Robot Rock: Review of Daft Punk's "Random Access Memories"

Daft Punk

When I was an exchange student in Europe, one of the things I discovered was that disco never went out of style in France.  When America was cringing at the boogie fever of the past and listening to R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A., the French were admiring their fashion in the mirrors of discotheques while dancing to modern disco hits.  The French totally embraced house music culture - as evidenced by artists like Dmitri of Paris, Justice, David Guetta, Martin Solveig, and Daft Punk.

Daft Punk have had a long and distinguished career, but I was not exposed to them until Kanye West sampled "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" - a Kraftwerk-esque anthem - back in 2007.  With their fourth album, "Random Access Memories", they are very much in the public consciousness.  After watching their performance of "Get Lucky" at the 2014 Grammy's with Pharrell Williams and Stevie Wonder, their appearance in their trademark robot costumes set the internet abuzz.  My younger kids really believe that they are robots.  The auto-tuned vocals contribute to this illusion.

For an EDM album, there are few computerized bleeps and blips.  There is no dubstep wobble bass.  There are actual guitars and strings.  This album is definitely rooted in '70s disco-inspired house music.  There is enough waka-waka guitars and groovy orchestral arrangements to fill an entire CHiPs episode.  The cool thing about this band - being lost in the '70s, they recruited several '70s icons to help make this record.  Niles Rodgers from Chic plays guitar on several tracks.  They collaborate with Paul Williams, who wrote "We've Only Just Begun" for The Carpenters.  Williams, who co-wrote and sang on the track "Touch", said that, in working with Daft Punk, he felt like he was working with contemporaries.  There is an 8 minute track called "Giorgio by Moroder" that features Giorgio Moroder, an early electronic music pioneer, telling the story of his life set to a moog keyboard.  And, of course, there are several other guest musicians who are modern artists and yet appreciate the vibe of the disco era like Pharrell Williams, who lends vocals to "Get Lucky" and the better song, "Lose Yourself to Dance".

Many of these other disco pieces will have you shaking your bootay, like "Give Life Back to Music", "Fragments of Time", and "Doin' It Right".  There are some delicate songs that are stripped down, sometimes to just piano and robot voice like "The Game of Love", "Beyond", and one of my favorites, "Within".  There is also some electronic weirdness as on "Motherboard" and "Contact".  But my favorite song, the song that makes the whole album worth it is "Instant Crush".  I listen to this song over and over, from The Police-inspired intro to the angelic falsetto provided by Julian Casablancas of The Strokes to the lead guitar, also by Casablancas.  The song is perfect.

This whole album is delicious, proof that EDM has transcended its expectations and stereotypes to create a viable and serious pop album.  I highly recommend it.