Give life back to music.
Click here to see the 10th anniversary edition cover
All ends with beginnings
What keeps the planets spinning (uh)
The force from the beginning
Look...
We've come too far to give up who we are
So let's raise the bar and our cups to the stars
Random Access Memories is the fourth and final studio album by electronic music duo Daft Punk. It was released through Columbia Records on 17 May 2013, eight years after their previous album Human After All.
Rather than continuing the house music style of the duo's previous albums, this album's sound is a Genre Throwback to the '70s and '80s disco and funk that the duo grew up on. In many ways, it is the true Spiritual Successor to their 2001 album Discovery, which first introduced the genres' aesthetic to their sound through sampling songs made in that era.
This vision included collaborations with many artists from the era that were longtime heroes of the duo, including disco pioneer Giorgio Moroder, singer-songwriter Paul Williams, Chic guitarist/songwriter Nile Rodgers, and several internationally renowned musicians and session players, like Nathan East and John "J.R." Robinson. A slew of guest vocalists, including Pharrell Williams, Julian Casablancas, and Panda Bear, were also featured.
The production of the album involved an emphasis on live instrumentation and vintage synths, leaving only drum machines, a custom-built modular synthesizer, and vintage vocoders as the main electronic sounds of the album (and even then, live drumming was used on several songs anyway). This was reportedly a result of the duo deciding to work extensively with live musicians out of growing dissatisfied with their trademark sampling and looping; according to Thomas Bangalter, one half of the duo, "We wanted to do what we used to do with machines and samplers, but with people." As such, the only song on the album that makes prominent use of samples is the closing track "Contact".
The album's lead single "Get Lucky" (featuring Rodgers and Williams) topped the charts in several countries, including the duo's native France, and finally gave the band a legitimate American hit. It also paved the way for a series of further disco/funk-influenced Top 40 hits from other artists, like Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines" (which unfortunately blocked "Get Lucky" from the top of the charts in America), Bruno Mars' "Treasure," and Mark Ronson and Mars' "Uptown Funk," among others.
The album itself was a major commercial success, debuting atop the US Billboard 200 (becoming Daft Punk's first and only number one album on the chart) and topping the charts in 20 other countries. The double-LP release of the album was particularly popular, aided in part by the heavy focus given to it in promotional material, and it became the top-selling vinyl release of 2013. It also won five Grammy Awards: Record of the Year and Best Pop Duo/Group Performance for "Get Lucky" in addition to Best Dance/Electronica Album, Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical and the prestigious Album of the Year.
Random Access Memories was supported by five singles: "Get Lucky," "Lose Yourself to Dance" (featuring Williams), "Doin' It Right" (featuring Panda Bear), "Instant Crush" (featuring Casablancas) and "Give Live Back to Music". It ended up being the last album released by the duo before the announcement of their split eight years later in February 2021.
Two years to the day after the announcement, a 10th-anniversary edition of Random Access Memories was announced for release on May 12, 2023, containing an extra disc of 35 minutes of bonus content including unreleased demos and outtakes. One of the demos, "Infinity Repeating (2013 Demo)", was made with Casablancas and his band The Voidz; it was released as a single and officially described by the duo as their "last song ever" in a press release. In September 2023, Random Access Memories (Drumless Edition) was announced for release on November 17; it includes the 13 original tracks of the album without drums or percussive elements.
Tracklist
LP One
Side One- "Give Life Back to Music" (4:34)
- "The Game of Love" (5:21)
- "Giorgio by Moroder" (9:04)
Side Two
- "Within" (3:48)
- "Instant Crush" (5:37)
- "Lose Yourself to Dance" (5:53)
LP Two
Side Three- "Touch" (8:18)
- "Get Lucky" (6:08)
- "Beyond" (4:50)
Side Four
- "Motherboard" (5:41)
- "Fragments of Time" (4:39)
- "Doin' It Right" (4:11)
- "Contact" (6:21)
CD releases are across a single disc
- "Horizon"note (4:22)
I listened to your tropes, now listen to mine:
- Album Title Drop: Almost. "Fragments of Time" mentions "random memories."
- Epic Rocking: "Giorgio by Moroder" and "Touch" from Random Access Memories are over 8 minutes long and go through several musical styles. "Get Lucky" and "Contact," which are both over 6 minutes long, also qualify.
- Genre Roulette: Random Access Memories, while listed as "Pop" on iTunes, toys around with many different genres and genre influences between songs. "Give Life Back to Music," "Lose Yourself to Dance" and "Get Lucky" are disco, while other songs like "Giorgio by Moroder" and "Contact" are more influenced by electronica, though with some live instrumentation. "Doin' it Right" and "Fragments of Time" fall squarely into soft rock, while "Instant Crush" is a more electronic take on the alternative rock music of singer Julian Casablacas in The Strokes. Their collaboration with Paul Williams, "Touch," is a roulette game by itself, mixing disco, pop, roadhouse piano, a children's choir, and sci-fi psychedelia.
- Genre Throwback: While Daft Punk have always toyed with this idea, Random Access Memories was the first time that they actually sounded like their heroes from The '70s. The album features Nile Rodgers of disco band Chic and Giorgio Moroder (disco producer most known for creating Donna Summer's best works). The session musicians used for the album were given music by Electric Light Orchestra, Supertramp and Michael McDonald as reference points, and it shows.
- Grand Finale: Unintentionally so, thanks to the band's breakup in 2021 without a follow-up album, but the closing track "Contact" and its ruminations on life beyond the starts acts as a fitting end to the band's lore and career.
- Homage: To the music of the late '70s and early '80s.
- Intercourse with You: Though one might assume that this is the entire subject of "Get Lucky" from the title and its chorus, that's not completely true, according to Pharrell Williams. It's not merely about sexual chemistry, but the "good fortune" of meeting and immediately connecting with someone. Even so, this is certainly a prominent aspect of the song.
- In the Style of: According to Pharrel Williams, "Lose Yourself to Dance" was based on 1980s post-disco rather than 1970s disco, with him singling out David Bowie's Let's Dance as an inspiration; the producer of that album, Chic's Nile Rodgers, also plays guitar on the Daft Punk song.
- Juxtaposed Halves Shot: The cover features both halves of the duo's robot helmets perfectly juxtaposed. Any worthy parody of it
will also share the same design. - Lighter and Softer: Much softer and less sonically abrasive than Human After All.
- Limited Lyrics Song: "Lose Yourself to Dance" repeats the same verse about four times over the course of the six minute song. Pharrel Williams is singing the lyrics, but Daft Punk adds some extra lines later into the song as background lyrics.I know you don't get a chance to take a break this often.
I know your life is speeding, and it isn't stopping.
Here, take my shirt and just go ahead and wipe off all the sweat. Sweat. SWEAT.
LOSE YOURSELF TO DANCE!
LOSE YOURSELF TO DANCE!
LOSE YOURSELF TO DANCE!
LOSE YOURSELF TO DANCE! - New Sound Album: A Genre Throwback to disco and the early days of electronic music, and features more live instruments and guest vocals instead of, say, drum machines and vocoders only.
- Non-Appearing Title: "Instant Crush."
- One-Word Title: "Within", "Touch", "Beyond", "Contact" and "Horizon".
- Retraux: Aiding the Genre Throwback nature of the album, the packaging on both the CD and LP releases are evocative of CD and vinyl releases from the 80s, and in the latter format's case the 70s as well. The CD jewel case spines mimic the style of those that were standard for many record labels' CD releases in the 1980s, and the CD and LP labels replicate the yellow-on-red LP labels that Columbia Records introduced in 1970.
- Sampling: Notably, the album in its entirety contains only one prominent sample during "Contact".note
- Spoken Word in Music: The autobiographical song "Giorgio by Moroder," in which Moroder himself speaks about his music career.
