Daft Punk's Random Access Memories

god bloss em

or kathy diamond:

/Last year's KDMS album had a handful of Chic tributes that walk all over the rest of "Get Lucky"./

i assume you're talking about kinky dramas and magic stories, which handful of tracks are you talking about? i love kathy diamond but this album kinda sucked, they get about as close to chic as jamiriquai

Good keyboard textures, nice vocals and pretty much no tunes < Chic.

DP are popularizers with good ears and good presence, in short

Maybe true of "Face to Face" -- but how is that true of "Get Lucky"?

Agree the KDMS album wasn't all that, but "High Wire" was one track I kept coming back to.

went to a disco put on by 'deep disco heads' this weekend and had a few drunken conversations with random people about this song, and this is typical of what these people had to say (nicked from a facebook post):

"Loving how Daft Punk have captured the spirit of 70s disco with their lyric "we're up all night to get lucky". Clearly they've "come to far to give up" who they've become - disposable sold out pop stars. Rant over, now lets get on with playing some proper music :-)

still love you nile
"

people all like oh no my sacred disco music is getting popular with the kids

hearing way more stevie wonder than MJ in the vocal on this especially the way he wrestles with the low notes

fair point perhaps in terms of quality but i'd still argue those skream mixes etc are more stimulating as art just cos like, why did these uk types inexplicably suddenly veer in that direction? and astutely so as it turns out? it all has a sense of life to it whereas with dp it's just hey remember this... remember us... again...

Skream's spent more than enough time on the international circuit to know which way the wind is blowing (ie away from dubstep) and there's a pretty strong element of any port in a storm going on here.

nah, it's alright not to really care either way but you're handwaving it away there. international/not-dubstep/any port leads you to a hundred other possibilities before you end up at ersatz 80s disco boogie

But that sound that Skream's now adopting has been all over Europe for years, especially in the sunnier climbs that make up a lot of his touring schedule now - he's probably been immersed in it. Making the straight jump to jacking Hot Creations is probably the only thing that would have been more obvious.

not really 'ersatz 80s disco boogie' has been typical of what you'll hear if you go out in east london for a good 5-6 years now

xpost

It's not even that different from DP, it's all part of the same embarrassed sidling away from the American scene they helped to spawn.

Yo Amanda Palmer, I heard you like fans, so I gave fans to your fans so you can brag while you blog.

afaik he has played old disco sets a few times in the mid/late 2000s, could be just a thing that he was always into.

he = Skream

wait, list me up a couple of specific euroshoreditch jams you two think corroborate this skream super obviousness

rtc, how is your point different from the standard genre fan beef with popular artists? ie "People think x represents dance/R&B/hip hop at its best but they haven't heard all this much better, less well-known stuff in that genre". I've heard that countless times (mostly from Lex tbh). And this is the most breezy, straightforward track on a varied, ambitious record so discussing the innovation/relevance of Daft Punk 2013 in the light of Get Lucky alone is pointless. To make this record work they need a hit straight off the bat so they've chosen the song that sounds most like a hit. It's not all like this.

I'll happily do so this evening. It's a sound I have a lot of time for and the Skream disco remixes I've heard are corrections of fairly well worn tropes. They're not bad, but the idea there's any inherent artistic worthiness above and beyond the Daft Punk single is kinda nonsense given they're all part of the same drift.

rtc, how is your point different from the standard genre fan beef with popular artists? ie "People think x represents dance/R&B/hip hop at its best but they haven't heard all this much better, less well-known stuff in that genre".

I don't think that's really the point he's making? The line of attack is more "this represents flight from modernity" rather than yr standard Lexian "why is no one listening to all the better stuff in this genre?"

Ah, OK, that's not how I read it but I don't buy the "flight from modernity" line either.

I don't think it's even "flight from modernity"? More like "flight from presentism".

Yeah that's a better way of putting it.

this is the sort of music i'd hear out around 2008 at the horse and groom, disco bloodbath, visions video bar, star of bethnal green, that place that's now called the book club, various secret location lol warehouse parties and these days at super trendy places like dalston superstore / vogue fabrics. usually mixed in with some house, disco n all that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TkN8HIRV-M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVj1m8uy5AM

as for people making that stuff these days, most of it is edit based, every big name edit guy has done a boogie track, didn't terje do a kc and the sunshine band edit 'boogie'?

The present needs more Nile Rodgers-inspired rhythm riffin'.

So is the "flight from presentism" worse if it's a dance act than if it's someone getting wildly excited about mbv or the Bowie album? Is it the idea that electronic music (even though it's not really an electronic album) has to go future or go home? Because DP (a) have been together for 20 years and (b) have long been obsessed with homaging their youthful inspirations.

His guitar is so typically terrific on this xp, every sixteenth note accented individually and lovingly, like you'd get at whole foods or somewhere. It gives a kind of latin busyness to the groove, not that it feels or sounds latin in any other way.

has futurism always been embedded in DP's image?

rtc, how is your point different from the standard genre fan beef with popular artists? ie "People think x represents dance/R&B/hip hop at its best but they haven't heard all this much better, less well-known stuff in that genre". I've heard that countless times (mostly from Lex tbh)

idk, i dunno if i'd do that w/r/t a legit pop act like daft punk, it's mostly aimed at stuff that's beloved of critics (who should have heard of the better, less well-PRed stuff).

"fear of presentism" is v accurate here, and it's absolutely the same as the mbv/bowie excitement - there's a real air of seizing on to a familiar, safe name bolstered by both nostalgia from one's adolescence and the knowledge that it's canonical and no one's gonna mock you for getting it wrong

has futurism always been embedded in DP's image?

ROBOTS!!!!!!11111111

the skream remixes are 100% better than this btw in both nebulous presentism terms and in actual musical terms

i find the lyrics of the daft punk a bit tired too, if not actively sleazy

"fear of presentism" is v accurate here, and it's absolutely the same as the mbv/bowie excitement - there's a real air of seizing on to a familiar, safe name bolstered by both nostalgia from one's adolescence and the knowledge that it's canonical and no one's gonna mock you for getting it wrong

Was it fear of presentism when Kate Bush released Aerial?

If you were to talk about this album in relation to, say, the Justin Timberlake record, THEN I'd be prepared to concede it's part of the same phenomenon.

the fear of presentism is manifest in the build-up - the non-stop chatter before you can hear more than a tiny bit of music. when the buzz is so overwhelming before there's anything there to seize on to, it's sort of telling that the music is not entirely the point. there's pre-release anticipation but this is something else.

it's true of artists i like too - happening with beyoncé right now for instance (though with less of the 6music old people on board)

ha xp the timberlake album is DEF part of this

what does presentism mean here?

using synths?

DP's present seems to involve them doing things they haven't done before (make a hit dance song without synths), as ever. discussion of their "relevance" doesn't seem usefu. it's their unique position and individuality in approach that makes their returns interesting.

xp Of course people are excited about the idea of a record. Anticipation is fun, especially when it's being stoked so expertly. You're right that the music is not the sole point, at least not until people hear the whole album, but the longing is interesting - a craving for an event album. Timberlake's exploits a similar craving but much less imaginatively and with a ton of superstar baggage.

the longing is interesting - a craving for an event album

this is otm but i find this creepy? when the value is more about "something me and my friends and people like us can all find common cause in" than the music? i mean i love event albums and i love the social aspect of music but those happen organically, they're not there to be willed into happening

No, presentism isn't a sonic thing so much as the sense of music as embedded within currently swirling ideas and developments, the way we live now. That's not always a good thing: Swedish House Mafia and Imagine Dragons are "present".

For better or worse Daft Punk are presenting this as "hey look, you can step out of the present and take up with this as if it never stopped being 1996 2001 2007 1979.

i mean i love event albums and i love the social aspect of music but those happen organically, they're not there to be willed into happening

― flamenco drop (lex pretend), Monday, April 22, 2013 1:45 PM (18 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think it's a bit of both here, as it is often is.

which might be exactly the right move to make from a group with DP's baggage xp

Hard really to imagine them doing anything else at this stage really, though they're certainly seeking to make a marketing angle virtue of necessity.

which might be exactly the right move to make from a group with DP's baggage xp

well yeah, just as JT's promo campaign was on-point from a marketing/branding perspective, but ugh if we're gonna reduce arts criticism to "how good are artists at reinforcing their brand"

off-topic but TIM while you're in here the new fantasia album demands your attention

Any kind of pop move includes some coercion – that's part of appealing to a mass audience . I have to think about which is more coercive: event albums or would-be anthems ("Born This Way")

xpost oh shit yes there is a flight from presentism I'll happily buy business class tickets for right now.

this song is excellent fuiud

xp But one reason this DP album is intriguing is precisely because it's not situated in the present. It's not about what you can find elsewhere. That's why they made it. How much did Let England Shake or Aerial have to do with swirling ideas and developments? And DP would argue that this is about the way we live now, inasmuch as it's a rejection of many aspects of modern life, rejection being as valid as endorsement imo, if it's done with a real agenda.

but ugh if we're gonna reduce arts criticism to "how good are artists at reinforcing their brand"

― flamenco drop (lex pretend), Monday, April 22, 2013 9:48 AM (42 seconds ago) Bookmark

yeah i understand the impulse of revulsion - but i think the social experience of music is often as interesting as the music itself, and part of the reason why we're here an why ILM is often so scintillating! chartism threads are often the best

fantasia is pretty present imo, or at least not any less than she's ever been

Have people actually heard this record yet other than the single?

all good R&B is kinda on a flight from presentism in 2013 :-/

But the Daft Punk campaign wouldn't have worked if there wasn't significant groundswell of anticipation there in the first place, they don't need to will anything into happening.

FWIW I think Daft Punk's impact right across modern music has been so huge that it's almost impossible to separate them from presentism among the global pop audience, even as the band themselves try and distance themselves from a landscape they helped create. At least part of the anticipation is for an album to come along an redefine pop all over again, which is an almost impossible ask especially given it took about six years for the influence of Discovery to really seem apparent.

but i think the social experience of music is often as interesting as the music itself, and part of the reason why we're here an why ILM is often so scintillating! chartism threads are often the best

indeed, to an extent, but it's all too easy to get trapped in a it's-worth-talking-about-because-we're-talking-about-it endless feedback loop