It has been eight long years since Daft Punk’s last studio album, Human After All, was released. It’s not like the French duo Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo were hiding away in the Alps like a pair of android hermits, for they were plenty busy releasing their second live album (Alive 2007) and producing the TRON: Legacy soundtrack.
The fans however, wanted something new to tear into and savor in an industry dominated by auto-tune and stale beats. “Help me, Daft Punk-Kenobi, you’re our only hope,” some fans pleaded.
Finally there was glimmer of hope for when their next project was going to be unleashed onto the masses in the form of a 15-second ad that aired during Saturday Night Live on March 2, 2013. Only two months later and their fourth studio album Random Access Memories was released and sky-rocketed to the tops of the charts worldwide.
Consisting of 13 new tracks clocking in at 74 minutes, Random Access Memories is the must-own masterpiece of the summer. Daft Punk does a U-turn on where the future of music is going and focuses on the era of music from the 1970’s and 80’s instead.
While music will constantly be evolving and becoming more complex and intricate for several decades to come, nothing compares with the memories associated with the music you grew-up listening to and that warm and pleasant feeling you get upon hearing authentic instruments being played and not created with a computer program.
The opening track “Give Life Back to Music” explodes into overdrive as you’re quickly launched into the familiar-yet-different touch of Daft Punk. With Nile Rodgers on guitar and Daft Punk on their famous vocoders, the message of bringing that thrill and sensation back into music is very much apparent, for what’s being played in clubs and on the air nowadays is sometimes cold and lifeless.
The next track “The Game of Love” slows things down for a moment, as it’s a beautiful duet between the androids. What makes this song so powerful is the opposite effect of auto-tune being used by singers today. While humans take advantage of sounding cold and mechanic, the androids want to sing with emotion and feelings. It’s a great ironic twist that will probably be lost on a few people.
“Giorgio by “Doin’ it right, everybody will be dancing” looping over and over.
The final track on the album, “Contact,” is a fitting goodbye for now as we’re deployed back into space to journey forth into the great unknown. Anything the androids didn’t get a chance to use feels like it’s been violently torpedoed from their bodies into this song, in the form of synthesizers, drums, guitars and more.
Overall I feel that Random Access Memories was well worth the wait and another Daft Punk classic in their arsenal. The collaborators they worked with were phenomenal, with each artist bringing something wonderful to the album.
Hopefully their next studio album won’t take another eight years, but whatever they put forth between then and now will surely be equally orgasmic to listen and dance to.
#block-82f5d3894a6c61e73e47 {
}