It was an average Monday on February 21, 2021, car doors were slamming as people traversed roads on their way to work. The last days of Winter grew closer and the sun began shining a little brighter with every passing moment. Everything was seemingly perfect for the average fan of Daft Punk, that was until the duo made a rare appearance on social media to announce that after 28 years of groundbreaking production and mesmerizing melodies, they are calling it quits. The announcement of their split was paired with a clip from the closing scenes of their 2006 film “Electrorama”, which saw the pair in full Daft Punk garb shaking hands and walking off, only for one member to reveal a bomb and promptly explode. That explosion became more than a cinematic trick as every blog and Daft Punk fan page blew up with fond memories and grief for one of the most successful music groups in recent memory.
Attempting to sum up Daft Punk’s impact on music in one article is a fool’s errand, so let’s focus on a moment in their career that changed the Daft Punk history books as we knew it. 2013 was far from the group’s “break out” year but it did see a massive resurgence in popularity for the duo, and not because an old classic was resurfaced for the sake of social media. 10 years ago (5/17/13), Daft Punk released what would be their final album together. Random Access Memories birthed the tremendously popular single “Get Lucky”, which featured Pharell Williams crooning over funky live instrumentation which included the now iconic guitar melodies strummed out by the great Nile Rodgers. While the album now marks the last official release for Daft Punk, its impact on Daft Punk’s career was obvious long before their break up 8 years later.
Random Access Memories is the duo’s first studio album since 2005’s Human After All which saw the band deconstruct their signature production style and rebuild it into an industrial wall of sound. Coming off what could now be considered Daft Punk’s most aggressive LP and giving fans plenty of time in between releases, Daft Punk was able to completely wipe the slate clean. They’ve already pushed the boundaries of electronic pop and their final album would aim to conquer an area of music that Daft Punk never had the opportunity to take part in. The album has the duo shifting their focus to a more disco-friendly sonic direction and began incorporating live instrumentation into their recording process, leaving only a few programmed drum machines and vintage vocoder melodies as traces of their past sound. This allowed Daft Punk’s music to sound larger than ever, with songs like the explosive intro “Give Life Back To Music” and the Paul Williams-assisted “Touch” bringing a sleek shine to the LP. Random Access Memories is driven by deep grooves, infectious rhythms, and pure love for dance music, and the extensive list of A-list collaborators is only the icing on the cake.
You know there is something special about an album when it takes this long into talking about it to mention that there is a stirringly beautiful Julian Casablancas ballad on the tracklist. For the first time in their careers, Daft Punk opened their studio doors to outside collaborators to help work on a studio album of theirs and they brought in a cast of characters only Daft Punk can assemble. Along with the aforementioned Casablancas and Paul Williams, the likes of Panda Bear, Todd Edwards, Pharrell Williams, and Nile Rodgers are credited as guests on Random Access Memories. What makes these appearances so special is how Daft Punk deployed them, the duo brought these features into their world to uplift their compositions, only bringing in guests when necessary. They could’ve gotten anyone to sing on “The Game of Love” but they seemed to be just as happy with their robotically smooth vocals taking the spotlight. The Panda Bear-assisted “Doin’ It Right” is a minimal, repetitive dance track that has Bear harmonizing with those same vocals from “The Game of Love”, not the usual Panda Bear ascetic but a role he filled beyond expectations. Daft Punk’s use of features on Random Access Memories speaks to not only their overall creativity but may have hinted that their break up nearly a decade later was clear from the release of the album, using Random Access Memories to knock off some bucket list collaborations in a sensational fashion.
Random Access Memories now has somewhat of a bittersweet taste to it 10 years later. While it now acts as Daft Punk’s swan song, it also stands as a testament to two musicians who approached their art with tireless creativity and delivered unforgettable moments of pure fun and musicianship. In 2013 it seemed like Daft Punk had nothing else to prove, they had hits and had won over the hearts of snobby critics and hard-headed music fans alike with their refreshing take on electronic pop music. They approached their fourth studio album as if they had already decided it was their last and left nothing to be desired. The 13 songs that comprise the LP take you through the colorful cosmos of Daft Punk as the duo waves goodbye in an explosion of vivid arrangements, undeniable chemistry, and, most important of all, unforgettable electronic music.
