The Daily Spin, December 24
Daft Punk | Random Access Memories
Welcome back to the Daily Spin, the series in which I review 365 albums during 2023.
Each album will be given a rating on a scale from 0 to 10. You can look at the entire set here. Additionally, you can check out a list of my favorite songs from each album right here.
Album: Random Access Memories
Artist: Daft Punk
Link:
Few groups will have a legacy quite like that laid by Daft Punk throughout their career - and fewer still can claim the lasting throne that this duo will likely hold as one of the undisputed crown-holders of dance and electronic music.
Throughout their journey as artists, Daft Punk were unafraid to push the boundaries, but 2013’s Random Access Memories defined, for me, their greatest movement towards superstardom - though I find their tracks on 2001’s Discovery more enjoyable, I think that the complete body of RAM is the duo at their fullest and brightest.
If the re-releases (plural, yes) weren’t enough of an indication that this album was their lasting monument, consider a song that, for me, might be the ultimate earworm - their collaboration with Pharrel Williams and Nile Rodgers, ‘Get Lucky’ - the song of the summer in 2013, and indeed, as one Twitter user whose name escapes me reminds us, the song of the summer every year.
That’s the great strength of this record - by pulling indie and rock influences into their disco-tinged dance, you get this multidimensional sound, one that commands wide appeal but also displays Daft Punk’s finely-tuned ear for electronica - every synthetic note is precise and adds balance to songs where it would be sorely missed.
Despite the pop inclinations and their effect on the album and group’s popularity, the real stunners, for me, are the more heavily electronic tunes - their collab with fellow French Touch luminary Panda Bear, ‘Doin It Right’, remains my favorite song on the album years after the back. So, too, is their work with famed electronic maestro Giorgio Moroder - and though the balladic ‘Touch’ lingers in my head, I think it’s their ability to build beats that carries this record, as it carried everything they ever touched. This is, truly, a fantastic album.
Rating: 9.8/10
Best Tracks: Touch; Doin’ it Right; Instant Crush
Worst Tracks: Give Life Back to Music