If anyone caught that BBC documentary on Nile Rodgers a month or so back that you’ll have an inkling to what his involvement to Daft Punk’s latest effort; ‘Random Access Memories‘ would entail.
It would be nearly impossible to have avoided hearing the disco stylings of ‘Get Lucky‘. It will probably go down as the summer track of 2013. And rightly so. Pharrell Williams has been a busy boy performing vocal duties and seemingly in the same week fondling around with nude ladies on ‘Blurred Lines‘ by Robin Thicke (Another impossible track to have both avoided and not been enticed by.)
Random Access Memories was slightly slated at first for not delivering the same blend of anthemic dance of previous albums. Apart from the fact that that’s a big bunch of bullshit, the point that’s been missed is the idea of the album as a whole. Even though ‘Get Lucky‘ should be viewed as an anthem in it’s own right, when listened to as a whole body of work, RAM segues beautifully between 70’s and 80’s dance, the experimental and the avant-garde.
A track such as ‘Giorgio By Moroder‘ has been labelled a track that ‘shouldn’t work‘. It features a monologue by Giorgio Moroder on his beginnings as a musician and philosophies on songwriting. This is all to a fantastically creative use of synthesizers and modern beats. Of course it works. Especially when backed up by Moroder’s point on how there is not a definitive way of writing a song.
‘Lose Yourself To Dance‘, once again featuring Pharrell is an instant classic whilst ‘Doing It Right’ is measured and cool. Perhaps the best example and perfect introduction to this classic is it’s opening track ‘Give Life Back To Music‘ enveloping everything that’s great about Daft Punk, and perhaps as a title serves as the point for such a shift in dynamic.
Trust me, ‘Random Access Memories‘ is a killer.
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