Like a lot of Daft Punk fans, I waited with bated breath for the release of “Random Access Memories,” Daft Punk’s heavily hyped fourth album. After weeks of torturous marketing that only dripped the slightest bit of info, the dam finally broke: the album leaked online and forced the label to put the whole thing up for streaming on iTunes.
So far, reviews have given it universal praise, but after listening to the entire album from start to finish, I was left with mixed feelings. It’s not a bad album by any means, but it’s not a masterpiece either.
The first single released from the album was “Get Lucky” featuring Pharrell on vocals. As the track’s title might have you expect, it has Pharrell singing about getting laid. Despite his soulful energy and positivity, the lyrics still come across as dumb and vapid. The more times I listened to the track, the more I felt like Pharrell was an unnecessary addition to the track. The music in it was fantastic enough to have stood up on its own and Pharrell was unnecessary addition. Still, I wasn’t going to let the single turn me away from hearing what else the album had to offer.
The album opens with the great funky-disco sounding “Give Life Back to Music” – a sound which continues with the follow up track “The Game of Love.” But once you reach the third track, you’re thrown off guard by a two minute-long spoken word monologue by composer Giorgio Moroder. Moroder goes on about his career and introduction to music, disappears, then comes back again. This would have been fine in any other setting, but it’s out of place and self-indulgent in what I assume is meant to be an album that people can dance to.
The track behind the monologue, however, is excellent and slowly builds up to a nice rhythm and serves as a throwback to the Italo disco of Moroder’s native country. Despite this, the duo stretches it a bit. At nine minutes, it is by far the longest track on the album and Moroder definitely outstays his welcome.
If the monologue didn’t throw you off enough, the following track “Within” starts off with a classical piano track that only becomes recognizable as a Daft Punk song after some vocoder vocals enter the track. In the end, it’s bland and forgettable.
The duo redeems itself a bit with “Instant Crush,” featuring The Strokes’ Julian Casablancas. The song has a steady beat and Casablancas packs a great deal of emotion into the track despite being heavily vocoded. The cherry on top is the guitar solo that comes in later on the track.
The rest of the album is hit and miss. “Touch” features a strange cameo by Paul Williams and sounds a bit too retro for its own good. Then the aforementioned single “Get Lucky” would have been perfect without Pharrell. “Beyond” goes on for close to five minutes and doesn’t really do anything with its allotted time.
“Motherboard” is another long instrumental, but its ghostly vibes and arpeggiatored synths near the end make it a beautiful standout. “Fragments of Time” has the duo going back to a smooth funky sound with Todd Edwards along for the ride.
“Doin’ It Right,” the album’s second to the last track, is probably one of the best tracks on the album. Featuring Panda Bear on vocals, dueting alongside a repeated vocoded sample, it’s relaxed yet danceable, and a real standout. Out of all the collaborators featured on the album, Panda Bear’s contribution is by far the best and has me wishing he was featured on more tracks.
Random Access Memories is a mixed bag. By making use of many big-name collaborators, the duo attempts to cast a wide net while also ambitiously attempting to juggle too many influences at once. This all pulls the album down and stretches the experience thin. In the end, the album sounds more like a supergroup side project instead of a Daft Punk album. As one guy said on Twitter, “The Robots have left the building,” and as a fan, I sure hope they come back on their next album.