Daft Punk's Random Access Memories

My favorite lex fallacy here is actually kind of the inverse of the one everyone's jumping on him for. Rather it's the assumption that because we are listening to something hyped up and popular, we can't be bothered to listen to anything that doesn't have this kind of momentum behind it, as if I haven't been listening to Clipping and RP Boo all week too.

is it just softcore 70s chillin that's making me associate this with kaputt, or is it something else

dunno, but kaputt is softcore 80s chillin

honestly don't understand that comparison

i like this "album" but it feels wrong putting it that way since I can hardly hear this an "album." it doesn't seem to flow in any meaningful sense, each song is like a world unto its own. or maybe it's just very poorly sequenced. but i really admire several songs (so far) but can't really get a coherent picture of this as an "album."

― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Friday, May 17, 2013 4:09 PM (2 hours ago)

everybody else otm, the sequencing & flow are jaw-dropping. there's a sense of constant channel-switching, but it's not at all arbitrary. it feels inevitable, even necessary, and the vibe never falters. "yes, of course this is where that door leads, has always led." contrast can be more satisfying & meaningful than smooth continuity. the trick is to make the contrasting elements build on one another, which i think random access memories does extremely well. tbh, i don't think i've heard a more successfully "album-oriented" album in years.

had a weird experience w "touch" earlier today when trying to listen to it in isolation. it wasn't bad, but it made me feel like my hair was on backwards. i couldn't quite make sense of it without the buildup (though i'm sure that'll change in time).i like this "album" but it feels wrong putting it that way since I can hardly hear this an "album." it doesn't seem to flow in any meaningful sense, each song is like a world unto its own. or maybe it's just very poorly sequenced. but i really admire several songs (so far) but can't really get a coherent picture of this as an "album."

― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Friday, May 17, 2013 4:09 PM (2 hours ago)

everybody else otm, the sequencing & flow are jaw-dropping. there's a sense of constant channel-switching, but it's not at all arbitrary. it feels inevitable, even necessary, and the vibe never falters. "yes, of course this is where that door leads, has always led." contrast can be more satisfying & meaningful than smooth continuity. the trick is to make the contrasting elements build on one another, which i think random access memories does extremely well. tbh, i don't think i've heard a more successfully "album-oriented" album in years.

had a weird experience w "touch" earlier today when trying to listen to it in isolation. it wasn't bad, but it made me feel like my hair was on backwards. i couldn't quite make sense of it without the buildup (though i'm sure that'll change in time).

:?

putting "Touch" right between the two Pharrell jams is just perverse. I still haven't decided whether that track is awful or brilliant

Yeah, anyone who says this isn't well sequenced is nuts. That fast zoom from the end of Giorgio which feels like watching a building explode to the mouse-on-the-keys-carl-craig-it's-sounds-massive-because-it's-near style of Within is super fun. If anything I'm not entirely convinced we needed both Fragments of Time and Doin' It Right, but that's okay. Also, they pulled out the old Discovery robot model for the end of Fragments of Time.

honestly don't understand that comparison

― controversial vegan pregnancy (contenderizer), Friday, May 17, 2013 9:14 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i don't either! it just...sorta made sense to me at the time? i think it's the slick production and nostalgia or something

i think it makes sense. it is evoking nostalgia for the slicker end of 70's music, and not all albums do that.

you guys know Paul Williams album with the Holy Mackerel I hope? such a great album. Paul and Roger Nichols and Richard Perry an unbeatable team. Roger Nichols more of a hero to me than just about anyone mentioned on this thread. more than Nile. maybe tied with moroder. ha! shit sorry just brought things back to steely dan. sorry! I wasn't even trying to.

scott if i come to yr shop with a hundo will you load me up with sweet records

I got lots of records. good ones too.

wait no I didn't actually bring it back to steely dan. I was talking about Roger Nichols songwriter/arranger. not Roger Nichols superstar engineer. though I love him too. those two dudes confuse me. they both worked with the carpenters! what are the odds? anyway paul and roger were amazing together. I listen to the sandpipers way more than I listen to chic.

If anything I'm not entirely convinced we needed both Fragments of Time and Doin' It Right, but that's okay.

― Popture, Friday, May 17, 2013 7:28 PM (17 minutes ago)

"fragments" is still the only track i don't need. throws me out of the groove, deposits me briefly in a clean and well-lit waiting room well-stocked with nice magazines, but i can't escape the feeling that i'm missing some essential happening down on the lido deck.

but i'm sure daft punk are Roger Nichols fans. all cool people are.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwBuXQy1MD4

"Fragments" and "Doin' It Right" are prob my two favorite tracks on the album

the engineer Roger Nichols did this for show biz kids by steely dan. always thought this was really cool:

"It was just one of those tunes that that was so very difficult to play exactly in tempo, with every instrument in sync. ... There were no drum machines in those days, so we made a 24 track, eight bar tape loop, which at 30 ips was a considerable length of tape, trailed it out through the door into the studio, around a little idler which was set up on a camera tripod, back into the studio and then copied that to a second 24 track machine. Everything was on tape except the lead vocal and the lead guitar. It worked like a dream.

but anyway my fave song on the the daft punk album is the 2nd one. the game of love. its pretty.

Everytime it goes "Giorgio" --> "Within", I feel disappointed that the synth pulse at the end of the former doesn't become the beat for the next track.

i love within though. would you want to move it somewhere else on the album or get rid of it?

ehh, I like it's definitely one of the lesser tracks here

I just want that beat to continue is the point, more than anything to do with "Within"

It feels like a lost opportunity

If anything I'm not entirely convinced we needed both Fragments of Time and Doin' It Right, but that's okay. Also, they pulled out the old Discovery robot model for the end of Fragments of Time.

― Popture, Friday, May 17, 2013 7:28 PM (17 minutes ago)

but that pulse leads off into THE FUTURE! it is extra-dimensional, like that kid with bruce willis face. you have to wait and see where it goes.

and no fooling some of the downbeat stuff really does remind me of daft punk's dad! I would have actually loved to hear more piano on the new album. I will always love the mix of acoustic piano and electro stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hy6l_VbPhxc

just a 70's soundtrack vibe I guess. could be anyone's dad.

but you do have to give it up for dad. he was making prog disco in 1971.

sorry, i'm getting so old fogey. but dad's disco will always hit me harder than stuff like get lucky. though I do dig the get lucky riff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S241VzxTfEQ

okay, that last one was badass

you just need to give this album 40 years, scott

I'm waiting 40 days til it's in the $1 bin and then I'll buy up as many copies as I can and *douses with kerosene, lights match* back from whence you came, beast of tedium~

:o

;_;

I like this dad music

(meanings skot's youtubes)

Could somebody please mash up "Doin' It Right" with "O Superman" please?

Whats this 1 dollar bin nonsense!? I played several songs off this at my bar tonight and the general consensus was that this is the first dp album that every song is enjoyable.

Not kidding, I asked five people who i know and like very different kinds of music and only one rated it below discovery. The other said it was her favorite after homework.

i am on the comp list for Giorgio's BK DJ gig and he's supposed to go on around 1am but i feel fairly sure it's going to be utter madness. should i take a chance and LIVE y/n

i'm afraid i'm just gonna get stuck outside in hipster central with angry coked up people for like hours which i cannot do

the second half of this album is heaps better than the first, even if the best individual songs are spread across the playlist. i really really hate listening to that two minutes of old man dialogue every

single

time i play this album

yes i know it's not just any old man, not the point

that's kinda condescending

Agreed. But reading some of the kneejerk one-liners about this record doesn't fill you with confidence.

Not so much here as in the wider world.

I played several songs off this at my bar tonight and the general consensus was that this is the first dp album that every song is enjoyable.

This kind of surprises me, makes me think that Kid A is an interesting comparison (have we done this already?) in terms of a mass-appeal group pointedly not giving their fans what they want and still managing to take a lot of the fans with them. 95% of people have not been spending the past decade learning to enjoy yacht rock, it must all be a bit sudden for them.

"Touch" might be my #1 track of the year at this point.

I imagine that most of the hate for this album will come from the 18-21 club demographic in the US. Considering that EDM manages to take the most annoying elements of all my favorite genres of dance music and turn them up to 11, well I hope they enjoy the tinnitus.

I hated big swathes of Homework and Discovery when I was 16, maybe some of them will grow out of it.

I can totally understand people not liking this album. But hating it? That sort of negative reaction is nuclear, like dropping a bomb on this record but watching the fireball engulf miles of stuff around it.

Am I the only one who thinks "We Are Family" whenever "Get Lucky" begins? I mean, whoever upthread said there is nothing exactly like it is pedantically correct, but there is plenty of disco like it. I listen to "Get Lucky" as a belated b-side, or "Part 2" single. Though I suppose "We are family, up all night to get lucky" is kind of gross, if you loosen the metaphor even a little bit.

Yeah but "We are Family" doesn't have a vocoder lift-off section.

I'm sure it would have if would have if Sister Sledge couldn't sing.

Listening to the Daft Punk is a nice reminder that Chic was more than just full-throttle disco. There's a real soundtracky, Air-y vibe to this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lME3we7zwT8

Yeah everything Chic did that wasn't a huge hit is slept on gold.