Edited May 13, 2013 by joshuatx

[Guest RadarJammer]

I never really liked Daft Punk but in the past when someone had Daft Punk in their music collection it indicated that they had an interesting taste of music but they undid that with this release. It looks like they traded street cred and staying power for an easy stack of money.

[Lane Visitor]

yikes, that "lose yourself to dance" track is almost unlistenable..

 

im half way through streaming it right now.. so far.. 6.5/10 :/ hopefully i get "used" to it, and/or the rest of the LP is bangin.

[Alcofribas]

yeah so, a generic disco/funk album. neat. sounds like daft punk are a tribute band now.

[Guest Gary C]

I got five tracks through. Was feeling let-down. It was too mellow. A little too romantic, too floaty. I tried to skip a track that was becoming repetitive and annoying and the playlist ended. I didn't care.

 

I didn't get far enough through to decide whether this album sucked all over. But it sucked enough.

[vamos scorcho]

really not in agreement with the overt negativity surrounding this. It's not great, I do not think it's a great album but I would definitely lean toward an 8/10 or so. I think the production is really fucking good and it's pretty listenable.

 

It's unique music in a certain way. it will probably end up n the same level as Human After All if not a little bit higher. It's not as repetitive, and has a few good songs. I think the live feel plays out better when fleshed out over the course of the album.

 

Put all this together and despite its obvious faults and non-genius AKA non-Discovery... it's still something I wish more musicians these days were doing. Making good music, essentially. All the elements are here.

 

 

 

also to anti-Retro people, totally agree. I've been wanting to read that Retromania book. I still think these guys are being postmodern enough on this album to keep it fresh. I specifically really do like "Fragments of Time" which is quite good objectively imo.

[zupiclone]

here is my review: absolute piece of shit

edit: except for instant crush

 

lol except its all shit.

 

really, i could of told ye all 2 months ago this was going to stink. the collabs involved had it written all over.

should go down well in ibiza with the kids. commerical tack for tacky times.

Daft Punk as we loved died years ago.

 

what a mess.

[Earth]

Just started now... any fucking nasty breakbeats on this bitch? I just heard the first two tracks and my dick is crazy limp/

[dr lopez]

i thought it was a joke having moroder talk over a track. wow talk about dumb as shit marketing for the masses. WOW I HAD NO IDEA HE WAS FROM A SMALL TOWN WHO IS THIS GUY HE CHANGED DISCO 4EVR, WOW SO COOL

[YEK]

lolz...

[Lane Visitor]

Kay, finally just finished.. Im changing my vote from 6.5 to a 7.5/8 now that i've listened to the whole thing...

 

Although RAM does not contain the luscious funky hypnotic house jams that daft punk are known for, the music on here is what's big for me.. production quality crisp as hell too.. love how the final masters weren't maxed out of headroom- shows true classic audiophile merit.

 

the smooth jazz was actually pretty cool, a nice surprise (most at least- some was a bit ridic)- wasn't too big into the splashing, proggy, bonham style drumming through out.

 

i wavered back and forth a bit.. but the smoothness of beyond, the ridiiiiiculously euphoric mood and 808 snappy grooves of Doin It Right almost makes the whole album for me. (mostly just the vocodered robot voice and beat)

 

Beyond is smooth as f*ck.

 

get lucky is still dope even after hearing it over and over.

 

first two tracks were fun.

 

casablancas bit was forced but so so

 

moroder was.. i was like.. do i hate this? do i like, love this? it was silly, and kinda cool, kinda novelty, but in a daft punky kinda way. no hate at all, good stuff.

 

no no no on lose yourself to dance

 

at first i thought touch sounded super pretentious, and was about to skip until those strings came in and the last 2 minutes came, and i almost cried. they def revived themselves at that point. just for that bit of music/ choral part. ahhhh, very umm "touching". oh, also brilliant choice of placing get lucky right after touch. tasteful.

 

a bit loose all over (in terms of tracklist), sometimes cheesy, but always groovy, always classic... loose but somehow coherent.. overall the album's a journey, and as vamos said, at least they are putting out really good music when many in dance/pop arent right now.

[Guest Araungzeb]

I don't understand all of the hate that this one is getting, yeah they're not reinventing the wheel here but does it really matter? Just because an album isn't pushing the envelope further and further doesn't necessarily make it worthless or unenjoyable. This is one of my major problems with the IDM community in general, the mentality that if something sounds mainstream or radio-friendly it's automatically not worth listening to or subject to an absurd amount of scrutiny. There's some absolutely beautiful and very fun music on here, it might not be perfect but it's definitely worth listening to.

[manmower]

Four listens in, I'm loving this. The first half's good but actually kind of tame in comparison to what follows, except for Giorgio By Moroder which foreshadows all the madness in the second half of the album (from Touch onwards). I thought Todd Edwards' Fragments Of Time was going to be cringey as fuck, but it sounds like Fleetwood Mac meets Digital Love and I dig it.

[beariksson]

lolz...

 

quite

 

[Guest drukqs]

God this album sounds like fucking Hatsunne Miku

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQi_eue52rc

 

Especially on Instant Crush. Euugghhhh...

[Amen Lare]

I don't understand all of the hate that this one is getting, yeah they're not reinventing the wheel here but does it really matter? Just because an album isn't pushing the envelope further and further doesn't necessarily make it worthless or unenjoyable. This is one of my major problems with the IDM community in general, the mentality that if something sounds mainstream or radio-friendly it's automatically not worth listening to or subject to an absurd amount of scrutiny. There's some absolutely beautiful and very fun music on here, it might not be perfect but it's definitely worth listening to.

The fuck are you talking about? Daft Punk was radio-friendly and simplistic from the start, some of their hits are just tightened old funk samples like Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger. Nobody in the thread accused them for that. They've become more cliche-oriented and non inspired in terms of finding their own sound than it is tolerated, that's all.

[dr lopez]

also you can totally be radio-friendly while still "pushing the envelope", which was one of their skills in the fcking first place....

 

this hasn't clicked yet...