The electronica music of Daft Punk’s new album, “Random Access Memories,” diverges from the path of most other music of its genre to include many different songs each featuring a distinct story. This fourth studio release includes vocals and music accompaniment by Julian Casablancas (The Strokes), Pharrell Williams, Paul Williams, Todd Edwards and Panda Bear.
The songs have a galactic, outer space, futuristic feel which makes their songs unique. With robotic voices and excellent use of the synthesizer, the duo’s music is unique. An interesting feature is the narration by the experienced musicians. In “Giorgio by Moroder,”an older artist talked about his passion for music and his decision to choose between education and the struggles he faced in order to make his dream a reality.
While some of the songs have a repetitive sound after a while, Daft Punk varies the music by introducing voice and new sounds. Some songs contain only synthesizer, some have piano, some contain robotic voices, and others contain unprocessed voices. A lot of the songs like “Within” contain a relaxing tune while other songs have upbeat, dramatic tunes like “Beyond” which starts with music resembling the opening composition to a science fiction film and “Motherboard” which picks up pace near the middle of its six minutes.
The album of thirteen songs contains a whopping seventy-four minutes of music. Both “Lose Yourself to Dance” and “Get Lucky” contain the smooth vocals of Pharrell Williams. In the former song, Williams encourages the listener to dance while in the latter, more well-known song, he sings about spending the night with a girl. “Get Lucky” has the most content within the song. While most of the songs on the album contain limited vocal, “Get Lucky” supplies lyrics which allow for a catchy chorus and an entertaining listen.
At times the songs seem to repeat themselves. Some of the songs could be cut shorter like the whopping eight minute “Touch.”
In general the album is entertaining and pleasant. It’s a peaceful album to listen to and contains variation within and between songs. Although the length and repetitiveness within some songs can act as deterrents, the album as a whole introduces a new side of electronica which has not been present in music of its genre as of late.
