I Still Don't Like Random Access Memories

Daft Punk celebrates ten years of their last record with a bland new edition

To celebrate my birthday and my grumpiness towards la rentrée, I gave you a good old rant against Daft Punk’s last album, one of the most celebrated record of the last ten years.

When I decided to create this newsletter, out of boredom and unemployment, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to talk about the expatriated French musicians making songs in English. I’ve eluded talking about Woodkid’s first album (also celebrating its 10-year anniversary back in March) and I didn’t know if I had to talk extensively about M83 during the last round-up of mini-reviews. The guy have been living outside of France for so long. Does it even qualify for French Music?

Same goes with Daft Punk. Not that Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter are not French. But the robots aren’t. They have no nationality. Daft Punk have been gradually evading the concept of “French Music” for a while. I mean, Homework was very French, the epitome of the French House genre. But starting at Discovery, Daft Punk put on some robot outfits and embraced its international destiny. Never to return again. Leaving Pedro Winter in charge of their sound and their heritage in France through the Ed Banger label.

So much can be said about Daft Punk. And so much have already been said. l’m not going to offend you with a full biography. You can read it somewhere else. I’m going to focus on Random Access Memories here.

When Daft Punk disbanded all the way back in 2021, there was little to no fanfare. Just a silly little video with a title card card stating “1993 - 2021”. We were expecting an announcement for a new tour but the robots just decided to auto-destruct. It was a sad day. Mostly because we weren’t going to see them live one last time but also because it meant that the multi-platinum grammy-winning Random Access Memories would be their last album. Otherwise, it’s been a good run. Good job, lads.

Random Access Memories has been reedited this year with a handful of crappy bonuses to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of the record and it’s a new occasion for me to spew all my hatred for this deeply boring record. Sadly, I’ve spent most of these past ten years arguing with English-speaking music fans about RAM.

Fragments of Time

Random Access Memories was released ten years ago on May 12th 2013, eight years after their last real studio album, Human After All, who had mixed reviews on arrival. But it’s not like we didn’t have any material from Daft Punk in the meantime. They released a greatest hits compilation, the soundtrack of Tron Legacy, several remix albums and arguably one of the best live recordings in the history of music : Alive 2007. But I wanted a new album (and a new tour).

If you were lucid at the time, you definitely remember the marketing campaign : the Coachella teaser, the SNL skits, the random billboards across the US… The expectations were very high. Daft Punk were doing Beyoncé-level shit even before Beyoncé got to do it (the surprise release of Beyoncé happened six months later).

Random Access Memories is well regarded among fans thanks to the overall pristine production, the religious use of vintage gear, the celebrated session musicians hired to play in the most landmark recording studios, the ultra-referenced source material and the celebrity cameos. For some, it’s their best album. Here is what you can read in Rolling Stone about the genesis of the album.

“After three records, there was a sense of searching for a record we hadn’t done,” Thomas [Bangalter] says. The duo were dissatisfied with early demos that leaned heavily on electronic equipment, feeling like they were operating on “autopilot,” Thomas says. Eventually, a new approach emerged: “We wanted to do what we used to do with machines and samplers,” he explains, “but with people.”

It seems fair but to be honest, I found the philosophy behind the whole project of coming back to the roots of studio music and using zero computer-assisted machine in the production very condescending and a bit elitist. After mastering synths, drum-machines, softwares and samplers, Daft Punk just couldn’t leave without giving detractors of electronic music a new victory. Because of course, an electronic band can’t win awards and sell millions without abandoning almost everything that made them.

I’ll admit it’s not a complete shit show. There’s a couple of good tracks on Random Access Memories : Instant Crush, with Julian Casablanca from the Strokes, fully embracing the yacht rock aesthetic or Touch, the best song and the most ambitious by far, with musical legend Paul Williams. Some songs are fine like Doin’ It Right with Animal Collective’s Panda Bear, most of the instrumentals are useless (except the closer Contact) and the rest is hot garbage.

Because despite the aforementioned pristine production, everything sounds fake, manufactured in a lab. In a sense, that’s a tour-de-force from Daft Punk, to recreate the music you purposely forgot about. I’ve always hated the porn-music innuendo, the glossy organ, the silly high-pitched vocals, the annoying guitar licks… Pharrell is coasting on his charm (he was unbeatable at the time), Nile Rodgers is doing the same thing he was doing 40 years ago and Giorgio Moroder was just invented to talk. To me, RAM provides no other service than heavy nostalgia and I always have the same question with ultra-referenced pop music bordering on plagiarism: why don’t you just listen to the original sound? It’s not like the Chic or Giorgio Moroder’s albums are hard to find. If you want, you can find full podcasts or playlists showcasing the sound that influenced the record.

Contrary to Human After All, critics were pretty much unanimous about RAM, raving extensively about the universality of a record sounding like boomer music. Ten years after, I still find it pretty bland, and the new edition doesn’t help. I know I’m almost alone in my hatred of this record, but for a proper beatdown of the record, read Dan Weiss’ excellent review at Paste Magazine or for a French review, the one from Sophian Fanen where he accuses them “to only look back in the past”. One of my favorite review. Pitchfork did say it sounded “sterile, almost too perfect” but for them it was a feature and not a bug. Since then, Pitchfork notoriously retracted themselves from the 8.8 score they gave at the time, quoting the apparent lack of legacy from Random Access Memories.

Epilogue

Nonetheless, Random Access Memories sold millions of records worldwilde and won 5 Grammies in 2014, including best album and the one they truly deserved (it was indeed the best mastering of the year, with the help of veteran Bob Ludwig). Daft Punk performed with Stevie Wonder and sent doppelgangers to the stage to accept the awards. The Grammies are always very fast to award the artists celebrating nostalgia.

In a bold move, Daft Punk refused to be selected in les Victoires de la Musique for 2013. After being ignored most of their career by the biggest French awards (only one nomination, for a tour), they weren’t going to give them the satisfaction to show up. Daft Punk aren’t the only ones to do that: Mylène Farmer and Jean-Jacques Goldman (two of our biggest stars) refused pretty early to take part in the competition. It says a lot about the irrelevance of les Victoires de la Musique.

After that, Daft Punk disappeared. It was their last album and their last release. Eight years after Random Access Memories, the duo broke up. They were tired of doing this and Thomas Bangalter recently said that “with AI coming, being a robot in 2023 is not appealing”. I understand why but I wish I had a proper exit with Daft Punk.

Thomas Bangalter remained active, composing scores for French movies by Cédric Klapisch or Quentin Dupieux. In 2023, he released his first record under his name in a while: Mythologies is the orchestral score of a French ballet. It’s quite good.

Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo have been way more discrete. Until this summer when we saw the release of his first production work since the break-up, for Travis Scott no less. It’s okay, but it does sound a bit like Daft Punk.

I still hope they come back for a tour.