Friday, August 16, 2013

Daft Punk "Random Access Memories" (2013) - a preliminary non-review

I bought this with a record token for Golden Discs that my sister gave me - yes, readers, Golden Discs still exists. I have listened to the whole record a bit and need to do so more to form a considered opinion. 'Get Lucky' I have already listened to a lot on my iPod. You have probably heard this too. I like its yearning vocals and its Nile Rogers guitars and feel that it will go down as the emblematic tune of 2013 even for people who hate it (kind of like the way 'Crazy in Love' was in whatever year it came out).

That said, I can see why 'Get Lucky' and the album as a whole is being seen as problematic in some quarters. Random Access Memories seems like little more than a pastiche of music from the past rather than any attempt to make anything new or contemporary. When the past music you are pastiching is disco (as opposed to, say, 1980s softie metal) this is not an entirely bad thing. Nevertheless, it lays bare how the creative well has run dry, leaving today's musicians unable to do anything but endlessly recycle the past.

There may be people in the world who have never heard 'Get Lucky'.


An inuit panda production

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