Random Access Memories, finds Daft Punk leaving behind the highly influential, riff-heavy EDM they originated for the sounds, styles, and production techniques of the 1970s and early 80s. So we get a mix of disco, soft rock, and prog-pop, along with some Broadway-style pop bombast and even a few pinches of their squelching stadium-dance aesthetic. It’s all rendered with an amazing level of detail, with no expense spared. For RAM, Daft Punk recorded in the best studios, they used the best musicians, they added choirs and orchestras when they felt like it, and they almost completely avoided samples, which had been central to most of their biggest songs. Most of all, they wanted to create an album-album, a series of songs that could take the listener on a trip, the way LPs were supposedly experienced in another time.

Tracks

1. Give Life Back to Music
2. The Game of Love
3. Giorgio by Moroder
4. Within
5. Instant Crush
6. Lose Yourself to Dance
7. Touch
8. Get Lucky
9. Beyond
10. Motherboard
11. Fragments of Time
12. Doin’ It Right
13. Contact

Featured artists / band members

• Daft Punk Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo
• Panda Bear – vocals (track 12)
• Julian Casablancas – vocals / guitar (track 5)
• Todd Edwards – vocals (track 11)
• DJ Falcon –synthesiser (track 13)
• Chilly Gonzales – keyboards (track 1, 4)
• Giorgio Moroder – voice (track 3)
• Nile Rodgers – guitar (tracks 1, 6, 8)
• Paul Williams – vocals (track 7)
• Pharrell Williams – vocals (tracks 6, 8)

Daft Punk spent four years and over a million dollars on their quest to revisit the golden age of record production. Mick Guzauski and Peter Franco were with them all the way. Following one of the most ingenious, expensive and lengthy album marketing campaigns in living memory, Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories looks set to become the best-selling album of the year. Indeed, its impact is so strong that there’s already talk of it becoming one of the best-selling albums of the decade. What’s more, Random Access Memories sees Daft Punk throwing down the gauntlet at the entire music industry, challenging almost all current preconceptions about the way in which music is made and how to present and sell it. The marketing campaign was one case in point, and it has also been noted that the album is an “all-out war on the current single-song consumption model”, with iTunes streaming the entire album as one body of work before its release, and Daft Punk refusing to tour the album, preferring to allow their studio handiwork to speak for itself.

Most of all, there’s the way in which RAM was made and consequently sounds. Mainstream music press reviewers rarely comment on production, but they have made an exception for RAM, gushing “It’s all rendered with an amazing level of detail, with no expense spared… RAM is one of the best engineered records in many years,” and “It sounds like a million dollars.” The latter comment was written before Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter admitted in a post-album release interview in Rolling Stone that he and his partner, Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, had, in fact, spent more than that.

Daft Punk were pleased with their previous work in terms of composition, but wanted to try something different with the production, as they relied on samples and loops of their own performances:

“We could play some riffs and stuff but not keep it [up] for four minutes straight.”

Despite this, Daft Punk decided to work extensively with live musicians on what would become Random Access Memories:

“We wanted to do what we used to do with machines and samplers, but with people.”

They avoided the use of samples on the album, with the exception of the closing track “Contact”.

“The idea was really having this desire for live drums, as well as questioning, really, why and what is the magic in samples? […] It occurred to us it’s probably a collection of so many different parameters; of amazing performances, the studio, the place it was recorded, the performers, the craft, the hardware, recording engineers, mixing engineers, the whole production process of these records that took a lot of effort and time to make back then.”

—Thomas Bangalter, regarding the album’s conception

The album features Chic frontman Nile Rodgers, who commented that a collaboration was

“something we’ve [Daft Punk and Rodgers] talked about for a long time. We’ve respected each other endlessly.”

The album also features synth pioneer Giorgio Moroder, who recorded a monologue about his life. Rodgers was also present during the Moroder recording session. Moroder clarified that he was not involved in the composition of the track or its use of a synthesiser:

“They did not let me get involved at all. Thomas asked me if I wanted to tell the story of my life. Then they would know what to do with it.”

Pharrell Williams collaborated with Daft Punk and Rodgers by providing vocals for two tracks on Random Access Memories. Daft Punk had worked with him previously as part of N.E.R.D., producing a song for them.

The musicians were session players, many of whom Daft Punk had worked with in producing electronic music for previous albums.

Daft Punk recalled that they wished to avoid the more compressed sounds of drum machines in favour of “airy open” drum sets of the 1970s and 80s, which the duo consider the most appealing era. Bangalter clarified that “it’s not that we can’t make crazy futuristic sounding stuff, but we wanted to play with the past”.

Drummer Omar Hakim recalled being asked by Daft Punk to perform on the album, and was surprised by what they wanted of him. He at first assumed that the duo wanted electronic drum work, since Hakim had done some drum programming in his career. Daft Punk instead specified that they were looking to record Hakim performing acoustic drum riffs that the duo had conceived. Rather than play out the entire structure of a song, Hakim would perform individual patterns for extended periods, creating a library for the duo to pull different patterns from.

The album incorporates a variety of accompanying performances including a horn section, woodwind instruments, a string orchestra and choir. Orchestral parts in particular were recorded for almost every track, but were only included on a few songs in the final product. The use of such performers and places came at great monetary expense, as noted by Bangalter:

“There used to be a time where people that had means to experiment would do it, you know? That’s what this record is about.”

He estimated a cost of over one million dollars, but felt that the number was not important. Bangalter stated that the sessions were financed by Daft Punk themselves, which allowed them the luxury of abandoning the project if they had so wished. He also specified that

“there are songs on the album that traveled into five studios over two and a half years.”

Various sound effects were newly recorded with the help of film experts from Warner Bros.  Bangalter noted one example in which the sound of a busy restaurant was achieved by placing microphones in front of the forks of a group of people. In another instance, the effect of dripping water was recorded on a soundstage. Use of electronics was limited to drum machines that appear on only two tracks, a large custom-built Modcan modular synthesizer performed live by the duo, and vintage vocoders. When asked which of the two Daft Punk members performed the robotic vocals on the album, Bangalter expressed that it did not matter.  The duo produced most of the vocoder tracks in their own private studio in Paris, with later processing done by Mick Guzauski at Capitol. Moroder elaborated that Daft Punk would take “a week or so” to find an adequate vocoder sound, and an additional few days to record the lyrics.

Although the duo felt that the presets and parameters of digital tools would inhibit creativity and innovation, they admitted that Random Access Memories could not have been made in the complete absence of computer technology. The sessions were recorded simultaneously onto Ampex tape reels and as Pro Tools tracks; Daft Punk and Guzauski would then listen to each recording in both analogue and digital iterations, deciding which of the two they preferred. Subsequently, the elements were edited by the duo with Pro Tools in a manner similar to how they would work with samples.

Theme and influences

Bangalter described the album’s title as encapsulating Daft Punk’s interest in the past, referencing both random-access memory technology and the human experience:

“We were drawing a parallel between the brain and the hard drive – the random way that memories are stored.”

Daft Punk felt that while current technology allows for an unlimited capacity to store recorded material, the content produced by contemporary artists had diminished in quality. Their goal was therefore to maximise the potential of infinite storage by recording a sprawling amount of elements. The duo pointed to the process as being further inspiration for the album’s title, as they sought to make connections out of the random series of ideas.

Random Access Memories has been noted by music critics as a disco album. Regarding the style of the album, they sought a “west coast vibe”, referencing such acts as Fleetwood Mac, the Doobie Brothers and the Eagles.

Nile Rodgers appears on three songs on the album, including its lead single “Get Lucky”. At one point Daft Punk had considered sorting the entire album into one continuous track, similar to the Prince record Lovesexy. The opening track, “Give Life Back to Music”, features guitar work by Rodgers and lyrics performed by Daft Punk using vocoders. The song reflects the duo’s goal to create a light yet polished and elegant record. The following track, “The Game of Love”, also features vocoder singing by the duo. Bangalter said, “There’s this thing today where the recorded human voice is processed to try to feel robotic.”

He explained that the duo’s intention was to produce robotic vocals with expressiveness and emotion. “Giorgio by Moroder” was created to serve as a metaphor about musical freedom. The duo believed that a monologue by Moroder about his career would be an analogue for music’s history regarding exploration of genres and tastes. “Get Lucky” is the second song on the album to feature Pharrell Williams.

Peter Franco and Mick Guzauski recording Random Access Memories