Daft Punk's Random Access Memories

I don't mean that Alive was only a big deal because of Stronger, not at all, but the combination made it the point at which the US really got dance music. I have to read Matos's book to see what else was going on at that point that made EDM take off but this was the big bang.

http://mareplaytv.fr/video/daft-punk-unchained-documentaire-du-24-juin-2015/

enjoyed seeing M. Matos show up in this documentary

a friend just sent me this one, presumably for the similarity in the chords & wordless vocal hook to 'Get Lucky':

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtB5jC9_kc4

(production by Guy-Manuel)

sounds like it, too

that's like, the Game of Love synth?

does anyone have a file of this?

https://soundcloud.com/davidmorales/get-lucky-david-morales

I still love that endlessly ascending synth noise on 'Contact' ... fantastic drumming, too!

gr8080 i'll help ya out

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnjEzx7Glr8

So bummed there was no Alive 2017. :(

that's like, the Game of Love synth?

― niels, Sunday, September 10, 2017 4:31 AM (four months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

p sure it's a Wurlitzer!

I'm not really bummed that there hasn't been a live show. I can't see how it would live up to either Alive 2006/7 or the studio recordings on Random Access Memories. Pharrell and Chic both play "Get Lucky" live; Julian Casablancas plays "Instant Crush"; and that's about as close we're gonna get.

I'm more bummed that "Overnight" didn't get much attention:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTdBc2Ba8ts

^ You can kind of sing "Face To Face" over that, so they're definitely still making music that can mesh with their earlier recordings, but honestly I think another Alive 2007-style mashup gig would be super corny. otoh I think an Alive 1997-style gig where they're just doing "Da Funk" for 30 minutes would be fantastic!! I've seen way too many fanboys talk about what Daft Punk "should" do next, but fuck it: I wish they would just do some DJ gigs again.

I think they might be laying low till the Chic album comes out? I seem to remember they were supposed to be contributing to that, and in interviews about the album recently Nile Rodgers has kept talking about how there will be a "big surprise."

Sorry. I'm a dork.

You're right that another mashup gig would be corny, and so would have an attempt at playing the new album live with a rotating cast of "surprise" guests.

Alive 1997 it is then ;)

btw this is a fun video!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpG3XrPhgtM

my favorite bit of Nile Rodgers in "Get Lucky" is in the second half of the song when the prechorus and chorus come back in over the robot voices and DP sample a different guitar rhythm just for the second chord in the four-chord sequence and it's massively funky

^ I think I can hear it, but pretty fuckin' subtle. Unlike the nadir of the album, when halfway through Contact the drummer decides to give up on the awesome beat and just hit everything within reach on every beat, and nothing in between. Defeat snatched from the jaws of victory, I find it unlistenable.

haha true

tbh I found a lot of this album sounded pretty compressed to my ears

agreed that "Contact" is underwhelming

that drum part is reminiscent of the drums on "The Final Countdown" though so I guess it's thematically appropriate

I couldn't disagree more, re: 'Contact' ... my favourite track on the album.

Like, by miles.

I like my melodrama with a little more Paul Williams

yeah, that one's the centerpiece

Between the 1997 and 2007 tour they released 11 singles. Beteween 2007 and the 2017 potential tour they only released 1 album and 5 singles.

For an act with such a legendary status they are actually very passive in their output. 4 albums in 20+years!?

That said they are really good at what they do.

they did the TRON soundtrack in that second period too

They've only ever done a handful of remixes too, nearly all of which are A++

Mothership Reconnection! Chord Memory!

yea I'm pretty disappointed that we didn't get an Alive 2017

did they even play live in support of this record? surely they must have.

They only did that Grammy thing iirc.

And yes I forgot that TRON soundtrack. Them breaking the 2017 pattern is very dissapointing. They had enough new music and production credits to make it work.

Seems like most of the other threads have been revived...who dares revisit?

we are talking about this album in the human after all thread.... lol

"give life back to music" whips!!!

I'd love "Lose Yourself to Dance" if Pharrell were drawn and quartered and his death throes were recorded over his original vocal.

― first I think it's time I kick a little verse! (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, August 29, 2013 5:30 PM (seven years ago) bookmarkflaglink

the most un-ecsstatic, un-lose yourself to dance vocal, like, ever

― first I think it's time I kick a little verse! (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, August 29, 2013

"Lose Yourself to Dance" definitely supports my theory that Daft Punk make shitty music on purpose

guitar!

Yeah I'm not a fan of Pharrell's anemic vocals here either. "Fragments of Time" on the other hand--that song is pure joy. If I have anything to thank this album for, it's hipping me to the genius of Todd Edwards. Obviously his influence was all over Discovery, but I didn't realize it at the time

it's weirdly lifeless for an album that starts with a track called "give life back to music" and it also really exposes their limitations as songwriters

the one track i come back to is "fragments of time" which is still really cool with todd edwards' cut-up production applied to 70s soft rock

i have never understood love for "doin' it right", it's cool until 1:25 when panda bear completely kills it with that awkward melody and then it never really goes anywhere. there's potential there for sure but it's really wasted, like a lot of tracks on this album which have a cool idea but then fail to develop it at all and drag on for too long

lol that's pretty much the only vocal melody on the album that I like ("Get Lucky" works when Chic does it but doesn't work here, mostly because Pharrell is bad)

i think "within" is beautiful

although tbrr there's potential there for sure but it's really wasted, like a lot of tracks on this album which have a cool idea but then fail to develop it at all and drag on for too long is the perfect encapsulation of the Daft Punk ethos, even on the songs I like by them

repetition is a form of travel

have an irrational yet also entirely rational hate for pharrell and get lucky isnt good enough as a song to make me like it anymore than when it came out, but lose yourself to dance is really good, mostly thanks to everyone on there who isnt pharrell, but esp nile rogers. i did love this album a lot when it came out, hoping it still holds up today. the panda bear, paul williams, and todd edwards songs might be my favourites, going from memory. guess it makes sense that they stop making music as DP after this one. couldnt see them repeating themselves in the RAM mode, and doubt they would want to go back to making straight up dance music as DP either as they might see it as a demotion after fully going pop.

i'm guessing i'm not among ppl who would agree with me that "instant crush" is a bop

if you mean "it makes me want to bop everyone involved in the nose" then yes