Album Reviews

I love this site, and I love your generation's contribution to music, but reading the beginning of this review reminded me of all the problems I have with your generation.
As a prime Millennial (b. 1985), I have continually felt slighted and insulted by the Baby Boomers. No jobs? Yeah, because the boomers won't go quietly into the night and let a new generation move up. Social problems? We know it's all been bought-up and controlled by Baby Boomers. We will have to pry it out of their uncivil, emotional, reactionary hands.

I believe my generation is more CIVIL and LEVEL-HEADED than the one before it. I support women's rights, gay rights, green living, etc. -- but instead of marching around like a spoiled child, endlessly bitching, I VOTE AND REMAIN QUIETLY ENGAGED IN POLITICS. All while continuing to payoff my student loans. Does your generation know what those are?

A sea-change is coming. The Millennials are waiting for the Establishment to finally kick-off, and then make some real, responsible, considerate changes.

This album -- as much as I love it, and I agree wholeheartedly with your review of the sound -- unfortunately only hinders musical progress. It's practically a tribute to the Baby Boomers and all of their free-love glory.
... I still bought it... :) :)

Thanks for the POV / review Michael.  RAM truly is an excellent effort...  Not sure if you viewed any of their PR videos.  This one featuring collaborator Georgio Moroder was really fun and interesting...

Cheers-

perhaps you should take into account human nature, something that has not changed for...well... probably never.

All generations are subject to human nature. There is no escaping it, even if you have grand, bold or noble schemes. If you think the previous generation is corrupt wait until the generation after yours laments how bad your generation was.

Again human nature

Thanks for reviewing this wonderful album. I bought it the day it came out and was extremely impressed by the sound quality. It sounds much much better than any new (not reissue) popular music LP I've purchased in the last several years. I wish more care and attention was put into today's albums as they did here. 

The digital versions (CD, MP3, lossless downloads) do have less dynamics than the LPs. The LPs have a DR value of 13 and the digital have a value of 8. 

As a Gen Xer i think that both Millenials and Boomers are pretty entitled. Wait ten years till all the Boomers that spent their money on vacation homes and Harleys try to retire. And besides, if the Millenials weren't buying all this new vinyl we'd be running out of new audiophiles.  If you want to hate on Millenials, hate on their new love of cassettes--yuck! 

Also, I disagree with the idea that Air is the 'head French musical duo'--Daft Punk has sold a lot more albums and had a much larger impact.  They win by any measure.

Otherwise another great read by Mikey and great to see him reviewing new music and not just reissues. I think it's interesting you pointed out the cost of this album.  I remember another review talking about how expensive this record sounds.  I think Daft Punk looked at the genre of electonic dance music (EDM for the Oldsters reading this) they have helped create and decided to reinvent their sound. As we've seen with some of the best muscians of any genre, the ability to succesfully reinvent your sound is one of the hardest things to do in this industry. The ones that do it the best (Miles Davis, The Beatles, Bowie, U2) are often the ones at the top of the list.

as a 24 year old Law student, I feel insulted by this. I agree with Chris 100%.

about the album..this is one album that will never be in my collection.

As for the generation, this is the Ipod generation. Take away their freedoms just supply them with cell towers and 60+$ bills. Now they are enabled to text their friends for 3hrs on a family vacation. I have seen real lif stories of a girl snatched while texting on a 3 mile walk and video girls falling into fountains. Unplug your phone/ laptop and live; play some Lps. My generation was happy to get a local phone in our own rooms; cell phones spread to the poor a year after I graduated high school.

Throw a little socio-political (SP) chum in the water and even the most die hard music lover may rise to the bait and forget that this is a music site not a CNN V.S FOX Cage Fight to the DEATH.

As soon as I see this SP  type of lead in or tangent in let's say Stereophile  this site; or  anywhere else where the focus is music, I  quickly fast forward to where we return to your regular programming currently in progress.

Once I am beyond the SP turbulance and back on musical message the fasten seatbelts sign goes off and it is smooth sailing once again.

Do I begrudge Mr. Fremer his SP opinions, not a bit.  I just do not care even if I agree.  Nor do I care for anyone in the entertainment field using their celebrity or access to the media to share their opinions on anything except their craft and fields of expertise.

I do believe it is ironic that sites and sources for SP commentary/news hardly ever start their material with tangents concerning dynamic range in recordings, azimuth, VTA, or the vagaries of digital versions of analog material on vinyl.

I would hope the equal time doctrine would apply.

Perhaps not. 

Then again Hannity, Morgan, or whichever pundant you prefer may already realize that people interested in music really do not care what they think on this topic and would be at best mildy amused by their bombast. 

Random Access Memories is easily the best sounding mainstream release I have bought in recent memory.

There is a very extensive interview in a recent issue of Mix magazine that I read at a musician friend's house.  The recording/mixing/mastering process is documented in significant detail.

According to the article, virtually everything was initially recorded on analog tape recorders.  Even samples that are used were recorded on analog with Daft Punk playing the instruments.  Tracks with orchestra were recorded live with a full symphony to analog tape. Because of the complex editing involved, everything recorded was dumped into Pro Tools.

What's most fascinating to me was the recording of the final mixes.  First off, no plug-ins were used.  All effects were added with hard-wired audio equipment. Talk about obsession for quality!  Every track was mixed down with THREE analog tape recorders running simultaneously, two at 30 ips (inches per second) and one at 15 ips.  This was done repeatedly with  the tracks recorded at different analog saturation levels.  All machines were running Dolby SR.

Ludwig is correct.  Daft Punk, according to the article, individually selected different reels at different speeds with different tape saturation levels for the final release, depending on which they though sounded best for each specific track.

I have not heard of any other artist in modern history spending this much time and money (well over a million dollars) to put out what in their mind was a sonically superior product.  

Hopefully this is the start of a trend of paying attention to recording/mixing/mastering in detail. 

I only with the LP was mastered at 45 rpm.  Since it is already spread out over two LP's, this could easily have been accomplished.

Along with some double 45rpm Analog Productions titles and the MoFi Dylan "Blood on the Tracks", this is in my top 5 LP releases for 2013.

An aging and increasingly irrelevant hippy railing against the youth of today is a pathetic sight.

Love everything about this review and the comments — its belatedness, the egregious jeremiad that accompanies it, the hipness to this wonderful album's retro-future wittiness, the great inside dope on the mastering, and the back-and-forth debate in progress with readers and MF. Thanks once again for Analog Planet and its curve balls.

.....when we start discussing music again.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

(this post makes no sense unless you read the rest of the comments especially the last 6 or so)

It may make no sense regardless, but maybe more sense than less, more or less.

Just ordered this LP based on the review. As someone who grew up in the anti-disco era I'm intrigued by your review. While I listen to a lot old school funk, soul and R&B, disco or any house/techno is a hole in my collection.

Sitting in Vienna in Europe I can tell you, we have the same discussion here all over the place, too. The babyboomers did nothing to give the burning torch to the next generation. Maybe because the fire of the torch is not burning any more after the collapse of the Berlin Wall. It is solidarity itself that vanished from the hearths of people. Substitute was given - money. In the center of capitalism this is the principle: every time somebody wants to change to the better for a community somebody hands over to him a filled envelope...  Maybe it's no accident that a record like Daft Punk's "Random Access Memories" started the discussion. Great record by the way!!!!

To which a lot of people don't like being told just how apathetic they are in comparison to a generation which did some real fighting and produced some amazing art, culture and social changes. Maybe I'm a bit influenced by being a citizen of a country which takes civil liberty and personal freedom and the principle that government serves the people not the other way around seriously. However. 

A few comments on America today.

- a system of surveillance far more invasive, wide reaching and powerful than anything before. Neither the Soviet KGB nor the east German Stasi had anything approaching the information gathering power of the NSA. The NSA is also not accountable to anyone either. No right of appeal, plus a very nasty vindicative witch hunt of anyone daring to protest or blow a whistle. 

- a system of taxation based on confusion, fear and intimidation. The IRS preferring shades of grey, arbitrariness to clarity. And levying large arbitrary penalties for nonsensical "offenses". It is very easy to get someone in jail for silly tax charges, just ask Lauren Hill or Wesley Snipes. Lauren Hill by the way is a mother of six children. The IRS wanted three years in the clink for her. 

- Genetically modified foods, (GMO's) well known to cause cancer, digestive problems, behavioural problems, growth abnormalities, enlarged organs, sterility, impotence, birth problems, premature death, disease, etc. in cows, pigs, sheep, rats, mice, etc. Ie., the food is toxic. It is very, very difficult indeed to avoid - high fructose corn syrup derived from GMO corn is in almost everything. Soy derivates from Gen. modified Soy likewise. The crap is so toxic that all european countries have levied a blanket ban on all of it. The FDA has approved it for human consumption - due to Monsanto and other companies lawyers, consultants and lobbyists at the FDA on the payroll. 

- The Patriot act and the subsequent interpretation and implementation of the act makes martial law very easy to implement. It is only a step or two away to do. 

- Erosion of civil liberties over the last 10 years

- A militarised police force. Check out the military gear issued to the police. It's eye-opening. 

- Non existent public health. The U.S. is the only OECD country without a national health system guaranteeing a certain minimum standard. How can this be?

- Non existent public transport in most cities forcing people to engage in one of the most dangerous activities of modern times - driving. Check the statistics, the average americans probability of being involved in a nasty road accident over a 20 year period. How many people do you know have been injured in a road accident over the last 10?

- Huge inequality between rich and poor. 

- A dysfunctional banking and finance system now engineered to benefit those in finance primarily. 

- A dysfunctional political system shutting down basic services periodically while the parties fight it out

- A military budget eating up a good third of public spending. Ie., wasting a third of tax revenues on weapons. Read Sun Tzu guys, "no country has ever benefited from a protracted war". Ever. The U.S government has started three in ten years. Destroying thousands of lives. Spending a good trillion dollars. For no benefit. 

- An education system set up to guarantee most graduates with ten to twenty years of paying off debt. 

Generation of Blah?  Yup. Apathy. Protests? Nope. Civil rights? Ummm..  Personal freedom?  Hmmm. 

Based upon some of the socio/political comments posted on this thread for an otherwise predominately music oriented forum the following offer may be of interest.

Reduced price for annual memberships to the Hemlock Society.

No obligation to renew.

Payment in cash only.

Do not delay.

Tomorrow is too late.

Please Note

This post is not  to trivialize those persons suffering terminal or life threatening illnesses who genuinely need our understanding and support.  It only refers to some of the more gloom and doom comments of this thread; not the commentors themselves.

had a listen based on Michaels review - sounds very cool. 

Thanks Michael - I was astonished at the first weeks album sales at about 20,000 units.  (Aside: I wonder how many vinyl units Black Sabbath sold?).   Anyway, I was in a local record store in Cincinnati (ShakeIt Records) and I was talking to a French record store owner who was there on vacation.  We (of course) were in the Jazz section talking about the new Miles Davis' RSD 2013 re-issues.  His opinion was that they were, in fact, quite excellent and at a very good price (~ $20).  Anyway, I noticed that he was frantically loading up CRATES of albums to take back with him.  I asked him "how are vinyl sales in Europe/Paris".  He said exploding!  He only sells maybe 5 to 10 CDs a day, and after that it's several hundred vinyl records per day, both new and used.  He also said yound people (teenagers) are buying vinyl.  So, although anecdotal, there's another testament to the popularity of vinyl - no doubt driven by bands like Daft Punk.

I bought this Lp a few days after it came out and it is my favorite Lp so far this year.  It's part Disco, part Andrew Lloyd Weber, Part Alan Parson, Part Jean Michele Jarre (Just one little part) but all incredibly original.  You mentioned Air in your review too.  Air is my very favorite French band except for Le Voyage dans la lune which is a terrible soundtrack in my opinion.

I had an all French vinyl day after I bought the album.  Daft Punk: Homework and Random Access Memory-Stereo Lab: Dots and Loops- Claudine Longet-The look of Love and Serge Gainsbourg: Melody Nelson!  What a great day.

DLKG

Plus one to Michael once again. His judgement agrees with mine. This is a good-sounding and also musically interesting album, if somewhat "commercially modified". At its best, the message goes beyond connodification.

The album is great and I have been told a hirez 88.2kHz/24bit was pressed to the vinyl.  I have ripped it and it sounds very nice and the dynamic range meter I believe when I check it was 12 or 13 can't remember.  It is to bad that most new releases don't have this caliber of sound quality.

Love the comments!

Raging about art is so much more fun than raging about gear!

Whether you love or hate this genre (and the generation that listened to it the first time around), you have to admit, the sheer craft involved in making this album is refreshing. Most music of every generation is dashed off crap intended to make lots of $ ASAP; heavily promoted and ultimately supported out of tribal and generational loyalty.  

Yeah, I doubted I'd like RAM, figuring it'd be a cheesy throwback, but then I grew to it despite itself.  Maybe it's becasue it's been a long time (like never) since I've heard simple pop music cast at such a high temperature in such a polished mold.

It's not true that "Everything was laid down to both analog tape and to digital". Everything was recorded in digital, and only certain instruments were also recorded in analog (where a 'fatter' sound might work). Then the best sound was picked where the choice existed.

So, no all-analog version is possible.