Random Access Memories
| Daft Punk
Random Access Memories
Random Access Memories is the fourth studio album by French electronic music duo Daft Punk. It was released on 17 May 2013, by the duo's imprint Daft Life and Columbia Records. The album pays tribute to the late 1970s and early 1980sAmerican music, particularly from Los Angeles. This theme is reflected in the album's packaging, as well as its promotional campaign, which included billboards, television advertisements and a web series. - Wikipedia
Critic Reviews
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Pitchfork
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.
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Rolling Stone
Random Access Memories is full of WTF moments.
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NME
The French duo delves into their bulging contact list to create a masterpiece that's ambitious, indulgent and above all, fun.
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Music AV Club
The album is nonetheless an entrancing and endlessly entertaining musical experience, a fun collection that can soundtrack a great party from start to finish, but also rewards the focused listener with a collage of fascinating quirks.
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The Guardian
The album sounds as if Daft Punk are snottily throwing down a gauntlet to their legions of imitator.
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RA Reviews
It's still way too early to say, but I wouldn't be surprised if we're still teasing out Random Access Memories' pleasures years down the line.
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The Telegraph
Daft Punk's Random Access Memories is the boldest, smartest, most pleasurable dance album of this decade, says Neil McCormick.
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Consequence of Sound
Random Access Memories proves that Daft Punk remain masters of their domain, who defend their array of superlatives because of, rather than in spite of, unconventional sound choices.
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Slate
Totally undanceable, dafter than ever—and a wire-to-wire triumph.
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The New Yorker
Random Access Denied.
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The Current
Random Access Memories is born out of the hope, it seems, that the romance brewing between human and machine for the last 30 years breeds something beautiful and sustainable, not brutal and cold
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LA Times
Daft Punk's 'Random Access Memories' is robotic with heart.
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Pretty Much Amazing
After teasing us with snippets of guitar licks and hagiographic videos from their luminary collaborators, the robots have finally landed on Earth to present their stunning magnum opus.
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DJ Magazine
While Daft Punk clearly want to move on and evolve, ditching the electronic beats, house and techno that first elevated them to fame, it's that music that forms the bedrock of their best tunes, and still, that's what they're best at making
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All Music
Random Access Memories is Daft Punk's most personal work, and richly rewarding for listeners willing to spend time with it.
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Idolator
In the end, Random Access Memories is many things: a gamble, a Genesis scroll of Daft Punk’s musical DNA, a mesmerizing summation of their career to this point and a dynamic jumping-off point for the next phase of their creative evolution.
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Diffuser
'Random Access Memories' is overlong, overly ambitious and often absurd to the point of annoyance. It's also endlessly fascinating.
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Digital Spy
The duo's new record is both blissfully nostalgic and wonderfully daring.
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Beat Magazine
It’s a broad, worthy love-letter to the power of music, paying homage to the greats who have come before. More importantly, it opens a bold path as to what is still to come.
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Pop Matters
The somewhat awkward way it’s been put together and the slight overlength it has prevents Random Access Memories from being the seminal masterpiece it wants to be, but it doesn't stop the album from being a genuinely great listen.
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Gold Flake Paint
Random Access Memories is a thoughtfully composed love-letter to a golden era of music that has been and gone.
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Music Feeds
What Random Access Memories is is a sonic treatise on this ineffable might that music possesses, the power contained inside of a chord that we all seem to agree is there.
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Record Collector Magazine
Ultimately, you don’t quite get the sky-scraping, genre-blending bangers mustered in the past, nor the negative synergy and diminishing returns of many collaboration-heavy, late-career albums. Call it a mixed bag – or business as usual.
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Montreal Gazette
Daft Punk returns, not with a club album per se, but a disco album, filled with laid-back ditties, esoteric asides and just enough mojo to get you through the night.
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Electric Sound
It’s fractured and goofy, slick and mad and an album which will, I suspect, grow in stature as the general bewilderment at it dies down.
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Street Cred Magazine
The praise the duo are receiving for this album is entirely justified in my eyes as they bring a new element and dimension to their sound and continue to progress with modern music.
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Bearded Gentleman Musicc
Their devotion to looking good and paying tribute to disco – a culture of looking good – has resulted in an album packed with guest appearances, a flashy and memorable ad campaign and music that’s lacking in anything interesting. Random Access Memories is all flash and no sizzle. It’s too bad: this was an exciting band, once.
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Edmonton Journal
What you’ll also remember is how warm and organic albums used to sound. Random Access Memories sounds exactly like those albums — or at least your memory of them — and the polar opposite of the sterile, computer-generated club bangers of today.
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Live for Live Music
With Random Access Memories, Daft Punk reminds us all that there was dance music before there was ‘electronic dance music’.
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Music OMH
A band as big as Daft Punk are well placed to start a movement, but this album doesn’t seem destined to become one of its classics, as admirable an attempt as it (mostly) is.
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Timeout Music
After two classic albums, the Daft duo were always going to find it hard to match expectations.
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Music Connection
Random Access Memories is a different approach for Daft Punk—instead featuring live drums, groovy guitars and funky bass lines.
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Orlando Weekly
Daft Punk ascends to new heights of WTF on arguably the year's most anticipated release.
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CNN
If EDM is turning humans into robots, Daft Punk are working hard to make robot pop feel human again
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Paste Magazine
This isn’t a weak album, or one without ideas. It’s an eclectic, honest, grooveful, even thoughtful thing that takes every risk their fanbase could stomach.
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Tiny Mix Tapes
With this album, Daft Punk has thus attempted to offer an alternative to the computerized pestilence that they perceive as plaguing popular music.
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Slant Magazine
RAM is an album that ultimately comes off having more respect for its spiritual predecessors than its listeners.
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Stoney Roads
There is no comparison. This is Daft Punk.
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TIME
Random Access Memories proves that Daft Punk remain masters of their domain, who defend their array of superlatives because of, rather than in spite of, unconventional sound choices.
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The Star
I’m past expecting greatness from Daft Punk at this point, but I don’t expect them to be boring. This is boring.
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Kill the Music
Despite the few cons of the album, “Random Access Memories” will achieve its anticipated goal of relaxing yet energizing feel.
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Boston Globe
There’s definitely an epic heft to it, aided by a deep, varied bench of guest talent.
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The Highlander
With “Random Access Memories,” Daft Punk has truly deconstructed the very empire it helped build—and in the process, built a new one.
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Sound on Sound
Random Access Memories sees Daft Punk throwing down the gauntlet at the entire music industry, challenging almost all current preconceptions about the way in which music is made and how to present and sell it.
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Sputnik Music
A conceptual gem that falls victim to its subject, but manages to prevail through beautiful instrumentation and progression.
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Nailed Magazine
The album has some lofty ambitions, and wears its servo-heart on its shiny sleeve.
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Fact Magazine
Maybe it’s familiarity, maybe it’s the backing vocals, maybe it’s buying into Random Access’s whole shtick a little too much, but I’m down.
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Rock on Philly
The overall concept of this album is a travel back into time by adding modern takes on the electro style from decades ago and everything that Daft Punk created with their collaborators are a work of art. The hype that has built up over this album’s release will not disappoint loyal fans and new listeners.
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The Pop Break
Random Access Memories is an amazing album. There is a lot to love here and many reasons why you should keep coming back for more.
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Earmilk
For Daft Punk, a group that indulges in the masquerade of being sci-fi superheroes, Random Access Memories leaves you suspecting that they might just be human after all.
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Okay Future
A streaming classic.
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2020K
Congratulations, Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter. You’ve hit home with this one.
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Gigwise
Random Access Memories is not an album that can be fully appreciated in one listen.
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Vancouver Sun
RAM is a fascinating, vinyl-bound construct that will likely frustrate more impatient minds and “drop”-craving clubgoers while delighting audiophiles.
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Blurt
In the current cultural climate, we need more of this. Album Of The Year, y’all.
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Live Mag
This album is nothing short of a breathtaking masterpiece, if I’ve ever heard one myself.
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The Waster
The end result is the ultimate love letter to the evolution of dance music; one that Daft Punk clearly made for their own fulfillment, but is fun and engaging enough for all of us to want to join the ride.
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NY Daily News
It offers such a bold leap ahead for its genre, it's sad that the songs aren't as strong as they could have been. None have the genius of peak dance hits. Ultimately, that leaves "Memories" more an admirable reach than a perfect realization.
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Target Audience Magazine
This may not be Daft Punk’s most danceable album, but it’s certainly its most personal.
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The Fire Note
Daft Punk take one giant artistic leap for mankind on Random Access Memories.
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