Daft Punk's Random Access Memories

joking aside, isn't this just the "guilty pleasures" debate all over again?

i dunno what it is, i don't really get why grown-ups are dismissive about whole swathes of sound or genre in 2013

lady gaga totally would have made a song like touch. same with kanye. they don't care either. and they have lots of money. sell lots of records. actually laday gaga duet with paul williams would be grand. she just cover the song.

There's just something about the aesthetic of it -- Williams' old man croak, the hoary Hollywood big band middle 8, the very concept of "Touch"...ick -- that screams awful.

"nostalgia on shuffle" as described by someone upthread (sorry, can't remember who and it's beneath the cut) does seem accurate though - "backward-looking" is just a harsher way of saying the same thing

― flamenco drop (lex pretend), maandag 20 mei 2013 18:45 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The record doesn't strike me as nostalgic at all. They didn't try to emulate sound or feelings from a past, rather they borrowed from the past to create something new and fresh. Like most artists do tbh, but I cannot see RAM as nostalgic music.

I can't RAM as anything but nostalgic music

meanwhile, Glee-pop is everywhere. who the hell even blinks hearing a song like touch? its not that weird.

Different strokes then etc

xp

people are always trotting out old decrepit people like tom jones and marianne faithful.

this album seems very conceptually "french" and i think some of that stuff doesn't translate very well

Daft Punk is our Joel's favourite group and he hasn't said "why are they making this old timey music i can't get my head around it" yet

what is it about this sort of theatrical showmanship in music that causes it to come off as less than sincere to a certain subset of music listeners that seem to be well-represented on this site?

my first reaction is "well because OBVIOUSLY" but then I realize I can't justify it - really interesting question. maybe because I was weaned on self-annihilating early 90s stuff.

Joel OTM

xp

Sometimes it's nice not to think too much...(wish I could do it more often)

This album revels in nostalgic themes for sure, championing certain aspects of humanity that have allegedly been obscured by the information age, but musically it doesn't strike me as a step backwards in time or whatever. Or maybe it does take a few steps back, but it also takes several steps forward. It is da saawnd of da fyootcha.

is it good rockism or bad rockism though. you're ilm you tell me.

By making this a BIG POP RECORD released by a BIG POP LABEL, it actually does matter whether stuff like Touch and Giorgio By Moroder is listenable and whether people like it. Because if it isn't and they don't, people won't buy it and the Columbias of the world aren't going to finance them again. And based on everything I've read so far, I don't think it's a stretch to assume that Thomas and Guy really did want to use RAM to test whether big productions with stars and sessions musicians in expensive studios with expensive promotional campaigns is the magic itself or simply a vessel for delivering it

Well, hold on here though -- as has been noted already and I'll repeat, Daft Punk funded all this themselves; they only signed to Columbia formally at the start of the year. In that Columbia was doubtless involved/funded the campaign, sure, but the recording effort itself?

That's a good point.

Tho I'm not sure if it fundamentally dilutes the overall thrust of what I was saying...

any chance for a new 'Part 2' thread when we get to 5K posts?

I now can't hear 'Contact' without imagining some mainstream British MC doing their obligatory triumphant origin story verses over the top. It's just got that kind of feel to it.

This seems like a traditional over the top statement pop album with big hits and big misses. As long as the hits are there then people will forgive/ignore strange tracks and slow interludes, and so will the labels.

Also I've only just noticed quite how many vocoders there are clambering over the top of one another on 'Lose Yourself To Dance'.

grantland piece on this album kinda nails it

couldn't get past the bit where he namechecked Skrillex, it's like looking into an alien world for me

it has been fun rereading this narrative in every single daft punk feature: alive 2007 -> skrillex -> edm -> ram is reactionary

"Lose Yourself to Dance" is slow because it's sexy. I mean which makes you wanna fuck, gabber or Luther?

(and if you answer that wrong I'm so not having sex with you)

I mean which makes you wanna fuck, gabber or Luther?

yes

When it comes to stadium EDM, Daft Punk is Led Zeppelin. Only Random Access Memories isn't Physical Graffiti; it's closer to Aja.

lots of dumb sentences on the internet about daft punk rn, has it always been this way

yes

― AMERICA IS ABOUT RESSLING (DJP), Monday, May 20, 2013 1:04 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

pvmic

Read that as 'panic'

(and if you answer that wrong I'm so not having sex with you)

― The Reverend, Monday, May 20, 2013 4:03 PM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't respond to threats.

Agreed that the Grantland review of this is really good (not the cringeworthy minute-by-minute breakdown convo).

"Lose Yourself to Dance" is slow because it's sexy. I mean which makes you wanna fuck, gabber or Luther?

― The Reverend, Monday, May 20, 2013

I'm so not having sex with a guy who thinks Pharrell yelping like Adam Levine is sexy

is daft punk really considered a precursor to the edm stuff? the only connection i can really see is human after all > justice > skrillex, et al. and even so i think that's a bit of a stretch/overplaying their influence

hey i heard rev was having sex w/everyone that likes daft punk & wanted to get my name on the signup sheet

jeez why don't yall just have sex with each othe--or not!--and get it over with

computer love!

what % of this album would u say u can or would want to dance to

Couple of observations from a longtime lurker:

(i) interesting that somebody referenced Gene Clark's 'No Other' - Sebastien Tellier mentioned in an interview c.2008 that Guy-Man had given him a copy of that album when they were recording 'Sexuality' ;

(ii) Bangalter's father, Daniel Vangarde, was a shit hot record producer - he's generally referenced in the context of Ottawan's 'D.I.S.C.O' but that does him a huge disservice. I did a mix of his productions (1971-1987) for Dazed & Confused magazine, link here, I think RAM fans are gonna like it

http://www.dazeddigital.com/music/article/16102/1/the-hits-of-daniel-bangalter

(iii) parts of RAM really remind me of Maxwell's 'Urban Hang Suite' i.e cream of 70s session musicians getting back together on a blow-the-budget production.

i've only listened 2 or 3 times but felt like 35% maybe?

parts of RAM really remind me of Maxwell's 'Urban Hang Suite' i.e cream of 70s session musicians getting back together on a blow-the-budget production.

prefer Maxwell's two post-Embryra albums so

no they were totally ground zero for that (or really 'stronger' combined w/ the tour), though i'd argue the real moment of high influence was a few years ago, at this point we're at the stage where it's settled in as a permanent part of the landscape but not as much the hegemonic defining feature imo.

xpost

weird I had no idea Bangaltar's dad was one of the Yamasuki guys

Love the Grantland review. Hyden keeps nailing every album he writes about imo. This is a great way of putting its aspirations.

From the beginning, RAM was presented as a lost artifact of the monoculture; Daft Punk was faking upward, pretending it was a generational touchstone during pop's post–generational touchstone period.

What risk does a record store incur if it sells a record before the official release date? I saw it sitting on a shelf behind the counter, i.e. not for sale. I just wonder what penalty is involved.

Thanks for that mix Sisophonic!!

that Grantland review is the work of somebody who hasn't got a fucking clue about dance music but that's the last i'm gonna dignify it by opining

Had no idea about the Yamasuki connection either xp

Re nostalgia: the most important way in which RAM looks backwards is in terms of "this is how you can make an album" imo, not so much in terms of what of what it sounds like.