But it didn’t seem to matter – I had experienced and lived through a seismic album release. At first I was disappointed, as is the way with feverishly-anticipated records – soft-rock, proggy piano ballads weren’t quite my vibe at the time, even if I attempted to convince myself otherwise. It was the period where it all started to click.Īnd the record itself? Well, it’s complicated. I would seek out unofficial remixes of the ‘Get Lucky’ riff being relentlessly looped, and hopelessly mapped out my route from the UK to Wee Waa, the 2,000-strong Australian town where they would throw an unexpected launch party – 10,277 miles away, in case you’re wondering. This album roll-out would be one I could experience in real-time across the burgeoning social media platforms, of which I was on all of them. By 2013, I was heading to festivals, and had started building my own record collection (paid for, honest). ‘Random Access Memories’ would prove a turning point for me. Albums simply appeared as files on a screen – I had no idea why music was made and how it would enter our lives. I engaged with music on my own selfish terms my friends and I were told what we were doing was killing the industry when, really, we just wanted to find a way in. Like many other burgeoning music fans in the late ‘00s, my initial experiences with music discovery were on illegal torrent sites and burnt CDs, navigating dodgy MP3 players and introducing malware to the family computer. The music, in many ways, would feel secondary to the moment. Speaking to The Guardian in 2023, Bangalter called it “a record that could not happen before or after” and said the record was a product of the “timing right”. It’s the type of record and rollout that would never exist again, or perhaps never did: ambitious, timeless, overblown, maximalist. It was a time-capsule of a record, one that would attempt to both reflect the era it was made in (the post-millennium arrival of mind-blowing tech into palm-sized devices), and the one it wished it had been a part of (‘70s excess and disco’s heyday). Of all the records that hit their 10th anniversary this year, ‘Random Access Memories’ is certainly the most curious. If you were Daft Punk and could do any campaign you want, why not blow the doors off?” As Naomi Williams, who worked as the band’s online PR at the time, puts it: “It seemed like they wanted to approach it not as an album campaign but as a blockbuster movie. Returning to Coachella, where they triumphed with the industry-altering Alive tour in 2006, proved the clapperboard formally calling for action. The trailer, which was first shown 10 years ago this week (April 14), followed a run of teasers during ad breaks of Saturday Night Live weeks earlier. But such was the desire and ambition of the French duo on their first studio album in over eight years. If that sounds ridiculous, it’s because, well, it was. The clip is rated E for ‘Everybody Required On The Dancefloor’. The clip, showcasing a snippet of the feverishly hyped ‘Get Lucky’ and its cast list including Pharrell Williams, Nile Rodgers and more, beams out on the site on the stage’s big screens. Rumours are flying around that Daft Punk are due on stage any moment for a secret set, but instead they and their entourage have travelled to Palm Springs, California to formally unveil ‘Random Access Memories’, the band’s upcoming fourth – and final – studio album. Out step Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, helmetless, into the VIP section of the Coachella festival site. A row of black SUVs roll through the desert dust: The Robots are on the move.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |