Daft Punk's Random Access Memories

as a result of this thread i'm about to listen to George Benson for the first time!

I'm seeing some incredibly stupid opinions on Twitter, "stuck in the 90s" being the stupidest.

what did they expect from something called 'random access memories'

Re. ambitions of this record, I think it says something about the current scene that they have had to venture into oddball territory to make a record that is legitimately off the beaten path. Not every track does this -- mostly Touch and Giorgio, with a hint of it in Motherboard for continuity with their previous music. But it makes you wonder how influential this record can possibly be at the end of the day.

as a result of this thread i'm about to listen to George Benson for the first time!

you dont know this classic?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8ysfBys4cg

irrefuiudable

― dschinghis kraan (NickB), Tuesday, 14 May 2013 10:37 (1 hour ago) Bookmark

this is a keeper

thanks Suare. no i've a total blind spot with this guy, only thing i knew was '20/20'.

very very much enjoyed listening to this at a err, dinner party for my birthday yesterday.

so everybody else i was with hated it; sweet of them to try to like it, but no, i could tell they hated it.

well i liked it.

love hearing the tails on the end of the vocoder parts, fading out all crusty like, so warm and beautiful. some of the those parts make it feel a bit like the robert glasper experiment when they do their slow vocoder jams.

laughed out loud lots of times. hearing yacht rock, hall and oats, jacno, boogie, krautrock, kosmiche, studio funk, prince one of the songs also went into bizarro jim o'rourke eureka territory iirc

lol panda bear sounds like an x-factor boyband 1st audition

i absolutely love how offensive people are finding this. whoever mentioned alan parsons project, otm! this is one of the uncoolest records i've heard in a long time.

Jacno, really? where is that?

dunno something made me think jacno in it's childish cheesy melody live drums synth pop songwritery way

like soft rock with synths floating around in the background, less retangle more cercle-esque jacno. or if you took the vocals off je viens d'ailleurs and put a guest vocalist on top that'd totally fit on this record

that is a neat observation. I've never heard anyone reference Jacno for any reason but it does seem like he'd fit with a record like this.

fwiw i quite like it on first listen #thekbpverdict

man i find the myopia from people who think they should have just churned out homework over and over again really flaring up. this record isn't as good as homework or discovery, on first impressions, but i really question the sort of casual purism that sees people acting like homework was some hardcore touchstone of techno authenticity

Outside the big singles and a couple of other tracks, I don't even rate Homework that highly any more, its sound palette grated hugely the last time I listened to it. If I want to go back to that whole sound I get so much more out of records like Pansoul and Super Discount or the first Cryadmoure comp than I do out of Homework these days.

IMO a lot of Homework is waiting for that 3rd or 4th element to come over the top and tie everything together that never comes

this is one of the uncoolest records i've heard in a long time

yeah it's quite funny that the coolest album of the year™ is in many ways profoundly uncool. and it makes it even odder that a lot of the negative discourse that i've seen on twitter (i'm not gonna say all, i am happy to accept it's alright to dislike this album) surrounds its failure to work within a 90s and onwards dance framework. its sound is so clearly rooted in the uncool/hipstercool late 70s and early 80s that to expect it to function as something radically different from that seems strange.

According to the 2013 Wee Waa Show Guide (http://www.thecourier.net.au/media/downloads/Wee_Waa_Show_Guide_2013.pdf), the album launch has got prime position on Friday night in between the fireworks and the Cross Cut Saw contest.

it's quite funny that the coolest album of the year™ is in many ways profoundly uncool

http://best-b2b.com/userimg/529/537-1/mesh-cap-953.jpg

i don't really get how '70s/'80s yacht rock/soft rock is seen as uncool? beardo disco has been a thing for ages now, steely dan may be divisive generally but they're a touchstone to the point of cliché on ilm that you can't say they're seen as uncool, that whole decadent white-suited on-a-boat aesthetic is seen as uncool by NO ONE. obviously it's a departure for daft punk - insofar as that means much after the amount of time they took off - but i'm not hearing much on this album that's so unlike what anyone else has been doing recently.

lex otm

not very keen on it after one listen. That panda bear track ffs.

like, late 70s and early 80s? giorgio WHO?? they done flipped the script!!!!!!

i don't really get how '70s/'80s yacht rock/soft rock is seen as uncool? beardo disco has been a thing for ages now, steely dan may be divisive generally but they're a touchstone to the point of cliché on ilm that you can't say they're seen as uncool, that whole decadent white-suited on-a-boat aesthetic is seen as uncool by NO ONE

This album is pitching to and will be heard by a MUCH bigger and wider audience than the rest of that stuff though, in the wider world that aesthetic is still seen as pretty naff.

i don't really get how '70s/'80s yacht rock/soft rock is seen as uncool? beardo disco has been a thing for ages now, steely dan may be divisive generally but they're a touchstone to the point of cliché on ilm that you can't say they're seen as uncool, that whole decadent white-suited on-a-boat aesthetic is seen as uncool by NO ONE. obviously it's a departure for daft punk - insofar as that means much after the amount of time they took off - but i'm not hearing much on this album that's so unlike what anyone else has been doing recently.

I like the sentiment, but tell me where you've heard something like Touch before -- or Giorgio.

I'm not speaking to their quality -- but I do think these tracks are bizarre little creatures.

this album would be much better with the lack of panda bear but that would be the case with any album

in the wider world that aesthetic is still seen as pretty naff

giorgio moroder? nile rodgers? nahhhhh

it's nothing like "beardo disco" and yacht rock is a vague construct. the references are all filtered through daft punk's own sound. the paul williams track is kinda the height of uncool i'd say - judging by the "it sounds like a disney tune, omg i am cool rock guy i can't like this" bullshit that i'm reading all morning.

xpost the nile stuff is the only shiny acceptable pop - naff is part of moroder's appeal.

like almost every reference point on this album is pretty established & canonical. i really don't get why people are SURPRISED it sounds like this - i guess it's a surprise that not much is uptempo but in terms of the sounds they're using this is what the pre-release talk and "get lucky" led me to expect. i could be down with it if it wasn't executed in such a dry way - as it is i probably prefer it to discovery

the last time moroder got widespread mainstream press was when donna summer died (RIP) and the tone was reverential across the board

yeah that's what i meant, matt - what's been 'cool' on ilm and on the london etc club scene for a few years and on pitchfork for a bit less is still locked within what the more wider audience that are also anticipating this album (and buying millions of copies of get lucky, chic-ian disco at least having been more rehabilitated than the rest of those sounds) considers uncool.

in terms of the sounds they're using this is what the pre-release talk and "get lucky" led me to expect

fair enough if that's your opinion but i think the overwhelming reaction suggests you're in the minority.

yeah that's what i meant, matt - what's been 'cool' on ilm and on the london etc club scene for a few years and on pitchfork for a bit less is still locked within what the more wider audience that are also anticipating this album (and buying millions of copies of get lucky, chic-ian disco at least having been more rehabilitated than the rest of those sounds) considers uncool.

otm. moroder to a wider world is canonical but that doesn't equate to fashionable or cool.

xp the cheesy late 70s and 80s is definitely still a thing for an awful lot of people.

This album is being played in my office at the moment and there are a lot of noses being turned up because of the whole aesthetic. Like the sound itself is fashionable but only among a self-selecting crowd who pay attention to these things.

Like, obviously disco is permanently popular in the mainstream but not this end of disco.

but most of the negative reactions i've scene are not from this "wider audience" of mainstreamers who don't get yacht rock, it's from people who are knowledgeable about/immersed in the "london etc club scene"

but most of the negative reactions i've scene are not from this "wider audience" of mainstreamers who don't get yacht rock, it's from people who are knowledgeable about/immersed in the "london etc club scene"

most of the neg reactions i'm seeing are from people who only listen to modern music or fashionable music.

there are a decent amount from people who think that homework reverence is some sort of purist stronghold too

a selection of reactions from people who are not those people

http://www.factmag.com/2013/05/14/they-have-officially-gervaised-the-best-initial-reactions-to-daft-punks-random-access-memories/

but most of the negative reactions i've scene are not from this "wider audience" of mainstreamers who don't get yacht rock, it's from people who are knowledgeable about/immersed in the "london etc club scene"

Yeah but a) that accounts for most of the people you know, or at least people who are passionately into music, b) a lot of the 12-CD types who will buy this record on the basis of Get Lucky and a review in Q haven't even heard it yet.

a selection of reactions from people who are not those people

That's a selection of reactions from people who are virtually all basically part of the same group.

i don't think you can assume just cos someone is into clubbing that they like "yacht rock" or whatever - whatever that even means apart from that one RA mix by Johnno Burgess. Nor can you assume they like "beardo disco" whatever that even means - a massive wide swathe of stuff. this is a record that doesn't fit a given fashion and that is the source of problems i reckon.

“Listening to a certain new album; feel like I’m listening to classic rock for old men. Really bored. Dance music reaching its Mojo point”
- Alex Macpherson, FACT

What's a Mojo point?

what's the point of Alex Macpherson in 2013?

Dance music hit its Mojo point at least a decade ago but you can't deny this is a pretty old-mannish record, even if it's kind of a weird old man.

basically everybody in that list is a cunt who can get tae fuck

like i wanna hear a bunch of middle aged men going "urrrgh this record isn't down with the youth like i am"

oops sorry lex thought you was Alex Patterson for a second

you can't deny this is a pretty old-mannish record

not entirely no, it has a couple of old men on it though, omg.

what is wrong with someone being old? we're all of us probably over 30 on this thread - we'll all be older or old men or women one day. glad i don't hate the elderly personally.

i mean cos it has paul williams on it, he's old, or nile rodgers, he's old, or daft punk are forty. big fucking deal, people age.

This seems to sum it up quite nicely:

“So I listened to this Daft Punk album once while browsing the web. I will now unveil my critique” — the Internet, 5/13/13″
- John Darnielle, Mountain Goats

I like the record a lot, but it is old mannish, and that's not a bad thing.

thanks LG, that was a more civil version of what i meant to say. thank fuck all music isn't made by 20 year-olds

I like the record a lot, but it is old mannish, and that's not a bad thing.

why, because women can't or don't like music of whatever type? music doesn't have a gender.

let's find a woman who likes this record to post on the thread for us old men.

it'd make us bunch of old fuckers happy in our dying days.