2. The Game Of Love
Second track 'The Game of Love' is a somewhat subdued follow-up to the warm opener: keyboardy, wistful yet unmistakeably Gallic. And while the track certainly feels like a dip on first listen, repeated plays reveal the song to be intricate, intimate and wonderfully atmospheric. The auto-tuned vocal weaves its way through the delicate tinkles and the sparsity of the production certainly highlights the duo's ability for songwriting, as well as for foot-stomping production. 'The Game of Love' is almost the cold and distant alter-ego of 'Give Life Back to Music'; "hopeful" and "heartbroken" are the two most strolled-down paths of 'Random Access Memories' and the band don't just showcase both these sides in the album's opening two tracks, they flick the switch between them with such control and classiness. 3. Giorgio By Moroder
What's made Daft Punk so fantastic these past fifteen and a bit years, is their ability to look forward and back; so really, it only makes sense that Giogio Moroder should feature on what's possibly their finest musical achievement yet. 'Giorgio By Moroder' is the definition of a crescendo: it starts with chatter in a club and evolves into a cyber-rocking repetition of the original riff, underlined with strings, synths and pounding drums. It's over nine minutes of jamming and it would be all so intergalactically preposterous if it wasn't for the spoken-word biography of an aging genius anchoring the track firmly in the present day This is perhaps the clearest example of what Daft Punk is all about: they blend the past and the pioneering to give something futuristic but familiar, and on this, it's stunning. 4. Within
As 'Giogio By Moroder' unravels itself in a way that 'Aerodynamic' only dared to, the introspective 'Within' falls into place. A delicate piano intro ushers the next part of the record underway, and similarly to 'A Game of Love', a vocoder-infected melody leads the track. The album needs these quieter moments as much as it needs the ostentation and the Nile Rodgers smile; 'Within' is another great example of Daft Punk's ability to write brilliant music, as well as produce it, and the song acts as a cushion between the opening three tracks, and the more familiar side of the band that's yet to come on 'Random Access Memories'