"Give Life Back to Music" is a great opener. Good energy. Hooks nicely. Solid.
"The Game of Love" had a couple of interesting musical moments, but is forgettable and boring overall.
"Giorgio?" Voiceover in music is very, very, very hard to do correctly. This is no exception. Ditch the voiceover and the song is good.
I gave no shits about "Within." Why is that even here? You need a bridge song, awesome. Don't waste 4 minutes of my earspace getting from one musical idea to the next. Dream Theater at least has the courtesy to make their needlessly long bridges musically interesting.
The chorus of "Instant Crush" is awesome. Too bad the rest of the song sucks. The end's not too bad, but the rest really needs to be stronger.
"Lose Yourself to Dance" would've made a better single than "Get Lucky." Shit's infectious. That's all I can say about it.
"Touch" was set to go in several different places when it finally busted out - and I'm not sure it really succeeded. This sucker needed to catapult itself somewhere, and it just sort of weakly burst all over. The breakdown around 4:25 is very weird and out of place as a result. Interesting ideas, though. Good to hear something with movements and transitions.
"Get Lucky" is really a fairly shitty song overall. I was hoping the full version would be more interesting, but it's actually less enjoyable than the radio edit. This also sounds the most like a typical Daft Punk song, with just a couple of altered elements. Really nothing worthwhile here.
"Beyond" has a great fuckin' groove. Some interesting things here. The intro made me think it was going to hit hard, but it didn't. Somewhat let down about that. Still, good song overall.
"Motherboard" took a touch longer to change up than I would've liked, but that was a pretty sweet changeup at 3:30-ish. Wish it had kept going somewhere else from there rather than returning to form. Also felt like it was building to something, but it never really resolved. That can be a powerful musical tool, but it feels more like they just didn't fully commit themselves to the ideas in this one.
"Fragments of Time" is really irritating, doubly following on the heels of my unresolved expectations from the previous track. Bleh. Skipped.
"Doin' it Right" is interesting. Seems like they finally committed to going forward with their ideas in a song. Too bad it took till the end of the album before they figured it out.
"Contact" finally reprises the space rock thing they were setting up in "Touch." It's about fuckin' time they actually fully realised something in here. Best song on the album.
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Overall, I think this album is full of lots of interesting half-realised potential. Ideas that they didn't fully explore. It sounds a lot like they would start to explore something, then chicken out because they still wanted to make an album with some dancing music.
The result is an album full of music that's kinda danceable, but not quite, and also musically complex and engaging in places - but not enough of them. Like hints of genius embedded in lackluster grooves.
After listening to the album, gotta say I enjoyed it. Most of it works as excellent background noise, which is what I use most music for, and a few tracks were stand-out, listen on their own for me. All together worth buying, in my opinion.
Most of it works as excellent background noise, which is what I use most music for
The idea of "using" music bothers me in a way I can't really explain. It's art, is it really something you use? I don't "use" music, I listen to it, I enjoy it. I don't know how to articulate the point I'm trying to convey, so I guess I'll just stop and go to bed, but maybe someone else can back me up.
I enjoyed the album immensely. It reminds me so much of the oldies station I listen to on occasion, to the point that if it were to be played on that station people would legitimately think it belonged there. Hell, I might actually be able to get my mom to like this. I understand why some are split on how good it is. It certainly isn't as good as Discovery. But at least it's not another Human After All.
RAM is #1 on iTunes in at least 19 European countries.
And someone was trying to tell me that Daft Punk wasn't quite as big as I was making them out to be.
I would've argued that they're not as big as you made them out to be here in the US, but today I heard a dude singing "Get Lucky" and then immediately afterward unironically refer to someone's hair as "swag." At that exact moment, I gave up on that argument, and (unrelatedly) stopped feeling like I ought to like them.
The album isn't out until Tuesday here. It's already out most other places, and they're doing their official release party in Wee Waa tonight (I love Aussie town names).
RAM is #1 on iTunes in at least 19 European countries.
And someone was trying to tell me that Daft Punk wasn't quite as big as I was making them out to be.
That'd be because you made them out to be as big as the Beatles, or Queen, which still isn't the case. Daft Punk are Kings, but you're the crazy homeless guy screaming about how they are really Gods. Just because they're not gods like crazy bearded homeless dude keeps shouting, doesn't mean they're also not kings.
RAM is #1 on iTunes in at least 19 European countries.
And someone was trying to tell me that Daft Punk wasn't quite as big as I was making them out to be.
That'd be because you made them out to be as big as the Beatles, or Queen, which still isn't the case. Daft Punk are Kings, but you're the crazy homeless guy screaming about how they are really Gods. Just because they're not gods like crazy bearded homeless dude keeps shouting, doesn't mean they're also not kings.
They really are that huge. I think part of the reason people don't think they are as big as they are is because they perform electronic music. Electronic music is the most popular music on earth right now. But it doesn't really get proportionate recognition from the mainstream. You don't see that shit on TV, radio, or at the Grammy's very often. Meanwhile, A State of Trance is the most popular music radio show on earth by orders of magnitude. It's underground, but it's underground like mole people. No matter where you did, you'll find a fuckton of them.
Daft Punk is at the top of the mainstream and the underground. It's impossible for anyone to be as visibly big as the Beatles or Elvis anymore due to the long tail of music. Back then there simply weren't that many bands that had recorded albums. Now that there is so much choice, it is impossible to take over the world in quite the same way. If Daft Punk had appeared with their music before the Internet, the extent of their power would be more obvious. They are as big as it is possible to be in 2013.
Comments
"The Game of Love" had a couple of interesting musical moments, but is forgettable and boring overall.
"Giorgio?" Voiceover in music is very, very, very hard to do correctly. This is no exception. Ditch the voiceover and the song is good.
I gave no shits about "Within." Why is that even here? You need a bridge song, awesome. Don't waste 4 minutes of my earspace getting from one musical idea to the next. Dream Theater at least has the courtesy to make their needlessly long bridges musically interesting.
The chorus of "Instant Crush" is awesome. Too bad the rest of the song sucks. The end's not too bad, but the rest really needs to be stronger.
"Lose Yourself to Dance" would've made a better single than "Get Lucky." Shit's infectious. That's all I can say about it.
"Touch" was set to go in several different places when it finally busted out - and I'm not sure it really succeeded. This sucker needed to catapult itself somewhere, and it just sort of weakly burst all over. The breakdown around 4:25 is very weird and out of place as a result. Interesting ideas, though. Good to hear something with movements and transitions.
"Get Lucky" is really a fairly shitty song overall. I was hoping the full version would be more interesting, but it's actually less enjoyable than the radio edit. This also sounds the most like a typical Daft Punk song, with just a couple of altered elements. Really nothing worthwhile here.
"Beyond" has a great fuckin' groove. Some interesting things here. The intro made me think it was going to hit hard, but it didn't. Somewhat let down about that. Still, good song overall.
"Motherboard" took a touch longer to change up than I would've liked, but that was a pretty sweet changeup at 3:30-ish. Wish it had kept going somewhere else from there rather than returning to form. Also felt like it was building to something, but it never really resolved. That can be a powerful musical tool, but it feels more like they just didn't fully commit themselves to the ideas in this one.
"Fragments of Time" is really irritating, doubly following on the heels of my unresolved expectations from the previous track. Bleh. Skipped.
"Doin' it Right" is interesting. Seems like they finally committed to going forward with their ideas in a song. Too bad it took till the end of the album before they figured it out.
"Contact" finally reprises the space rock thing they were setting up in "Touch." It's about fuckin' time they actually fully realised something in here. Best song on the album.
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Overall, I think this album is full of lots of interesting half-realised potential. Ideas that they didn't fully explore. It sounds a lot like they would start to explore something, then chicken out because they still wanted to make an album with some dancing music.
The result is an album full of music that's kinda danceable, but not quite, and also musically complex and engaging in places - but not enough of them. Like hints of genius embedded in lackluster grooves.
I also feel that Something About Us from Discovery was a definite premonition of this album.
Also for Lose Yourself To Dance, I want them to release this mix of it:
However, I'm totally fine with this 10 min loop version:
I still like the original, but the faster version is for when I want to get pumped up.
o(｀ω´*)o
Also, TIL New Zealand is a European country :P
Daft Punk is at the top of the mainstream and the underground. It's impossible for anyone to be as visibly big as the Beatles or Elvis anymore due to the long tail of music. Back then there simply weren't that many bands that had recorded albums. Now that there is so much choice, it is impossible to take over the world in quite the same way. If Daft Punk had appeared with their music before the Internet, the extent of their power would be more obvious. They are as big as it is possible to be in 2013.
I mean, you could use iTunes downloads. Or album sales. Concert ticket sales. Yhere are plenty of ways to do it.