Daft Punk, 20 Years Later
After 20 years, the world has finally caught up with Daft Punk
After 20 years, the world has finally caught up with Daft Punk, so the helmet-clad retro-futurists are embarking on a new mission: to make music breathe again. [...]The day after the pair's refurbished guises were revealed on Coachella's screens as planned – causing mad dashes and some of the festival's most excited outbursts – Bangalter says everything about RAM and its buildup is about the surprise, the magic. "When you know how a magic trick is done, it's so depressing," he explains. "We focus on the illusion because giving away how it's done instantly shuts down the sense of excitement and innocence."
This strategy extends to the album's daunting and ambitious conception, which had Daft Punk recruiting some of the world's most gifted session players – guys who worked on classics by the likes of Michael Jackson, Madonna, and David Bowie – to lay down the beats, melodies, and chords bouncing around Bangalter and de Homem-Christo's heads. Not to mention full-on, mind-melding collaborations with a number of their idols and like-minded contemporaries including Chic mastermind Nile Rodgers, Pharrell, schmaltzy 70s singer/songwriter Paul Williams, Panda Bear, house deity Todd Edwards, and electro originator Giorgio Moroder. Plus: Everything was recorded onto analog tape in rarified recording palaces like New York's Electric Lady and L.A.'s Capitol Studios. Human spontaneity was coveted; computers, with their tendency toward mindless repetition, were not.
"Technology has made music accessible in a philosophically interesting way, which is great," says Bangalter, talking about the proliferation of home recording and the laptop studio. "But on the other hand, when everybody has the ability to make magic, it's like there's no more magic – if the audience can just do it themselves, why are they going to bother?"
usually not a big fan of pitchfork, and you might be getting kinda tired of all the Daft Punk coverage and excitement that's all over the internet – but i just couldn't help myself, since i actually sat down and ended up reading the entire thing.
good stuff, and enjoy'n the new album... still plan on buying it, since i still believe we should help support the bands we like – as usual, took a few play throughs, but the more i listen to it the more i like it.
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