Writing in the Guardian days ahead of the release, Dorian Lynskey had this to say about the hype:
"On 14 April, a clip from the video for Get Lucky was debuted at the Coachella festival in California, inspiring more buzz in 90 seconds than most of the bands on the bill."
Can Thomas and Guy-Manuel deliver?
There comes a weigh-up in the career of every established band whose album n+1 earns them an expanded following - the elephant in the room at the post-mortem is usually "Where do we go from here? Do we give Johnny-come-lately another dose of what he wants or do we experiment again?"
Three choices:
(i) Reinvent - go back to the drawing board if you want to succeed artistically and preserve your career.
(ii) Rehash - churn out more of the same if you want to succeed commercially in the short-term, but prepare for doom.
(iii) Retire gracefully.
Wise bands choosing only from (i) and (ii) know that whatever it was that worked this time might not work as well next time. Queens of the Stone Age didn't write a rule book after Songs for the Deaf, they wrote Lullabies to Paralyze to reward loyal fans whilst shaking off the hangers-on. Likewise in the world of electronica, Booka Shade didn't give us another set of club-friendly electro tracks after the success of Movements, a de facto soundtrack to the summer of 2006. Electronic acts that have been around for decades - Underworld and Nitzer Ebb spring to mind - have reinvented themselves constantly and still sound fresh today.
Luckily after an eight year weigh-up (punctuated by a live album, a world tour and a movie soundtrack, of course) Daft Punk opted not to regurgitate and repackage Human After All and have decided instead to keep pushing boundaries.
Random Access Memories opens with Give Life Back to Music. After a whirlwind pianos-and-guitars intro which might best be described as Welcome to the Jungle-esque, the track breaks down into unashamed disco funk with plucky bass and synthesised lyrics. The flairs are on - now let the disco-posing, finger-clicking and hip-swaying begin. Welcome to the Jungle reappears briefly, but we all knew that this was never going to be a Guns'N'Roses effort.
The filtered lyrics and swinging bass continue onto The Game of Love, a slow downtempo funk track whose lyrics deal with loss in the aforementioned game. There's not much to this one really - it's not particularly beautiful nor are the lyrics as deep as they could be. The mood brightens for Giorgio by Moroder which starts out with spoken word from Italian disco pioneer Giorgio Moroder. He recalls his early career and his quest for a "sound of the future", culminating in his Eureka moment when he routes a clicking sound through a Moog modular synthesiser. That clicking sound pulsates behind Giorgio for a few bars before Daft Punk's sound of the future is unleashed upon us. And it is awesome. Giorgio returns halfway through, offering his motto for artistic creativity:
"Once you free your mind about the concept of ... being correct, you can do whatever you want so nobody told me what to do and there was no preconception of what to do"
Daft Punk take over the reigns again, and after just 9 epic minutes of synthesisers, strings, guitars and drum splashes, Giorgio by Moroder has defined the album, leaving us with a true impression of what Daft Punk aims for in 2013. Fade to black with Giorgio's clicking sound.
Lyrically and musically, Within is the opposite side of the same coin on which The Game of Love was minted. Within is the shinier side of the two, not for its upbeat mood but for its artful brilliance. The lyrics are introspective, concerned primarily with the search for one's own identity:
"I've been for some time / Searching for someone / I need to know now / Please tell me who I am"
Within serves to demonstrate that Daft Punk are capable of writing pensive lyrics - they are not preoccupied with futurism and positive emotion.
The Strokes have surrendered the NYC indie rock crown to Vampire Weekend and Julian Casablancas' vocal on Instant Crush is more likely to threaten Imogen Heap than Ezra Koenig. The French masters insisting on synthesised vocals once again, Julian's whiny contribution makes for one of the less rewarding Franco-American collaborations on this album.
Lose Yourself to Dance sees the return of the funk and the first of Pharrell Williams' two appearances. This upbeat track has a bit more energy about it than those that go before it. Despite the promising title it is uneventful and highly unlikely to make people lose themselves to dance.
Touch starts off with almost 2 minutes of howling winds and a snarling demonic voice remembering touch and needing something more than touch. That demon becomes a human - Paul Williams - who sets the scene for a space-age jazz festival. Brass instruments, natural drums and... more synthesised vocals. A solid track, but by no means the album's stand-out, it breaks down with a choir and space guns before Paul shows us the door:
"Touch, sweet touch, you've given me too much to feel / Sweet touch, you've almost convinced me I'm real / I need something more, I need something more..."
So after all that messing around with electronic gadgets, the sense of touch has almost convinced Paul that he is real. As for Daft Punk, the plethora of synthesised vocals is failing to convince me that they're Human After All.
Lead single Get Lucky was released on 19 April - four weeks ahead of Random Access Memories - and features Pharrell Williams' second (and more significant) vocal contribution. The subject matter is exactly what it says on the tin. This is the happy-go-lucky bachelor's The Game of Love. The music video for Get Lucky has clocked up a full 45 million views on YouTube in just six weeks. Not bad considering the "music video" is a still image.
After Get Lucky we move into the golden years of Random Access Memories and the album seems back-loaded with golden tracks. The influence of epic Westerns such as The Big Country is evident at the start of Beyond, although these two space cowboys were probably aiming at something a bit more like John Williams' Star Wars Main Theme when they wrote it. One of the more tolerable synthesised vocals on the album - because it's their own and it's there throughout the track - tells us about neon dreams and neon love. Taking Aerodynamic and Around the World as vocal templates, this is Daft Punk hitting the nail on the head. They struggle when they modify someone else's vocals. Beyond is devoid of emotion and channels the tranquil, sterile quality of space travel that Daft Punk is all about. Its sheer simplicity makes it one of the stand-out tracks on the album. Follow-up Motherboard is an instrumental composition that showcases Daft Punk at their very best. There are two tracks on Random Access Memories - Motherboard and The Game of Love - which start off with subdued piano and soft brush drumsticks evocative of The Doors' Riders on the Storm. Unfortunately that is the only positive comparison I can offer on The Game of Love, and it lasts merely a few seconds.
Fragments of Time is a radio-friendly offering but the track with real second single potential is Doin' It Right, a collaborative effort featuring Panda Bear whose vocal brings to mind MGMT and Empire of the Sun. Unsynthesised of course, and all the better for it.
Contact opens with an astronaut in radio dialogue to mission control. Thereafter it is an instrumental track with heaving organs employed in way which is very similar to & Down by German electro producer Boys Noize. The album closes with 90 seconds of dissonant fuzz, perhaps intended as a curtain call on the era of noisy electronica that flourished in the wake of Human After All. At least they didn't give an epilogue to Julian Casablancas.
CJ07/10 Worth the wait, living up to most of the hype. Let down by overproduction and an absence of natural vocals.
Playlist it with:
Chromeo // Fancy Footwork
Jean Michel Jarre // Oxygene
Underworld // Beaucoup Fish
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