This is the only album on this site I haven’t purchased. Having purchased an album, I feel like that gives me free-reign to crap all over it if I want. Also, if I bought it and it’s stayed in my collection long enough to end up on this site, that probably means I like it. Anyway, I’m only reviewing Random Access Memories now because yesterday I was being pressured to listen to the pre-release iTunes stream by a Facebook friend.
He said, “You’re not going to listen to it. Come on.”
I said, “The track I heard from it was a pale shadow of their former selves. Also, that PR campaign was irritating.”
He said, “If by irritating you actually mean brilliant, then yes.”
A day later, curiosity has gotten the better of me and I’m listening to the stream. So far, two tracks in, I haven’t shaken my impression that Daft Punk are past their prime and have kind of been shark-jumped by their own image.
“Give Life Back To Music” is sort of okay dance music but there’s not much oomph here. The kick drum should be crunching more. The melodies are begging me to find them alluring but they seem a bit shallow for all their glitter. Also, is vocoder going to be used on every song? I suspect they recorded “The Game of Love” without a vocoder and realized it’s one of the most tuneless pop-songs ever written. The vocoder evokes Discovery nicely but at this point in their career the gimmick feels like treading water.
Bone Rolling Reviews 