Daft Punk - Random Access Memories

RAM is not a good album, it's just a pleasant album

a good album to listen with pleasure

a pleasant album to listen without paying attention, like when you listen to the radio or background noise

  On 1/6/2015 at 2:55 AM, dr lopez said:

 

 

RAM is actually a good album.

tbh I haven't listened to it since the week it came out.. maybe I should re-visit it and see if I like it as much

  On 1/8/2015 at 10:11 AM, QQQ said:

 

  On 1/6/2015 at 2:55 AM, dr lopez said:

 

 

RAM is actually a good album.

I agree. Really good album. Get Lucky was such a jam when it was released.

http://on.cc.com/O4UQQU

Samples one more time? https://soundcloud.com/newzealandeditors/someone-who-does-it-better

hmm well this album is actually really good in a dumb way.

music for music nerds to nerd out over. the "steely dan" song is still unacceptable

https://pulseradio.net/articles/2017/02/an-open-letter-to-daft-punk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LDtLxBASEU

don't know what to say...

That's a violent letter...

The thing I've been the most disappointed with Daft Punk recently is probably their marketing of overpriced branded products. I know it's probably not coming from their will, and that it's good for them to make a little money but coming from two guys who put so much energy hiding from the star-system in their younger years this kind of thing is utterly disappointing :

The "I feel it coming" track is also disappointing. Same vocoder/overall production as RAM, which I liked, but come on it was 4 YEARS AGO !

I don't even like Daft Punk that much and that seems overly harsh.

  On 2/16/2017 at 4:34 PM, Adamovich said:

https://pulseradio.net/articles/2017/02/an-open-letter-to-daft-punk

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LDtLxBASEU

 

don't know what to say...

How'd they get from the pre-Homework tracks to this? They've been on a pretty fast decline sine '97 or whenever their first full length came out but still, how much more boring can this possibly get? Pretty depressing quite honestly.

EDIT: Literally just RAM but with really annoying pop vocals

  On 2/16/2017 at 9:07 PM, xxx said:

By the time you have 2 Darth Vaders playing Rebirth over the Weeknd, the ship has sailed yet again.

rofl

Eh, sorry, I mean: lol.

Tried listening to RAM for the second time last night, and it was even more terrible than I remembered from when it was new. Had to skip a couple of tracks and then turn it off halfway through. Ugh.

They've really declined in quality from the Homework/Discovery days... This album was just terrible, "Get Lucky" is horribly fucking obnoxious.

they want to be steely dan of the 21st century soooooo bad and they have neither the brains nor the chutzpah to pull it off

it's clear i have a love/hate relationship with this album. listening now and i love it

  On 2/17/2017 at 5:36 AM, psn said:

Tried listening to RAM for the second time last night, and it was even more terrible than I remembered from when it was new. Had to skip a couple of tracks and then turn it off halfway through. Ugh.

it's so bad

https://www.daftpunk.com/

I've noticed some more opinions about this album having turned into considering a classic, or at least generally well liked.

I loved Daft Punk, "Discovery" and "Homework" are two of my favorite albums of all time. "Alive 2007" is on regular rotation in my car's CD changer, I bought "Human After All" on release somewhat regrettably because most of that album is mix fodder pisstake material (still love the title track and "Steam Machine" though). I have tried to not dislike "Random Access Memories" and failed multiple times. This album makes me feel old, it made me feel old on release.

There are a few decent tracks and moments therein, but they usually do some hypocritical combination of overstaying their welcome, devolving into something less interesting or engaging, or not lasting long enough; to name the tracks I find worth my time: Instant Crush, Motherboard, Doin' It Right, and maybe Contact. My main problems with this album stem from a few key sources: I want most of the vocalists to shut up whenever I hear them singing (I will never want to hear Pharrell singing on anything ever and most of the vocoding is not good), the drums all sound like I went to go see my roommate's dad's cover band play some tunes and they paid one of their nephews to do the sound, and pretty much every track feels like an overproduced realization of an older track that I rather be listening to instead (I could tabulate this if anyone cares at all); I rather listen to tracks like "Fresh" or "High Fidelity" or "Voyager" or "Face to Face" or "Television Rules the Nation" or on any hour of any given day.

I consider my general enjoyment of most disco music and early formative taste to be pretty tied to Daft Punk. Use of a vocoder (or most vocal processing) is a fast way to my heart, so it's usually a bit of a feat when it makes me reel back, like on numerous tracks herein (specifically "Within" and "Lose Yourself to Dance"). I can, and often do, forgive vocal content if it's not the greatest if the rest of the track around it makes up for it, I grew up around my brother playing and listening to the garage-grunge music that took over in the mid-90s from Nirvana culling glam and hair metal.

It took me years to understand a lot of why I feel and felt the way I do about this album: my expectations, my misplaced metrics for assigning an identity as an electronic music dweeb and thus uncalled for attachments to artists (that I probably still have, I am still sad about Ametsub being a massive creep and still derive my visual representation and tastes in most artforms from mid-00s IDM), letting go of my younger self. When I heard Starcadian's album "Sunset Blood," I realized that was the kind of musical progression I expected from Daft Punk, not studio electronic heavy dad rock (though for levity I feel I should note I first heard "Get Lucky" in the same restaurant as where I watched a bunch of then early 40s parents completely groove to "Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites" while pre-gaming for a UFC fight and it fucked my head in). I needed to let go of always trying to define myself as a fringe "other" person to those around me intentionally and instead let who I am find its way organically and move past who I had tried to be for awhile.

Thanks for reading my existential braindump of a reflection on Daft Punk's "Random Access Memories" that has been brought to you by a sudden dumping of snow on the Portland metro area of Oregon. I was not planning on writing this, so it's all pretty cobbled together and only slightly edited (mostly to add the links for fun).

  On 2/23/2023 at 11:38 AM, xyrofen said:

I loved Daft Punk, "Discovery" and "Homework" are two of my favorite albums of all time. "Alive 2007" is on regular rotation in my car's CD changer, I bought "Human After All" on release somewhat regrettably because most of that album is mix fodder pisstake material (still love the title track and "Steam Machine" though). I have tried to not dislike "Random Access Memories" and failed multiple times. This album makes me feel old, it made me feel old on release.

I agree with this, as well as everything else you said, especially regarding the vocals. Took the words right out of my mouth.

Some of my friends preordered that 10th anniversary record no clue why lol definitely the least good daft punk album.

it's still a good album but worse than homework or discovery by a considerable margin. daft punk are still cool but they started being lame when they moved to LA (no surprise) 

It’s a pop album

Never liked datf punk

  On 2/24/2023 at 11:39 AM, chronical said:

 

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Feels like their major is just raking in the money after they disbanded in 2021. The Homeworks re-release with remixes and B-sides was quite cool, but this one feels cheap. Will check the bonus tracks when they drop but certainly not buy the physical product.

That being said, I gave RAM a proper listen from start to finish few weeks ago and I still really like that album. As years go by, the nostalgia factor towards those tracks is kicking it haha.