Daft Punk - Random Access Memories - Last Minute Speculation

Another new post already?

I am a machine. This one has to be made now or never though.


So Daft Punk has a new album, eh?

Yeah, and I love Daft Punk. They were probably the first electronic act I really loved. How cliche is that? But it being so cliche is a testament to just how wonderfully accessible and fun this music is. I mean yeah Daft Punk isn't my favorite electronica ever, nor do I think it's the best, and I especially don't think it's like a million times better than any other electronica the way their success seems to indicate. But they are really damn good, very solid musicians that are in the business (and pleasure) of putting out dancey fun tracks that are also really goddamn beautiful at times. I'd say they're in some way The Beatles of electronica. Is that too much? One big difference, at least, is the release schedule - Random Access Memories is the first album in like 8 years.


So no I'm expecting to like this as much as I will the new Boards of Canada (oh my GOD get hype) but I am even more excited for this. It's like the new Kanye album (oh my GOD get hype), you know that your summer is going to be saturated with it, and you know it'll be a great time. You're gonna hear this album in every club, every bar, every radio station, every ad. You're gonna play it in car trips and parties because you know everyone will like it. And you know you will turn to it on the old iPod many times on bus trips or short walks because it is gonna make you just so happy. And you know years from now you're still gonna be hearing it, and hearing albums aping it with varying levels of success, and I hope you know that you're still gonna love it then, no helping it.

Random Access Memories streams on iTunes tonight in full

But I don't have iTunes and I'm gonna wait for a high quality rip anyways.


But before "spoilers" get out, let's do some track name and guest based speculation!

This is always... fun? Hopefully later today I will edit in a friend of mine's speculations and later we'll see who was closer etc.


So far I have heard the "Get Lucky" single and watched most of the guest appearance interviews

I have heard "Get Lucky" some two hundred times I think. I haven't heard any of the other leaks or promos for other songs.

So here's what I think the album's gonna be like:

1. "Give Life Back to Music" - This is gonna have some Nile Rogers guitar, probably a very slick but still bombastic intro. I'm thinking... big synthy swells at the start followed by really laid back riffing that feels like an overture for the whole album.

2. "The Game of Love" - This song will get you laid just by listening to it. This song will have sex with you itself. I suggest not wearing your good pants. Probably a chorus-driven churning-building sort of thing, lots of really smooth things.

3. "Giorgio by Moroder" - Disco epic sort of thing. Builds through a lot of fairly distinct sections. Similar to the big big LCD Soundsystem songs in structure, but more disco and less rock.

4. "Within" - Chilly Gonzales will provide a sort of piano loop that is both ineffable and catchy, that rare combo resulting in "double phantom impossible catchy". On top of that is... basically irrelevant, but oh wow, I can't wait.

5. "Instant Crush" - Kinda poppy storytelling sort of stuff akin to "Digital Love" or "Face to Face", but with their new discoey live aesthetic forefronted by Casablancas' powerful kinetic voice. I will sing all the lyrics to it loudly and often.

6. "Lose Yourself to Dance" - Really trancey loopy hypnotic stuff that makes you do what the title promises. Pharrell goes more into a lower funkier register for most of it.

7. "Touch" - This, I think, will be unlike anything they've ever done before. It will be very simple and touching and nostalgic. Paul Williams' voice will make you cry.

8. "Get Lucky" - Will make you never want to hear the radio edit again.

9. "Beyond" - Really spacey out-there music. Feels like a sort of transition between the song-ness of the first 8 tracks to something more abstract. Like a rocketship blasting off into deep deep space.

10. "Motherboard" - I know they said no straight electronica but I can't help but think total techno beatfest when I see a title like that. Something really intricate with a ton of catchy synth loops all running around each other.

11. "Fragments of Time" - Spacey, choppy, distant, beautiful. Really plays around with time, stretching and foreshortining loops and such. Or is that too obvious?

12. "Doin' it Right" - OH MY GOD PANDA BEAR VOCALS (AND PERCUSSION???) ON A DAFT PUNK TRACK. Think "Make Love" or "Emotion" with an ever-progressing vocalist just trying to open his humble and beautiful heart to the whole world over top ;___;

13. "Contact" - Everything must go nonstop mega electrojam. Several distinct but connected sections, almost like one of their live medleys. Will get you so pumped you might have a heart attack.

OH

MAN

I CAN'T

WAIT

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA



OKAY UPDATE: there are leaks out there! But I'm not gonna listen to anything under v0. Also my friend Alan has provided his own speculah about what the album will sound like:

1) Give Life Back to Music (feat. Nile Rodgers)

This will probably be like some big come back statement. This is where the robots leave no room for interpretation in saying “you're all doing it wrong. Let us show you how it's done.” I can imagine some nice fanservice for Discovery fans – Nile Rodgers lays down some smooth guitar chords and then Daft Punk come in with some light and breezy vocoders. Maybe the One More Time of 2013??

2) The Game of Love

After the big dance-athon of GLBtM, this will probably be a resting period that shows that RAM won't just be Discovery 2. A more chilled out song, maybe some melancholy?? Who knows! I'm imagining more vocoders but this time, they're more HAA-ish. In my head, the vocals become more and more distorted as the song goes on. Ends with some TV-style white noise.

3) Giorgio by Moroder (feat. Giorgio Moroder)

Oh gosh, I don't even know. Clocking in at over 9 minutes, this is the longest song on the record. We already know it involves Moroder recounting his life. I bet the song begins with like, him talking about his early childhood and there are some rising strings like the 2001 theme and it's like, woah, this gonna be good. And then it just gets ahhhhh probably some homages like when he talks about his career, maybe it goes zoop zoooop zoop zooooop cause Moroder liked those noises and then he gets to WHAT WILL THE FUTURE HOLD and then the song just goes bananas as Daft Punk unleashes the full force of their creative vision upon our heads.

4) Within (feat. Chilly Gonzales)

Let's cool down after that. Daft Punk meets MBV. Chilly Gonzales lays down some sweet piano chords and the whole thing is very introspective, shoegazy. This is the most vague in my head right now

5) Instant Crush (feat. Julian Casablancas)

THE STORY OF HOW DAFT PUNK MET, TBANG/GUYMAN OTP. Okay for serious, this will be very summery, very southern California. Driving music, I bet. Probably a single. Since I Left You x Daft Punk???

6) Lose Yourself to Dance (feat. Pharrell)

Nile Rodgers on guitar again. More ephemeral than GLBtM. Daft Punk is in complete control here and right now they want you to dance your ass off. A vortex of poppy sound, sucking you up into total ecstacy.

7) Touch (feat. Paul Williams)

The stargate scene from 2001 in musical form. Daft Punk reshapes our idea of electronic music here as Paul Williams delivers a beautiful backdrop to our eye-opening, sometimes incomprehensible journey through the unknown. RAM's most avant garde track.

8) Get Lucky

Wherein I immediately delete the radio edit from my computer.

9) Beyond

Daft Punk initiates third impact and becomes Beings Close to God.

10) Motherboard

Evokes the world of Blade Runner. The first track with some darkness and “grit” to it. Honestly I don't know but I am very excited!!!

11) Fragments of Time (feat. Todd Edwards)

Choppy, synthy, poppy. Daft Punk explores their past through a series of mosiac-like sound, jumping from stompy techno beats to effervescent dreampop and ending up somewhere completely new.

12) Doin' It Right (feat. THE PANDA)

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

13) Contact (feat. DJ Falcon)

Classic Roule era French House. Here is where DJ Falcon and Daft Punk condense however many years of electronic music into one 6 minute epic. The final two minutes just go completely bonkers and then... silence.

Hmm... We're on the same page for a lot of songs and then not on others. Can't wait to see! Maybe it will be like the argument I had with my friend George about what the Digitalism album art looked like where I said it was like a LCD clock display and he said it was a human face and we were both right??