Daft Punk's Random Access Memories

It's their tribute to post-sellout Herbie Hancock. I dig it.

But there will never be another Discovery.

Does there have to be?

this album basically alternates between "I'm in a lounge" and "I'm snorting things off a mirror"

weeping cocaine iirc

alvin lucier b-sides xpost

watching the end of a party through mirrors

http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/5076/63720082vy5.jpg

this is all far better than the 1000 uses of "weeping robots" or "robots having sex" that i've read in ref to ram in the last few weeks

Looking at yourself in the mirror after snorting things off a mirror and feeling sad.

http://i.imgur.com/M6xfghs.jpg

http://staffwww.dcs.shef.ac.uk/people/A.Sharkey/sadrobot.jpg

I don't think it's possible to pinpoint a coherent personable identity behind the sound of the album (or even just "Touch") in order to facilitate the comparison

I disagree very, very strongly with this. This is the most relentlessly personality-driven Daft Punk release I've heard, basically taking the earnestness of "Music Sounds Better With You" and reflecting it through 13 different prisms. Everything on here builds on top of each other in probably the most monolithic-feeling artistic statement I've heard from a non-hardcore band. I absolutely agree that narratively this album is not trying to do anything like what Monae was trying to do with her album; instead, it's telling a story through its musical choices and most of those choices seem to be saying "hey look, we can do Proper Music too". For me, the album doesn't really get interesting until they either find a good groove and stop fucking around with it (the non-solo parts of "Giorgio By Moroder") or they actually let the drummers loose (the rhythm sections are a big part of why the builds in "Motherboard" and "Contact" work and I think those are the most emotionally satisfying tracks on the album; in fact, I feel like the more they lean towards their 70s touchstones to generate an emotional response, the less successful they are at getting one from me).

https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQMVU3sWeGuRifUsfhrfS9QbijTtpUaBLj9qqdPJr9j2hsyDX8

the earnestness of "Music Sounds Better With You"

was this really an earnest record?

plus music sounds better with you was not daft punk

Yeah, there is a weird disconnect between their fealty to disco and groove and the simultaneous distrust/subversion of groove.

xxxxpost but it's not a record about or apparently by a specific person or even "person" - I think that's crucial to the kind of theatricality that Janelle flaunts.

I just don't think "theatre kid" even remotely applies to this album and I don't think it's fair to act like it's inconsistent to like the theatre and dislike theatre kids.

Feeling sad after remixing JT's "Mirrors" and running out of coke

most of those choices seem to be saying "hey look, we can do Proper Music too"

it's so far from this. it's the opposite. this is the record to stop people assimilating them into the credibility canon, not to cement their place in it.

i think their place is already cemented in it

and as divisive as some of the influences are, a record with as much emphasis on craft and as many canonical guests on it as this is no way to extricate yourself from the canon

was this really an earnest record?

How can you not feel the giant waves of sobbing emotion coming off of the vocal from MSBWY?

plus music sounds better with you was not daft punk

Don't be dense. Not only is there a strong connection between Daft Punk and Stardust, the overarching musical strands of this album are directly connected to the sources sampled by Stardust, only without the gigantic thumping drums.

but it's not a record about or apparently by a specific person or even "person" - I think that's crucial to the kind of theatricality that Janelle flaunts.

No, it's theatrical for the sake of being theatrical, which is even more self-indulgent and off-putting IMO.

it's so far from this. it's the opposite.

... Their musical choices are saying "hey look, we can't do Proper Music"?

it's an oddball canon tho, don't think Paul Williams speaks to the canon-building fraternity really

yeah but you can't deny it's a very intentional flipping of the script!!

xposts to lex

I just don't think "theatre kid" even remotely applies to this album and I don't think it's fair to act like it's inconsistent to like the theatre and dislike theatre kids.

― Tim F, Tuesday, May 14, 2013 9:05 AM (6 minutes ago)

otm. there's some use of "theatricality" here, esp on "touch", but i don't get any sense of try-hard expressive exhibitionism from this album. the sensibility feels pretty reserved and curatorial to me, however deftly it may deploy signifiers of hedonistic abandon or glassy-eyed melancholy.

This album is like a bizarro world rogue's gallery idea of canon. Nile Girogio? Sure. Paul Williams? Eh. Dudes from Strokes and AnCo? Maybe someone else's canon. This reminds me of a Gorillaz album or something in its randomness.

Nile and Giorgio, that should be.

I think we're conflating "theatre" and "histrionics." The latter is what the Paul Williams tracks employs.

it's an oddball canon tho, don't think Paul Williams speaks to the canon-building fraternity really

I don't think the Academy Award winning writer of "Evergreen" is necessarily the hill you want to plant your flag on if you are making the argument that this album isn't trying to pander to the canon; you'd have a better argument with Panda Bear (or Pharrell, even; this album is total Grammy bait).

changing subjects...from the PFM piece:

Chic's Nile Rodgers, the hitmaking funk Zelig behind some of the slickest guitar licks of all-time, recalls breaking out his old-fashioned L5 jazz guitar in his living room during his first meeting with Bangalter and de Homem-Christo last year. “They just got all hyped,” he says. The three ended up recording Rodgers’ parts over the course of a few days at Manhattan's Electric Lady Studios, the same spot where Chic laid down their first single in 1977. Along with his guitar playing, Rodgers showed Daft Punk some of his trademark recording methods, too. “That's how you did it in the old days—when a person is paying you top dollar, you want to make sure that they're happy and they don't have to call you back,” says Rodgers, laughing. “So I just bombarded them with ideas and said, ‘OK, now you guys figure that shit out.’”

Let the music of your life
Give life back to music

A lot of canons are kind of mutually opposed, their co-existence tends to suck the air out of each other.

it's an oddball canon tho, don't think Paul Williams speaks to the canon-building fraternity really

otm.

it's very hard to escape your legacy, but they've had a damn good stab at it.

I don't think the Academy Award winning writer of "Evergreen" is necessarily the hill you want to plant your flag on if you are making the argument that this album isn't trying to pander to the canon

ah get out of town would you

It took them 18 months to finish "Get Lucky," according to the piece, so clearly Nile gave them too much to work with.

and stardust is not daft punk, it's not being dense, it isn't them, there's not a trace of that record on this one.

How can you not feel the giant waves of sobbing emotion coming off of the vocal from MSBWY?

love MSBWY, but have never felt giant waves of sobbing emotion. hits me somewhere between exuberant joy & mesmeric distraction.

This record is less about Daft Punk's own place in the canon and more about them attempting to push sounds from their own *personal* canon directly (back) into the mainstream.

OTM

If you want to see how people react to really bad theatricality in this sort of thing, check the Aeroplane thread.

Vito was saying how much he was looking forward to the DP album as Homework was basically what inspired him to make dance music in the first place.

The only thing he's tweeted since is this:

@VitoAeroplane: Listening to @HolyGhostNYC new single after listening to Daft Punk's album gives me faith in live drums again.

"sobbing" is not always sad; people cry from euphoria as well

My main point is that this album comes from the same musical vocabulary as that Stardust song and, if you are denying that, you are deaf.

people sob from pain too

Matt OTM

My main point is that this album comes from the same musical vocabulary as that Stardust song and, if you are denying that, you are deaf.

right we've insulted the blind and the deaf on this thread now and the elderly. anyone got any more?

Yeah, the Panda Bear track is actually really good, re: finding a groove and sticking with it.

Contact is an interesting reminder of where they were 10 years ago...

disagree totally with both those claims

imagine if they'd released contact then and so much love to give was the last track on this.

i was doing enough e back then that i might have enjoyed contact too and smltg would have killed as the closer on this record.

My main point is that this album comes from the same musical vocabulary as that Stardust song and, if you are denying that, you are deaf.

― far too much asshole flesh (DJP), Tuesday, May 14, 2013 9:27 AM (2 minutes ago)

yeah, that's otm. it draws from a much wider range of sources, but they're all at least consistent with the inspiration for MSBWY. don't see why that idea would be controversial.

it's not controversial it's just dumb. you would have to be dumb to believe that.