Daft Punk - Random Access Memories

Random Access Memories is the fourth studio album by French electronic band Daft Punk, orginally released in May 2013 via Daft Life and Columbia Records.

Daft Punk formed in 1993 by Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter. The duo achieved significant popularity in the late 1990s as part of the French house movement and were met with continuous success in the years following, combining elements of house music with funk, techno, disco, rock music and synthpop influences. They are also known for their visual stylization and disguises associated with their music; the duo have worn ornate helmets and gloves to assume robot personas in most of their public appearances since 2001 and rarely grant interviews or appear on television.

When Daft Punk announced they were releasing a new album after eight years with an extensive publicity campaign featured tantalizing clips of a new single, "Get Lucky", their fan base exploded. But when the album finally arrived, that hugely hyped single was buried far down its track list, emphasizing that most of these songs are very much not like "Get Lucky" - or a lot of the pair's previous music, at least on the surface.

Daft Punk separate themselves from most contemporary electronic music and how it's made, enlisting some of their biggest influences to help them get the sounds they needed without samples. Here, they place themselves on equal footing with disco masterminds Giorgio Moroder and Nile Rodgers, referring to them as "collaborators." That could be self-aggrandizing, yet it's also strangely humble when they take a back seat to their co-stars, especially on one of Random Access Memories definitive moments, "Giorgio By Moroder", where the producer shares his thoughts on making music with wild guitar and synth solos trailing behind him.

Elsewhere, Daft Punk nod to their symbiotic relationship with indie on the lovely "Doin' It Right", which makes the most of Panda Bear's boyish vocals, and on the Julian Casablancas cameo "Instant Crush".

Of course, Pharrell Williams is the avatar of their dancefloor mastery on the sweaty disco of "Lose Yourself To Dance" as well as "Get Lucky", which is so suave that it couldn't help but be an instant classic, albeit a somewhat nostalgic one. Indeed, "memories" is the album's keyword: Daft Punk celebrate the late '70s and early '80s with lavish homages like "Give Life Back To Music" - one of several terrific showcases for Rodgers - and the spot-on soft rock of the Todd Edwards collaboration "Fragments Of Time".

More importantly, Random Access Memories taps into the wonder and excitement in that era's music. Random Access Memories reveals itself as the kind of grand, album rock statement that listeners of the '70s and '80s would have spent weeks or months dissecting and absorbing. Random Access Memories is Daft Punk's most personal work, and richly rewarding for listeners willing to spend time with it.

The album has sold more than 3 million copies worldwide and has reached #1 on the US Billboard 200, UK and Australian Albums charts, and many others.

This double album 2LP record set is a 2022 repress on 180 gram black vinyl housed in a gatefold sleeve with booklet, pressed in Europe via Columbia Records.