Daft Punk's Random Access Memories

for me motherboard sticks out way, way more than touch. touch is of a piece with the rest of the album. my problem with motherboard is not that it should be sequenced differently, it's that it belongs on a fridge album ca. 2002.

to be clear though: this album rules.

i expect if i run to check out fridge circa 2002 right now i will be disappointed.

Happiness (Text Records, 2001)
The Sun (Text Records (UK), Temporary Residence Limited (US), 2007)

http://i.somethingawful.com/forumsystem/emoticons/emot-colbert.gif

it's the missing album

xp yeah like all the parts where Pharell is not singing

motherboard just reminds me of alex moulton's exodus, in the best possible way

omg I totally forgot about that

Haha, Motherboard sounds like Capital K, totally early 2000s folktronica.

Caek - I wasn't saying I prefer either half, just that the whole thing feels very manic depressive and disjointed.

Sometimes a bit of up and down works on an album but this is full of starts and stops. I can't quite work out if it's supposed to be for sociable home-listening, contemplative headphone moping or house party fun times. I don't feel like I'd want to hear it in any of these contexts without wanting to keep skipping tracks. It's not like Discovery which also had its fair share of Veridis Quos, but felt like a continuous musical narrative which was really well enforced with Interstellar 5555. I find something like 'Touch' to be frustrating as it sounds like it ought to be part of such a narrative but instead it's just sort of been wedged in between the two Pharell song, and that seems careless for a band like Daft Punk.

I'd actually prefer it if most of the robot-left-out-in-the-rain songs were clumped together somewhere around the 2/3rds mark as a kind of chill out section. 'Game of Love' coming straight after 'Give Life Back To Music' just doesn't work at all for me.

Can't speak for house parties but this album is perfect for headphone listening ime.

i guess i'm still moaning about the ending of motherboard, but also, and doubtless i'm imagining this, the people who seem to prefer "the second half" seem like in rainbows fans.

I think you are imagining this

johnny greenwood singing "fragments of time"

Anyone who thinks that Motherboard doesn't fit in on this album doesn't have enough Sebastien Tellier in their life. Particularly La Ritournelle. But I've said this before.

am i mistaken or do "get lucky" "touch" and "lose yourself" all share the same chord progression

Doin' it Right isn't far off either.

I don't see what's offensive about Motherboard, it just sounds like an interlude to me. Matt DC's right, it's got a real Tellier vibe about it.

Anyway, it's a bit of a shame this fine record is getting so much attention when the supremely excellent When Saints Go Machine came out on the same day and has had pretty much DJP, Kitchen Person and maybe a maximum 3-4 other people going mad for it.

I'll get in there first and quote: "i'm glad there are things better than this record, that means i don't have to bother listening to it. if somebody cd just let me know what the best record is it wd save me a lot of wasted time, thanks." so you don't have to

xpost to brimstead: they do. "Within" and "Instant Crush" also share a chord progression.

"Doin' It Right" is almost the same as "Get Lucky," but the fourth chord is different.

life is too short to listen to bands called When Saints Go Machine

Your loss

argh I hate that band name so much

xp i guess? my post was based on listening to two When Saints Go Machine songs on youtube. not my thing.

which songs out of interest? Best heard as an album - Konkylie is a good place to start. I hate their name too.

"kelly" is my jam

^

Speaking of sequencing (and I don't wanna turn this into a WSMG derail) 'Konkylie' has to be one of the best sequenced albums I can think of.

RAM is beautifully sequenced.

http://nakeddecor.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/ram-skull1.jpg

beautiful ram sequins u take my breath away

People ignoring When Saints Go Machine just for their name really are missing out (just like the people ignoring iamamiwhoami last year)

This is the song I'd recommend which is just stunning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krC-2qGMy7Q

Glad Sebastien Tellier is getting mentioned when talking about Daft Punk, The Game of Love, Within, Beyond and Motherboard remind me so much of something off the last couple of Sebastien records. It's a shame none of the reviews have mentioned him, he's crazy underrated these days it seems.

I was gonna start another thread for this but it made me think of this record so much I want to put it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCc7XJRDD74&sns=em

Three synths
Two keytars
Two shouting chicks
One Toto
One cowbell

Putting aside the garish optics of this for a second, this performance absolutely KILLS and (along with the Daft Punk record) is making me think how marginalized skilled rock instrumentalists have become in pop music today. Yes, we now have awesome studio wizards. Yes, we have awesome cellists on things like When the Saints Go Machine (which sounds too much like an Arthur Russell impersonator for comfort). And I'm sure there are lots of people who jam out like Steve Porcaro does on this in cover bands of their choice every weekend.

But it's so rare we see people do it on anything worth caring about. Which is one reason I find RAM so interesting. It's not that it's the GOAT pop album -- or even terribly original as individual parts.

It's that the whole thing--the music, the performances, the promotion--suggests ways we could actually bring our history into the future rather than discard it because it wasn't revived on Funny or Die.

And yes, I'm fully aware that Gary Wright inspired this outburst.

I've listened to some When Saints Go Machine and some Iamamiwhoami and neither of them did a damn thing for me.

I just don't even understand why When Saints Go Machine are even in this conversation other than the fact that Dl likes them.

Then again, I'm the guy who introduced Gary Wright to the thread.

Out, WSGM unbelievers.

Or at least to the WSGM thread.

yeah guys gtfo out of the daft punk thread

bah xp

it really is a shitty name tho, almost as bad as planningtorock (whom I adore)

two tracks i heard were "parix" and "fail forever" and i just felt nothing, sorry. maybe some other time.

Gary Wright is always welcome

The amped/amphed up background singers make that Wright clip.

yup

Got a sweet R.A.M.-inspired mix coming up, with Brian Bennett, Beaver & Krause, Zeus B. Held, The Jacksons, Vuolo & Grande, Space Art, Roland Bocquet, Curt Boettcher, Gino Soccio, Stardrive and others. . .

I'll just cast my vote with the "I love this album" lot. Mainly just because I find it irresistibly catchy and engaging every time I listen.

my housemate said to me the other day "you must really like that daft punk album; in 2 years I've never heard you play the same music twice, and this has been on for 2 weeks"

That Gary Wright clip got me thinking about how when I was 4, I was scared of the intro to Dreamweaver and that if I was hearing this album at the age of 4, the intro to Touch would probably scare the shit out of me.

Ain't Them Bodies When Saints Go Machine

I think the song with julian casablancas would be better with marky mark walbergs character from boogie nights doing the vocals

What song wouldn't?

a little late but 'motherboard' is like, totally of a piece with anything off the back half of discovery. like, think of motherboard as version 2.0 of 'veridis quo'

"Got a sweet R.A.M.-inspired mix coming up, with Brian Bennett, Beaver & Krause, Zeus B. Held, The Jacksons, Vuolo & Grande, Space Art, Roland Bocquet, Curt Boettcher, Gino Soccio, Stardrive and others. . .

this sounds great.

i love this album. i wish some of the vocals were more treated than they are (it is a bit too star heavy, i think daft punk would still have made a big impact even if it was someone more obscure than pharrell/casablancas, etc) or the guests were less dominant somehow. the panda bear song might be my favourite not just because its such a great song but because i miss daft punk using drum machines. i love that even for an album so big hearted, its still so divisive. i cant decide if the sequencing could be better or not - when get lucky comes in after touch, it seems like a perfect transition. i think the album would lose some of its mood if all the funkier songs were frontloaded.