Daft Punk's Random Access Memories

tbf to the grammys the foo fighters are likely to get in the rrhof before anyone on this album

wow i never thought this thread would become a clusterfuck

you were right?

This thread was a clusterfuck even before the album came out.

No need for the circular firing squad...

My point in the comment above was that Daft Punk seems to have picked up a lot of new bands since the pyramid tour and they are getting a really big roll out for this album. It's shaping up to be their biggest hit, from what I can tell. So what I'm trying to figure out is, has there been any other record pushed this aggressively to the "kids" in the last 20-30 years that featured prominent Chic/Steely Dan/Herbie Hancock/Return To Forever flavors?

'Touch' is the one track I wanna keep going back to...Paul Williams vocal is one of the most sincere I've heard in ages...forgot what a great vocalist he is...seriously can't believe anybody could hate on this album...think of it as Phoenix's lost third album produced by DP...

― The Pastiche Liberation Front (sonnyboy), Tuesday, May 14, 2013 2:15 PM (37 minutes ago)

otm. i didn't know what to make of "touch" the first time through. i recoiled from the "cheezy" paul williams-ness, but was fascinated all the way through. on the second pass, i dug it, but felt a bit guilty. since then, it's been unashamedly glorious.

not a phoenix fan tho

"A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal."

yeah yeah, and "ornament is crime"

feh

music should be considered on a scale with 'giving the people what they want' at one end and 'doing what makes them happy' at the other

because i think i know where this album belongs

No I don't like what Phoenix have become but the 1st album does sound like a blueprint for this...and in IMO you can never be too sincere...

Williams' bit reminds me of Elton John's performance on Kate Bush's "Snowed In at Wheeler Street" -- while his devotion was unquestioned, it was a chore listening to him sing a song quite beyond his shrunken range.

Yes that it is iiiiiiiiiiiiiitttttttttttttttt. That's what it reminds me of sonically. Damn yo, "otm" doesn't cover the otm-ness of it.

Whoa.

Wheeler Street is great, you're crazy

My problem with citing sincerity as a virtue is it gets into intentions; we're judging cause as we would effects.

Sonically, I don't find it a chore to listen to tbh

But so spot on

xxxp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_RoBGpNGfs
BACKLASH

Williams' bit reminds me of Elton John's performance on Kate Bush's "Snowed In at Wheeler Street" -- while his devotion was unquestioned, it was a chore listening to him sing a song quite beyond his shrunken range.

― A deeper shade of lol (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, May 14, 2013 5:04 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

see also elvis costello after 1985--always writing songs out of his vocal range.

i dunno so far "touch" just seems like this unholy amalgam

this isn't a bad thing necessarily but i can see this album giving folks like robert christgau serious hives

Daft Punk guys are pretty much my age, which makes me think they're trolling all the young fans who had dads playing Return to Forever at home and moms listening to smooth jazz funk while driving carpools to soccer games.

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, May 14, 2013 1:34 PM Bookmark

Ha no, I love all that shit. But as others have said it's pretty rehabilitated and most Daft Punk fans probably didn't not have all the 70s fusion records on the family turntable that we did. I totally understand why some people hate this album but it's completely in my wheelhouse.

this is really of a piece w/ electronic music of the past whatever many years, just building this ever-expanding canon that runs counter to whatever passes as an "official" critical canon (e.g. classic rock stations/RR hall of fame/etc.) with its token jazz/disco/R&B artists. stereolab had tons of energy for this kind of thing, and now it's basically foundational to a huge swath of contemporary electronic music. i do think that daft punk might take kind of counter-canon a bit more "above ground," but it's not like it hasn't been present in the charts, it's just that few acts shout out their influences (or wear them on their sleeve) as much as this band.

i can see this album giving folks like robert christgau serious hives

― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Tuesday, May 14, 2013 3:11 PM (5 minutes ago)

success!

I like Return to Forever! Shakatak, not so much. Chic and Moroder, yes! Paul Williams, not so much. Panda Bear is OK. Casablancas, not so much. I really, really hear what Nile brings to this, when he's enlisted. The other guests? Not so much. After listening at the record store I went across the street to the hardware store, where they were playing Van Halen's "Why Can't This Be Love?" And I thought, hmm, they probably could have fit Sammy Hagar on this thing, somewhere. And then they played Matthew Wilder's "Break My Stride" and I thought, huh, they probably could have fit Matthew Wilder on here, too. Because why not? I love the totally non-hipness of the hippest band in the world. It's anti-hip. But it's also a chore to listen to, and doesn't (to my ears) expand on its homage-de-fromage as well as I expected it to do.

Someone upthread brought up the last Destroyer album, and while I think they only share a few bits of DNA, I do think a record like "Kaputt" did more with what it was referencing than this one does, which I find disappointing. It kind of reminds me of when an awesome non-American director is brought to Hollywood, then proceeds to churn out the same disappointing dreck they once existed as an alternative to. This album is better than dreck, but it is disappointing, the sheer number of tracks that seem underdeveloped, over-long or that I just can't imagine ever listening to out of the context of listening to the entire album, which I also can't imagine doing.

I wonder if any album this smooth, this slick, this well-produced and seemingly well intentioned, has been this (apparently) divisive? Have there been any high profile attack reviews, or is everyone playing nice/playing along?

xgau hated discovery also (as well as 'i feel love') so it would hardly be a surprise if xgau hates it

xpost Yeah I agree with that comparison but EJ and EC can't oscillate their vocals so they end up sounding really linear( just singing at full power ALL the time) and over the top where as a really great vocalist (and I'm thinking of Todd Rundgren and Paul Williams on 'Touch') get the balance right and make it sound really beautifully bittersweet...

will need to slice off the first 2 min of 'giorgio by moroder'

i don't want to hear an old bloke talking for ages every time i play this album

Xgau liked the new Knife!

Ps why wasn't Todd Rundgren rather than Todd Edwards on this...

Discovery [Virgin, 2001]
These guys are so French I want to force-feed them and cut out their livers. Young moderns who've made the Detroit-Berlin adjustment may find their squelchy synth sounds humanistic; young moderns whose asses sport parallel ports may dance till they crash. But Yank fun is much less spirituel, so that God bless America, "One More Time" is merely an annoying novelty stateside. The way our butts plug in, there are better beats on the damn Jadakiss CD. C+

Romantic Warrior [Columbia, 1976]
Right on schedule, two or three years behind John McLaughlin, Chick Corea tries to eat the fusion cyclotron. Where McLaughlin fell for a few silly orchestral trappings, Corea essays pompous, ersatz-classical compositions--while continuing to display Al DiMeola, Stanley Clarke, and Lenny White in all their dazzling vacuity. Jazz-rock's answer to Emerson, Lake & Palmer--the worst of both worlds. D+

Giorgio Moroder: As a solo artist he was the Ross Bagdasarian of his time, but without Alvin Chipmunk who could care?

Xgau liked the new Knife!

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, May 14, 2013 3:25 PM (6 seconds ago)

yeah, but that's the polar opposite of RAM

Giorgio Moroder: As a solo artist he was the Ross Bagdasarian of his time, but without Alvin Chipmunk who could care?

this is literally the dumbest thing anyone has ever said

Discovery review otoh is primo Xgau (and I don't even really like Xgau but it is sort of a wonder to behold when all his succinct little witticisms come together)

I love the totally non-hipness of the hippest band in the world. It's anti-hip.

but i think this is part of a dynamic that's been a major part of popular music for a few decades. the way that bands of unquestioned "now"-ness and critical respect can make a project of "rehabilitating" (a fancy way of saying, making people take another look at) styles and genres and musicians that were not so much obscure as simply beneath the critical radar (or beneath critical contempt). think about, again, the way stereolab and others revived interest in (of all things) the free design. or serge gainsbourg. or stuff like perrey-kingsley. or the whole italo-disco revival. or the love mariah carey seems to be getting from hipper quarters lately. on a more rootsy/rock tip someone like will oldham has performed this sort of service.

i'm not saying that nobody "hip" carried the torch for these folks, or that many of them weren't popular--and certainly something like euro-disco just kind of mutated into Hi-NRG and a million other things and is still popular. the context is key, and it's a narrow one (albeit one that many folks on ILX are quite familiar with). the streisand mentions on this thread are interesting, since she's a performer who as-yet gets almost no love from "serious" (read: indie/rock-centric) music criticism. she is still sort of beyond the pale for a lot of folks, although I see her body of work creeping over the hipster horizon. my very very un-hip uncle and aunt (who i guarantee have never heard of 99.9% of the musicians/bands mentioned on this thread) have a big streisand collection, as do many other folks, but within the narrower critical context we're dealing with it would probably take a "vanguard" artists of unimpeachable coolness to get all the brooklynites and portland type folk to start pulling those innumerable streisand records out of the 50-cent bins.

these days the whole process seems inevitable and oddly systematic. i think the internet (and free downloading) has given people the ability to cultivate ever more catholic (small "c") tastes and build up little communities of like-minded folk. and as result there's this kind of 24-hour trawling of the bargain bins and the "exposure" of more and more genres and subgenres to tastemaker approval.

xxxxxx...post

i def. like christgau quite a bit (at least, as rock critics go, he's pretty damn good, but anyone who knows me knows that is praise w/ def. limits) but i was just kind of acknowledging that daft punk, and many of the artists they pay tribute to on this new album, are kind of far outside his "zone."

that said he adores chic, as he should.

i feel like maybe this issue deserves its own thread but i don't have the time/energy to contribute to it really....

there's an interesting discussion to be had re: Streisand (aero to thread). having sorted through a really thorough collection of her stuff recently I can say I unreservedly hate 99% of her catalog, I'm not sure what angle she would be approached from that would rehabilitate her rep with fans of other genres. but it's an interesting question.

yeah, she does seem like total dreck to me. i heard an interview on NPR. she has an interesting story and seems like a smart lady so I listened to the whole thing but egads the excerpts from her music.

but-- there seems to be this almost impersonal (even if in its particulars it often is very very personal) process of canon expansion such that her inclusion seems almost inevitable. again, for my uncle/aunt she's already canonized, but w/ in a markedly different taste culture--they're of an early-baby-boomer generation that isn't even really into rock music at all.

A certain strand of eighties R&B balladry -- Stephanie Mills, Freddie Jackson, Rene & Angela, Maze ft. Frank Beverly -- still gets little mention outside adult R&B stations, but let's not kid ourselves: "indie," like the NRA, is not as potent as we like to pretend.

I'm still waiting for the Alexander O'Neal revival!

her virtuosity would probably allow her to be slotted into a Whitney/Mariah/etc pantheon of female vocal acrobats. except that she does not come from an R&B/soul lineage, like, at all.

xp

René & Angela and Maze are old news in beardo circles fyi

whew that's a relief. I can stop recommending "Golden Time of Day."

No need for a revival in my house...I listen to 'The Lovers','Hearsay' and 'Fake' about once a week...

René & Angela and Maze are old news in beardo circles fyi

looool was just gonna

The first Regina Belle needs some love tho...

ha! i love how "beardo" is this slightly less "sticky" or problematic version of "hipster."

there's a strong sense in which many people wait for the "OK" to start digging into a certain artist/genre. i don't place myself "above" this by any means

shakey mo: but go back to the 1980s/1990s and see how many folks writing for rolling stone or even working in hipper record stores etc. were making a case for whitney/mariah. the whole "vocal acrobatics" observation was still--hell, IS still-- more a term of critical approbation than approval. it's changing slowly, though.

i guess i would like folks' opinions on whether seen from a distance this really is a kind of quasi-inevitable, impersonal process endemic to whatever stage of technological reproduction/capitalism/etc. we're in.

My beard will only allow me to like "Baby Come to Me," and it ain't Patti Austin's.

She is the best-selling female artist on the Recording Industry Association of America's (RIAA) Top Selling Album Artists list, the only female recording artist in the top ten, and the only artist outside of the rock and roll genre

Barbra's wiki entry needs to be updated - I don't think a single claim in the above sentence is true...?

might have been true in 1977 or something

most beardos are hipsters but not all hipsters are beardos