____twoism

Daft Punk are retro, that's my gripe with them. They're competent at what they do (most of the time anyway, and besides I think their albums tend to include a lot of filler, which reached a new level with Human After All where the filler was the last 3 minutes of each track) and they do have some material which shows originality, but they get attention as if they were innovators, the sound of now or something. I mean, what's it like to be "influenced" by Daft Punk?

I don't know, I've listened a fair bit to them but since the times are so bad, my tolerance for revivalism has dropped to zero. Someone mentioned punk and making machine music, but I can't imagine punks being nostalgic for 50's rock, and besides, all electronic bands from the late 70's made machine music - which IS something to look back to, but I don't see Daft Punk developing that line. I'm sick of political, cultural, social, personal, stagnation.

All of their albums are different . Human after all i didn't care for too much but then it really grew on me .

My fascination with R.A.M. was hearing this new "studio" sound and seeing what happens when they collaborate outside of there genre . This is the biggest departure of there sound since Homework - Discovery . I'd even go as far as saying they have shed the title of pure electronic musicians .

I hear a lot of modren Royksopp & Air's Moon Safari .To me thats not a bad thing Moon Safari is one of my favorite albums .

The come back of Paul Williams is a feel good story . He's still a great lyricist .

Best Tracks in my Opinion are

03 - Moroder
07- Touch
08- Get lucky
09 - Beyond
12- Do'in it right
13- Contact

The mixing and mastering are very well done on this album . It's warm and has presence , great sonic separation you can really crank it . If you were expecting that dark noisy Daft Punk from Homework or Human After All i would say you will be disappointed .

Over all i like the album . Regardless of who its from or if it fits in with there "brand"
I would also expect if your looking for that hard edge Daft electric sound wait till after they go on another tour to hear that side of this album in a few years .

What If Boards Of Canada's Tommrrow's Harvest ends up sounding like cold play ?

I don't know, I've listened a fair bit to them but since the times are so bad, my tolerance for revivalism has dropped to zero. Someone mentioned punk and making machine music, but I can't imagine punks being nostalgic for 50's rock, and besides, all electronic bands from the late 70's made machine music - which IS something to look back to, but I don't see Daft Punk developing that line. I'm sick of political, cultural, social, personal, stagnation.

Fair enough, I can understand where you're coming from. I think there's something to be said about evoking the past in a subversive way, but at some point that loses all impact if you're retreading the same ground over and over and there's no longer any subversion, maybe just a kernel of stale irony. I haven't thought about it so much in terms of things happening in music, but in other aspects of culture, particularly in seeing my peers who grew up in the diy punk scene romanticize the whole Mad Men era and things like that, it feels very backwards. It's food for thought for sure.

Not that I think of Daft Punk as coming from a cynical or ironic place with their revivalism, but it does seem like they're bringing less of themselves to the table though. It's all kind of surface level.

Well, I just finished listening to the album.

Contact is excellent (especially the end). Giorgio track is interesting.

Unfortunately, everything else is lacking any creativity in my opinion except for maybe the middle of Motherboard. I mean, it's supposed to be like old disco music from the 70's. Right. I get it. Apparently they thought that means songwriting and sound detailing is unimportant because hey, if it sounds "nostalgic" people will like it.

Hopefully their live versions of these tracks (when they come around) will be less flat.

Just listened to it. I liked the album overall, it was better than Human After All imo, and the west coast disco vibe worked well, it was sort of cheesy but in a good way.

My favourite tracks were the more low key ones, like Within and Touch, although I thought it sounded great all the way through. Contact sort of surprised me, it didn't sound like Daft Punk at all.

I think the problem a lot of people will have is that retro music is so in fashion these days, and we've heard a lot of it, so acts like Daft Punk don't stand out so much, which is a shame because they're clearly very talented and are more interesting than most trendy revival music.

Keeoaddi wrote:Contact sort of surprised me, it didn't sound like Daft Punk at all.

Apparently my ears are fucked up or something. It seems like I'm the only one who thinks this is the most Daft Punk-esque track on the album.

"Wow, I got lucky getting in touch with this album. They are definitely doin' it right. They gave me an instant crush within my motherboard. This is really beyond the game of love, I lost myself in the dance and gave back life to music. It took only a few fragments of time" - Moroder.

''The fact that Daft Punk's Random Access Memories is reminding me of Pink Floyd's The Wall. Is enough''.

I just read that on twitter. Jesus Christ.

Just had my first listen, and even though I was a fan of Get Lucky, even though it was cheesy and funky, I really dont dig this. Everything sounds too perfect, and it's so much of the same.

It does have some nice songs on it, but I doubt I will listen to this album as a whole 3 more times.

Giorgio by moroder really stands out for me. And have to admit, Touch is really bad, but I love the ending with the choir.

I'm listening right now, at last. I'm listening to Motherboard right now...and so far I can say I really enjoy this record. The direction they've taken, of creating organic sounds and minimizing the use of electronic instruments has produced a very unique blend of music. Comparisons someone made to Royksopp and Air are totally accurate, they're two of my favourite groups as well! I am a nostalgia freak..a fan of the past. So knowing that Daft Punk was trying to emulate and capture the sounds of 70's and 80's recordings, more specifically American pop/rock music recordings, I think they hit the target dead on with this one. Justifies a few more listens of course, but my first impression is a good one.

So I guess I was suckered, by the marketing of the album, into thinking this would be a great album. You do enough interviews, with lots of collaborators (inc. the pizza delivery guy) telling you great Daft Punk are and you end up either believing it, or wanting to believe it. I was the latter. I'm a big fan love both Homework and Discovery, and have blotted out Human After All from my mind as being a Gallic aberration (Tron doesn't count btw,) hoping that this would be a return to form. And it is, and it isn't. It's just ok. My biggest problem is that for all their good intentions (switching to live instruments) they left behind a crucial component: the songs. You can only paper over so much with (over)use of a vocoder. The songs are lightweight and not nearly as catchy as they should be. There's a lot to admire on this album, (sorry I'm unfamilar with the track titles) I like track 5, the second half of track 10 (I read on another forum of someone likening it to Oscar See Through Red Eye) and track 11 (the one that sounds like a Phoenix and Fleetwood Mac supergroup). There is one exceptional track, Touch, which I think deserves a big thumbs up just for having the cojones to attempt something as bold and brassy as that (although there's a really dodgy edit in there.) It's Random Access Memories' Digital Love moment.

All in all it sounds safe. It's hard to believe that these are the same guys that gave us Rollin' and Scratchin'. That's the disappointing thing, it doesn't sound very daft and it doesn't sound very punk. In short: Dad Punk.

I was going to write a few paragraphs with my thoughts on this album but it's not worthy of my time. It really is piss poor. Such a shame.

I'm not a fan of the mixing in a lot of the tracks. It sounds too... flat and shiny. I know they were kinda going for shiny, but it made a part the album sound like a disco record for white people made by white people...I especially dislike tracks 1, 4 & 11.

That being said, I liked a lot of the tracks, and am looking forward to the day my wax copy pops into the mail

MindElevation wrote:

I only got through half of it.

I'll take "dad punk"

Despite my recent indifference to Daft Punk (see p1) I think I've read enough to think RAM will be worth checking out. I actually really like the way they've marketed it too (deliberately as a BIG release). I love Get Lucky and the world generally could use more Nile Rodgers...

I'm gonna listen to it as soon as I get home, so I'm hoping for something good. I'm always a fan of daft Punk, hell I even though Human After All was good, even if it had a shit ton of filler! Hoping for the best, though the opinion on Twoism says I won't.

3 songs....

I have had no desire to return to this after my first listen.

This is the sound of the 80's for people who were not yet born in the 80's.

I don't think i'm going to get that 75 minutes of my life back