4. It Sounds Like Andrew Lloyd Webber Produced The House Band From 'Strictly Come Dancing' Playing On A Saga Cruise
As Daft Punk began to conduct exclusive face-to-face interviews to discuss their new record, the initial mystique which had surrounded RAM gave way to a veritable information overload, with particular attention afforded to the million dollar extravagance of the recording process, which took place in five different studios and featured vast orchestras, a choir, Warner Bros.-aided Foley, and a microphone once used by Frank Sinatra. Much of Daft Punk's previous work had been created using electronic hardware - synthesisers, samplers and drum machines - and recorded onto computers, though the duo had become dissatisfied with their established approach during early RAM sessions and instead elected to use live instruments, played by high-profile session players. Whilst partly an aesthetic decision, Daft Punk's move away from machines was also an attempt to 'bring back the magic' (as alluded to with sledgehammer subtly via the title of album opener 'Give Life Back to Music'). As Thomas Bangalter explained in an interview with Pitchfork: 'Technology has made music accessible in a philosophically interesting way, which is great. But on the other hand, when everybody has the ability to make magic, it's like there there's no magic. If the audience can just do it themselves then why bother?' Furthermore, in a subsequent interview Bangalter criticised the state of contemporary electronic music more directly, arguing that 'it's going through an identity crisis' and 'not moving one inch'. Bangalter's proclamations raise a number of important issues regarding creative democracy, music technology and, more specifically, the state of dance music in 2013. However, for reasons of brevity I'll only touch upon the latter two, as they are most significant in relation to the sound of RAM. Firstly, if Daft Punk wanted their record to serve as some kind of corrective to ailing dance music, then was downing electric tools and picking up wooden ones really the solution? In truth, would a greater challenge for two artists who 'like the idea of trying to be pioneers' not be to reinvent electronic music from the inside out? It's churlish to criticise an artist for wanting to expand their creative horizons by utilising different types of instruments or employing alternative production methods to the ones they've used in the past, but Bangalter's implication that Daft Punk's switch to live instrumentation and hi-end gear could help music rediscover some kind of lost alchemy just reeks of more PR guff. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfH3erWacsQ Secondly, whilst RAM is unarguably a remarkable feat of sound engineering - its music recorded with crystalline clarity - the record's production is curiously sterile, devoid of the kinds of stylistic flourishes which characterised Daft Punk's previous work. The Julian Casablancas vehicle 'Instant Crush', for example, is totally bereft of bite or dynamic range, and trundles along like a Phoenix demo recorded on a bagload of diazepam. Bombastic theatrical rock intro aside, 'Bring Life Back to Music' is similarly lacking in personality and sounds like the kind of sanitised fare you'd expect to hear served up after dinner on a Saga cruise around the Med, perhaps by the super slick house band from 'Strictly Come Dancing'. Though far more engrossing, the eight minute album centrepiece 'Touch' is difficult to listen to without thinking that the curtain's been raised on a ridiculously expensive, post-modern, p*sstake-sounding as it does, like a gaudily pristine facsimile of a song from an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. (The influence of co-writer Paul Williams' work, particularly his soundtrack for Brian De Palma's 1974 musical 'Phantom of the Paradise', is also worth nothing here). RAM is professional, flawless in its audio fidelity and featuring musicianship which is accomplished to the point of virtuosity, but for the most part it is simply not a particularly captivating record. Ultimately, RAM is little more than a superbly executed homage to some of the music Daft Punk love, and the record's production, for all the cash thrown at it, does little to take that music anywhere new. Finally, whilst Bangalter's criticism of modern electronic music arguably rings true in relation to the Skrillex/Deadmau5/EDM monster that Daft Punk themselves indirectly helped create, his claim that there are 'no signatures' in electronic music (i.e. "it all sounds a bit the same to me dear") is either disingenuous or indicative of a man woefully out of touch.