Whether you believe in it or not, evolution is present and inevitable in all walks of life. It’s only natural that nothing remains consistent in life, for variety is the spice of life and status quo is the starch. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the field of music. Musicians live by a do-or-die system shaped by the tastes of the decade, which means that what was once considered hot in the 1980s can be seen as an embarrassment in 2013. The mark of a true musician is one who can adapt to the shifting landscape with ease and find footing in unfamiliar territory without necessarily abandoning what made them popular in the first place. In that respect, Thomas Bangalter and Guillaume Emmanuel “Guy-Manuel” de Homem-Christo, better known as the French electronic duo Daft Punk, have succeeded with their magnum opus Random Access Memories.
Named after a form of computer data storage, Random Access Memories arrives eight years after Daft Punk’s last album, Human After All. It features an all-star cast of guest musicians such as Pharrell Williams and Chilly Gonzales, whose work you may recognize if you’ve ever seen an Apple commercial within the past decade, and is a surprising album in that even the fiercest of Daft Punk devotees couldn’t have predicted that the duo would produce an album that almost seems at times like a complete departure of the electronic genre the duo helped bring to the mainstream. Electronic rock and repetitive yet quirky lyrics that one would normally associate with Daft Punk make way for ballads, funk, and instrumentals. It’s as large of a departure as one would have you believe, for the sound is unmistakably Daft Punk. Rather than outright abandoning the genre – possibly as a result of shifting tastes and possibly as a commentary on the duo’s shifting opinions of the electronic landscape – Daft Punk has chosen instead to implement electronic sound in ways that are creative yet true to the essence of what made the band popular in the first place. A ballad set to electronic music might not be all that revolutionary, but Daft Punk demonstrates how it can be done in an effective manner. The duo’s presence is unmistakable here, but any fan that was expecting a Discovery-like album is in for a surprise, and fans of electronic music in general might consider the new sound of the album foreign to what one would expect of the genre.
It might sound like I’m complaining for not expecting the album to sound like Daft Punk’s three previous albums, but the truth is that I ended up liking Random Access Memories far more than I had expected. The new sound is unexpected, to be sure, but once I heard the first track I was more than ready to embrace this new direction the duo have chosen to take with their music. The long development time between Random Access Memories and Human After All is evident. This album sounds extremely polished, and it’s very clear a lot of hard work went into the creation of the songs. The star-studded line-up of guest singers adds their own flavor to make an already stand-out album exceptional. One song in particular that I enjoyed simply because of its unexpectedness was “The Game of Love”. It’s a slow-paced and mournful ballad that begs for the return of someone who had left a long time ago. It’s not something that would come to mind when picturing electronic music and it’s not anything that would get a crowd pumped up at a party. In spite of those reasons, I loved the song simply because of its elegance and its atmospheric tone. I never thought Daft Punk could create a song like this, but I have been proven wrong in the most enjoyable of ways.
If an artist wishes to obtain success in their field, they don’t repaint the same picture over and over. They must display a sense of adaptability in their medium and be willing to step outside their comfort zone every now and then. Random Access Memories demonstrates Daft Punk’s willingness to not only step outside their comfort zone, but to simultaneously create new memories of electronic music while paying tribute to the memories of electronic music’s past. It reintroduces a generation to Daft Punk while reminding fans why they fell in love with the duo, and it’s overall a more than worthy successor to Human After All. It might be controversial for fans of electronic music and any Daft Punk fan expecting a return-to-basics album, but in recommending this album, I suggest doing as Daft Punk says in the song “Give Life Back to Music”: let the music in tonight, just turn on the music, and let the music of your life give life back to music.
-John Martinez