Hot on the heels of that is another downbeat and forlorn track but this is an unquestionable highlight of the album Instant Crush featuring Julian Casablancas. As strange as that sounds, it actually works and the result is a simple and sorrowful disco-ballad-thing. This time though, its a kind of Artificial Intelligence/robot ballad with the songs lyrics lost in worries of identity and meaning. Within comes up next and the melancholia of The Game Of Love returns all down-tempo, minimal instrumentation, sad keys and lamenting robot vocals. Its pretty weird, but the track itself has some great features to it trance meets disco like sequencer work, big dramatic strings, elastic bass lines, scratchy synth mixing and big drums, but it sounds kind of like the electronica equivalent of a 70s rock bands jam track. Its a tribute to Italian producer Giorgio Moroder (famous for collaborating with Donna Summer during her disco peak, among others) and features segments of Giorgio discussing his musical background and tricks of the trade atop a sprawling instrumental. Now, the third track Giorgio by Moroder is going to really divide people, and was my first real moment of confusion. The Game Of Love comes next and brings the first taste of the albums underlying melancholia, sounding reminiscent of Discovery tracks like Nightvision and Something About Us, but with heartbroken robot vocals and bigger production, and not as good as Something About Us because, because I love that song it will be the first dance at my wedding bride permitting of course. Its a laidback and groovy start that sounds kind of like what Justice were trying to do on their sophomore effort Audio, Video, Disco but less Zeppelin and more Chic. Starting at the start the first track is Give Life Back To Music and what an intro it can boast immediately bursting into life, like the most enthused rock-opera/prog-musical that The Who never got around to writing, before settling straight into some Nile Rodgers driven funk and the traditional robotic voices of Daft Punk. Ill admit, I was a bit confused and uncertain on first listen through of Random Access Memories, but Im on the however-many-eth listen now and it makes more sense. Essentially, you can look at this album, and head into it with this in mind it is a prog-disco album. What we do have, instead of all those things I just mentioned, is a really good album with some really interesting ideas, experimentations and highlights, along with some things that arent so great its not a perfect album, but whats the big deal about that anyway? This album is also a lot more chilled out than you expect with more melancholic moments than you might have imagined lengthier songs than youd have thought more experimentation than you expected Ill stop making lists and dissect the tracks, I promise. First things first though this is not the greatest album ever, it is not the best Daft Punk album either, nor is it likely to be the best album youll hear all year get all the excitement and hullabaloo of the build up to this album out of your mind right now. Striking while the iron is hot here I am, reviewing it. I myself have covered the gradual build up so far up to the final unveiling of first single Get Lucky at least, and here we are a week ahead of the albums official release finding it streaming for free on iTunes for a limited-time-only-preview type deal. You know who Daft Punk are, I know who Daft Punk are and since the announcement of this new album, and the expertly delivered promotional campaign along with it, it seems everyone and their everyone knows who Daft Punk are and always have. A bit of back story on them? Well, okay, its all kind of boring really, but. It looks like theyre trying to make something of a comeback this year and have released this album quite quietly on the down-low with no real fanfare for its arrival or anything, but good luck to them I say. They did alright for themselves around the turn of the new millennium, but then no one really heard from them for some time. Rating:4 So theres this little known French duo, a pair of producers, who go by the name of Daft Punk.
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