My Daft Punk review in relation to this *GREAT* article about the album: http://flavorwire.com/391419/why-daft-punks-random-access-memories-wont-save-electronic-music/
Basically – it’s all about history. It is, quite literally, a musical reboot for our current age.
This would have stayed in the comments, but the author seems to have deleted all of them. Â @Tom_Hawking hasn’t responded to where they all went, but it looks like he was responding to the comments with a newer draft of the article, then decided he hated the internet, and deleted the livefyre feed and put the worthless FB social plugin. I hate conspiracies, so I am likely wrong and it’s a glitch. Â It’s just that I am the only one that mentioned Live PA, and it indexed as a sentence in the article in google search at one point:
**UPDATE** – Tom was kind enough to tweet that moving to Facebook social plug in “nuked” all the old livefyre posts. I leave the rest for giddy intrigue and bored conspiracy theorists. =)
I am sorta thinking the grumpy author (who seems to be enjoying some DP bashing currently) got tired of the internet.  Glitch or not, I just don’t like active or passive mistakes that silence conversation. There were 100’s upon 100’s of comments.  Not cool for those to disappear.  This is the internet and new world. Get over it, or maybe just yourself – you get to be accountable to your comments.  Or I am wrong. Who cares. I like intrigue tho.. on to the review!  Note: I don’t particularly give a rat’s ass about Daft Punk. They’re great. Just one band, though… which is why I thought the Flavorwire headline was a bit much.
It’s a good read, but why is Daft Punk supposed to save electronic music? Come again? I mean…. Who cares? Who would even ask that? Why would one band be able to save anything? With the current state of things, why would they want to?
It is live PA, anyway… a live “band” (in quotes, because anyone younger than 27 may have no real idea what a “real” band actually consists of, sorry to be haughty and glib). But Daft this time around is basically a live band with a vocoder – Live PA. I didn’t know it was supposed to save *anything*. I just thought it was a new album with some live jams.
They ballooned because of a good live show. The Woodstock reference is apt. Expectations so high, they did what they wanted and created an album that was an obvious “eff you” to those expectations and current trends. I doubt they were trying actually trying to save anything, let alone electronic. Why would they want to? Are they delusional egoistes? I dunno. Maybe it’s the fans, like Phish. Maybe the article should be about them.
That Pharrell line…. “the future has no rhythm”… plain and simple, modern music sucks. So, here’s a fat, *real* bassline drum kick, and guitar hook to suck on. They even said they were trying to make the robot voices as human as ever, in an effort to go the opposite direction all the autotuners are going.
*I* figure this was an attempt to save *real* music, if anything, & had nothing to do with “electronic” in their eyes. Tired of everyone who copied everything they started (Justice & MSTRKRFT I am looking at you), tired of the autotuned children who can’t tie their own shoes, let alone play an instrument. Hell, Nile Rogers isn’t the half of it. They hired a friend to play bass on the album, too, & he sessions with Herbie Hancock, works on SNL, etc. This was about heavy hitting musicians, and real instruments.
It’s not retreating into the past to learn from history. We don’t do it enough. Half the younger kids haven’t ever even heard a live band.
Considering they began the current electro house music rage, it seems to be an obvious statement that they have moved to such an analog vibe. RAM has some rock opera, OST/soundtrack tunes, new wave 80’s synth pop, and a few disco tracks… plus a few fat, fat funk jams. In this world of autotuned non-musicians, it is nice to hear the rich sounds of a drum kick, bass drop, or guitar hook. I enjoy it. People may be bored or confused, but it isn’t retreating into the past so much as learning from it, and reminding us of it’s lessons. If it makes one kid pick up a bass guitar, that’s good enough for me. Would you rather they go the Children of Men “zen meditation music”? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUq4P-v4BMs
That’s *EXACTLY* why Giorgio is on there… there isn’t much to do but revisit the roots, at this point. Â Unless the author suggest more dubstep bass squishes under *literally* deafening treble scratches & sirens??
So… look to the past. Enjoy the past. Â Look to our history to protect the future. Â Huxley had some opinions about that: “That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach.”
So check some of this out. That’s the point of this review. Dig deep little archivists. Â It’s time to take a note from another album and move backwards towards your future discovery.
Perrey & Kingsley http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCsDBrD9xvU
Piero Umiliani – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97tkKy2iYNE
Barigozzi Group http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_XBf4N17c8
Esquivel… etc. Hell even the 50’s Polyphonics would be okay to revisit.
*BUT* I LOVED yacht rock reference. I don’t think there’s shame in that goal. LOL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpT83Ag7rAc
I also love bossa nova, italian lounge, etc. That’s why I *LURVE* that Giorgio track SO much. I used to fight liking pop music. Not top 40 charts stuff, but mancini easy listening type of simple arrangements. Now it’s all I want to eat.
Back to Daft – cheers guys. You made real music. The critics just critique. Let them do something “real”.