Tappin Time

Go listen to Random Access Memories. The whole thing. Right now.

Daft Punk’s new album Random Access Memories finds them leaving behind the highly influential, riff-heavy EDM they originated to luxuriate in the sounds, styles, and production techniques of the 1970s and early 80s.

“To really understand where they’re coming from here, you have to go back to the height of the album era, which was really just a blip in pop music history. Three things made it different: 1) it was the time just before MTV; 2) it was the time just before the CD; 3) it was the time just before the Walkman. All three hit around the dawn of the 80s and had a profound influence on how recorded music was experienced. MTV, in addition to foregrounding the visual presentation of artists, returned music to a singles-focused realm. The CD did its part too, making skipping ahead so easy and allowing for the listener to jump around at will. (It also made artwork less important and introduced the idea of records as “data”.) And the Walkman’s convenience opened up new spaces for listening while decreasing sound quality, a trade-off that has driven the technology behind popular music consumption ever since.

“So RAM is best appreciated as a counter to these trends. It’s not that “all music should be this” but that “some music could be this.” By the time you make it to the album’s astonishing final stretch, it’s hard not to think that Daft Punk have succeeded at what they set out to do.”